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2 articles from 2005

15 September 2005 | From IMDb News

Director <N N="0936404">Robert Wise</N>, who won two Academy Awards for directing two of the most successful movie musicals of all time, <T T="0055614">West Side Story</T> and <T T="0059742">The Sound of Music</T>, died of heart failure yesterday; he was 91. Wise, who had just celebrated his birthday on Saturday, was rushed to the UCLA Medical Center after suddenly falling ill. Recently, the filmmaker had reportedly been in good health, and his wife, Millicent, was out of the country at the San Sebastian Film Festival, participating in a retrospective of her husband's work. An extremely versatile director whose films ranged from drama to horror to sci-fi to musicals, Wise got his start at RKO Studios as an assistant editor, a job he got thanks to his brother, who was in the studio's accounting department. Working his way up the ladder to full editor, Wise edited such films as <T T="0031455">The Hunchback of Notre Dame</T> and <T T="0029284">My Favorite Wife</T> before nabbing an Academy Award nomination for editing the legendary <T T="0033467">Citizen Kane</T>. He also worked with filmmaker <N N="0000080">Orson Welles</N> on <T T="0035015">The Magnificent Ambersons</T>, and was involved in that movie's drastic re-editing, which was requested by RKO while Welles was out of the country; the missing footage from <I>Ambersons</I>, and Wise's falling-out with Welles over the final product, later became the stuff of legend. <p> Two years after <I>Ambersons</I>, Wise was given his first job directing <T T="0036733">The Curse of the Cat People</T>, which he co-directed with <N N="0902270">Gunther von Fritsch</N>. Working on B pictures for RKO through the 40s, including the <N N="0000472">Boris Karloff</N> vehicle <T T="0037549">The Body Snatcher</T>, Wise came to the attention of critics with his prizefighter film <T T="0041859">The Set-Up</T> (1949), which took place in real time. His films in the 50s were notably more high profile, starting with the sci-fi classic <T T="0043456">The Day the Earth Stood Still</T>; he also helmed <T T="0046333">So Big</T>, <T T="0049778">Somebody Up There Likes Me</T>, and <T T="0051758">I Want to Live</T>, which won him his first Oscar nomination and a Best Actress award for <N N="0001333">Susan Hayward</N>. In 1961, Wise attempted his first musical, an adaptation of the Broadway hit <T T="0055614">West Side Story</T>, on which he worked (and reportedly clashed) with choreographer and co-director <N N="0730385">Jerome Robbins</N>. The film, starring <N N="0000081">Natalie Wood</N> and <N N="0000937">Richard Beymer</N> (neither of whom did their own singing), was a massive hit and won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture and directing honors for Wise and Robbins - neither thanked the other in their acceptance speeches. After making the creepily effective black-and-white thriller <T T="0057129">The Haunting</T> (1963), Wise went back to musical territory with <T T="0059742">The Sound of Music</T> (1965), the small story of a governess (<N N="0000267">Julie Andrews</N>) in Austria that turned into a very, very big hit. Critically lambasted but a fervent, almost rabid favorite with audiences, it went on to become the highest-grossing movie ever released at that time, saved 20th Century Fox from imminent bankruptcy in the wake of <T T="0056937">Cleopatra</T>, and won Wise his second Oscar in addition to Best Picture. <p> Wise's output after <T T="0059742">The Sound of Music</T> was scattershot in quality, and as he grew older he worked less frequently, but he helmed a number of notable pictures in the 60s and 70s: <T T="0060934">The Sand Pebbles</T>, his last Best Picture nominee; the ill-fated Julie Andrews vehicle <T T="0063642">Star!</T>; modernistic sci-fi thriller <T T="0066769">The Andromeda Strain</T>; possession horror flick <T T="0075704">Audrey Rose</T>; and the first <I>Star Trek</I> movie, appropriately titled <T T="0079945">Star Trek: The Motion Picture</T>. The director's last feature film was <T T="0098222">Rooftops</T> (1989), an attempt at a contemporary urban musical. Wise went on to become the president of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Directors Guild of America, and found a devoted fan in filmmaker <N N="0000217">Martin Scorsese</N>, who was said to be instrumental in getting Wise the American Film Institute's lifetime achievement award in 1998. Wise is survived by his wife, Millicent, and a son from a previous marriage. <I>--Prepared by IMDb staff</I>

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20 July 2005 | From IMDb News

<N N="0001150">James Doohan</N>, the actor who became known the world over as the redoubtable chief engineer Scotty on the original <T T="0060028">Star Trek</T> TV series, died earlier today. He was 85. Doohan passed away at his Redmond, WA, home at 5:30 AM, with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side; the cause was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease. Born and raised in Canada, Doohan fought with the Royal Canadian Artillery during World War II, losing the middle finger of his right hand during the D-Day invasion. After the war, Doohan embarked on a career as a character actor in a number of films and television shows throughout the 50s and early 60s (including an appearance in an episode of <T T="0052520">The Twilight Zone</T>), initially traveling between his Canadian homeland and New York. Soon he also began work in Hollywood, and in 1966 he was cast in NBC's new space adventure series <T T="0060028">Star Trek</T> as chief engineer Montgomery Scott, aka "Scotty," opposite <N N="0000638">William Shatner</N> and <N N="0000559">Leonard Nimoy</N>. Reportedly, Doohan tried a number of different accents for the character, and felt the Scottish brogue for which he would become famous ("Captain, the engines canna take anymore!") was the most authoritative and commanding. Among his many contributions to the show was the then-nascent language of Klingon, which was said to be partly devised by Doohan, and was later expanded on in upcoming TV series and films. <p> Though the original <I>Star Trek</I> ended in 1969, Doohan was forever associated with the character of Scotty, as the catchphrase "Beam me up, Scotty" entered the pop culture lexicon, and after initial balking, he fully embraced his <I>Star Trek</I> legacy. In 1979, he joined the original cast for <T T="0079945">Star Trek: The Motion Picture</T>, and also appeared in the six sequels that followed before the series was fully handed over to the cast of <T T="0092455">Star Trek: The Next Generation</T>. As the <I>Star Trek</I> films became more and more popular, Doohan attended numerous fan conventions and also lectured at various colleges; in 1996 he published his autobiography, appropriately titled <I>Beam Me Up, Scotty</I>. His health declined in later years, as he suffered from Parkinson's disease, diabetes and lung fibrosis, though the actor continued to make sporadic appearances, and received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame in 2004. Doohan is survived by his wife, Wende, and three children: sons Eric and Thomas and daughter Sarah, who was born in 2000, when Doohan was 80. <I>--Prepared by IMDb staff</I> <br><br><br> <b class="sbheadline">Writer/Actor Edward Bunker Dies at 71</b> <br><br> Actor and writer <N N="0120483">Edward Bunker</N>, a convicted criminal who became an acclaimed writer and co-starred in <T T="0105236">Reservoir Dogs</T>, died yesterday in Burbank at St. Joseph's Hospital; he was 71. A young man with a genius IQ who embarked early on a life of crime, Bunker spent most of his teenage years in and out of prison and at the age of 17 earned the dubious honor of becoming the youngest person incarcerated at San Quentin prison. Though he briefly began writing after his parole, his inability to adjust to the outside world at only 22 led him onto further criminal activities, and the early 70s he was put on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, thanks to numerous drug and bank heists. While again in prison, Bunker wrote his first novel, <I>No Beast So Fierce</I>, which became the basis for the 1978 movie <T T="0078326">Straight Time</T> starring <N N="0000163">Dustin Hoffman</N>; he also had a small acting role in the film. Bunker also wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-nominated film <T T="0089941">Runaway Train</T>, and had small acting parts in movies such as <T T="0098439">Tango & Cash</T> through the late 80s. However, he earned cult status for playing Mr. Blue in <N N="0000233">Quentin Tarantino</N>'s <T T="0105236">Reservoir Dogs</T> in 1992 and when he published his memoirs in 1999, he took the moniker for the title, calling the book <I>Mr. Blue, Memoirs of a Renegade</I>. Bunker's writing and life experience earned him accolades from <N N="0000520">Michael Mann</N> (with whom he worked on <T T="0113277">Heat</T>) and crime writer <N N="0255278">James Ellroy</N>, and he most recently appeared in the remake of <T T="0398165">The Longest Yard</T>. <I>--Prepared by IMDb staff</I>

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2 articles from 2005