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11 articles from 2009
Actor Richard Todd Dead At Age 90; Recreated His WWII Heroics On Film
5 December 2009 4:25 AM, PST
| Cinemaretro.com
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Todd in his most acclaimed role, as star of The Dam Busters.
The distinguished British actor Richard Todd has passed away at age 90. Todd was a real-life war hero, being among the first paratroopers to enter France on the eve of the Normandy invasion. Todd later starred in two major films recreating the historic event: D-Day, The Sixth of June and The Longest Day. He also starred in the acclaimed WWII adventure The Dam Busters. His eclectic post war career included an eight year stint performing on Britain's West End in the play The Business of Murder and launching a successful dairy business. Among his other films were starring opposite Ronald Reagan in The Hasty Heart (for which he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar), The Long and the Short and the Tall (aka Jungle Fighters), Never Let Go in which he starred opposite Peter Sellers, The Hellions, Operation Crossbow
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- nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
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Richard Todd obituary
4 December 2009 8:10 AM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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Actor best known for his role in the classic second world war film The Dam Busters
Richard Todd, who has died of cancer aged 90, will be best remembered for the films in which he played a wide assortment of clean-cut British heroes. His most famous performance was as Wing Commander Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters (1955), although he also played Robin Hood and Sir Walter Raleigh.
As dour and stiff upper-lipped as any of the characters he portrayed in his highly successful film career in the 1940s and 1950s, he was one of the first members of the Parachute Regiment to jump on D-day – a real-life role he later echoed, albeit at a higher rank, in The Longest Day (1962), the reconstruction of the invasion of Normandy 17 years after the event (another actor posed as Todd himself).
As Gibson, Todd starred as the leader of the daring airborne mission in May
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- Dennis Barker
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Actor Todd Dies At 90
4 December 2009 4:16 AM, PST
| WENN
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The Dam Busters star and real life war hero Richard Todd has died at the age of 90.
Todd, best known for his role in the 1955 World War II epic, passed away peacefully in his sleep at his home in Grantham, England on Thursday.
The Irish-born star began as a stage actor in the 1930s, but his promising career was cut short by war and he joined the British Army. He graduated to the position of captain in the British 6th Airborne Division and took part in the famous D-Day landings of 1944.
After the war, Todd returned to the stage for a production of The Hasty Heart and was chosen to star in a Hollywood adaptation which won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in 1949. For his second role he teamed up with legendary director Alfred Hitchcock to star in 1950 thriller Stage Fright.
He went on to play heroes including folk legends Robin Hood and Rob Roy, before landing a role in The Dam Busters. He also starred in another well-known World War II epic The Longest Day in 1962, in which he relived the D-Day landings.
Todd came close to landing the iconic role of James Bond in the super-spy's movie debut Dr. No. The actor was 007 author Ian Fleming's first choice to play the suave secret agent, but a scheduling conflict ruled him out of the movie and handed the part to Sean Connery.
The veteran star continued to act in the 1980s with roles in British TV shows including crime series Silent Witness and sci-fi classic Doctor Who and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1993.
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Veteran’s Day: Movies Veterans Love
11 November 2009 3:45 AM, PST
| ScreenRant.com
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A day that every American should remember arrives today, the 11th day of the 11th month of every year. It echoes in perpetuity, providing all of us in the Us with a continued wall of integrity, protection and honor via the many calls to duty that have been answered for hundreds of years.
Today is Veterans Day.
Have you taken the time out of your day to thank any of the many that have served? We here at Screen Rant wish to thank each and every man and woman that has given their time and often times their lives to ensure a more perfect union. Last year we had one of the most active threads in Screen Rant history, sharing the many great War/Military movies that dance in our memories this time of year. This year, we thought that instead of getting a similarly compiled, all-too-familiar list, we’d
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- Mike Wilkerson
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Interview: Director John Woo on His ‘Red Cliff’ Premiere at the 2009 Chicago International Film Festival
13 October 2009 3:55 AM, PDT
| HollywoodChicago.com
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Chicago – John Woo, whose mastery of the action movie was once compared by director Sam Raimi to the suspense mastery of Alfred Hitchcock, premiered his new film, “Red Cliff” at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 9th.
Known primarily for his Hong Kong guns-and-gangster epics like “The Killer” (1989), “Hard Boiled” (1992) and “Bullet in the Head” (1990), Woo came to America in 1993 for his memorable turns in “Broken Arrow” (1996), “Face/Off” (1997) and “Mission Impossible II” (2002). He returns to his native China for the historical drama Red Cliff.
Portrait of an Icon: John Woo at the Chicago International Film Festival, October 9, 2009.
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com
Red Cliff is the story of the “Three Kingdoms” of China in 208 Ad, and the war between them that changed history for its country and people. It has a broad and epic scope, beautifully composed, with a sweep and acting passion worthy of David Lean.
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- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
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The real dirt on Mike Rowe of 'Dirty Jobs'
7 October 2009 12:39 PM, PDT
| EW.com - PopWatch
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Mike Rowe, host of the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs (returned last night with new episodes), took some time off from cleaning cloth diapers and sifting through suet to chat with us at the EW offices. He was also kind enough to wipe his shoes before coming in.
Beyond being the mud-streaked face of Dirty Jobs, Mike is also an unofficial spokesperson for skilled labor, a former QVC host, and a surprisingly talented singer. We discussed all this and more, aided greatly by questions provided by some of his many ardent fans, so if you want to get the real dirt on Mike,
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- Keith Staskiewicz
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9/11: The geist in the movie machine
10 September 2009 8:25 AM, PDT
| FilmShaft.com
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Genre filmmaking has warped and twisted its aesthetic to reflect the zeitgeist in the eight years since 9/11 but has harmless fun become terror porn as a result? Ed Whitfield puts on his serious face and investigates.
World events have often conditioned filmmakers toward certain thematic and psychological preoccupations. Film Noir, a loosely defined movement of brooding, chiaroscuro imbibed thrillers from the forties and fifties, was a stylised form of filmmaking forged as civilisation fractured with the onset of World War II. This was both geographically the case as many of many Noir directors were European émigrés fleeing persecution in the old world and thematically so, as they brought a preoccupation with moral ambiguity with them – structuring the aesthetic toward something far bleaker than American audiences were accustomed too. This was a style modelled on the darker, expressionist cinema that pre-war Germany, a fragile society characterised by mass employment and social upheaval,
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- Ed Whitfield
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Ken Annakin: 1914-2009 -- An Appreciation
30 April 2009 10:22 AM, PDT
| The Hollywood Interview
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Director Ken Annakin.
I knew there was something familiar about the name when I read it: "Deborah Annakin-Peters." I had been corresponding with Debby via email for nearly a year after she had started working for Home Video Publicity at Paramount, and handled all my DVD requests. Then one day it struck me. I wrote her a quick email: "Are you, by chance, related to the director Ken Annakin?" I got a quick reply "Sure am. He's my dad!" It just happened that Annakin's most famous film, "The Longest Day," was getting a special edition DVD release from 20th Century Fox in a few weeks. I asked Debby if her father, then in his early 90s, was up to doing an interview. The answer to that question lies in the conversation below.
I was lucky enough to get to know Ken Annakin quite well over the next year or so when my producing partner,
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- The Hollywood Interview.com
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Ken Annakin, Famed British Director, Passes Away
24 April 2009 9:06 AM, PDT
| Cinemaretro.com
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Ken Annakin(1914-2009)Ken Annakin directing the beach sequences of The Longest Day.By Lee Pfeiffer
The film world lost another legend this week with the passing of director/writer Ken Annakin, who died at age 94. For those of us at Cinema Retro, the loss is personal. In addition to directing some of our favorite films, Ken was an avid supporter of the magazine. The seemingly indestructible British filmmaker led a full and active life and was engaged in trying to get new projects off the ground until he fell ill in February.
Annakin began his career as a director in 1946 and found his talents to be constantly in demand. His career took off a decade later when he was hired by Walt Disney to direct The Story of Robin Hood in 1952. He quickly became one of Disney's favorite and most dependable directors. Annakin would do numerous other films for Disney,
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- nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
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Director Annakin Dies
24 April 2009 12:05 AM, PDT
| WENN
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Legendary British director Ken Annakin has died at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94.
The Swiss Family Robinson moviemaker, who helmed over 50 films during his five-decade long career, passed away at his house in Beverly Hills on Wednesday.
Famous for his World War II movies including Battle of the Bulge, he also co-directed epic The Longest Day which starred Golden Era Hollywood superstars John Wayne, Gregory Peck and Henry Fonda.
Annakin, who had lived in the Los Angeles area since 1979, was awarded an Order of the British Empire for his contributions to the British film industry in 2002. He was born in Yorkshire, England in 1914, before moving to America to follow his Hollywood ambitions.
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Pauline, daughter Deborah, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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Award Winning Musical Film Composer Maurice Jarre Dies From Cancer At 84
3 April 2009 2:05 PM, PDT
| icelebz.com
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Maurice Jarre, the three-time Oscar winner that composed scores for the David Lean epics "A Passage to India," "Doctor Zhivago" and "Lawrence of Arabia" has passed away at 84 after a short battle with cancer.
The French-born composer died in his sleep at his home in Malibu, according to a family spokesman. He is survived by his wife, Fong.
Composer John Williams spoke about Jarre, saying in a statement that the composer "is to be well remembered for his lasting contribution to film music. His collaboration with director David Lean produced truly enduring music that is beloved by millions, and we all have been enriched by his legacy."
Jarre wrote more than 170 film and television scores including those for films "The Longest Day," "The Year of Living Dangerously," "Ghost," "Witness," "Gorillas in the Mist," "Fatal Attraction" and "Dead Poets Society."
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11 articles from 2009
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