Lew Palter, who played Isidor Straus in James Cameron’s Titanic and a Supreme Court justice in First Monday in October, has died. He was 94.
Palter died of lung cancer May 21 at his Los Angeles home. CalArts, where Palter was a longtime faculty member, shared news of his death on Twitter.
“It is with great sadness that we share the news that longtime #calartstheater faculty Lew Palter has passed away. Lew retired from @CalArts in 2013, having served our community since 1971 as an acting teacher, director, and mentor.”
Among his students at CalArts was Cecily Strong, said it was Palter who encouraged her to try out for improv/sketch comedy group The Groundlings, leading to her breakout role on SNL.
“Lew loved the craft of acting, and taught his students to do the same,” said CalArts School of Theater Dean Travis Preston in a statement. “He fostered deep curiosity, care, intellect,...
Palter died of lung cancer May 21 at his Los Angeles home. CalArts, where Palter was a longtime faculty member, shared news of his death on Twitter.
“It is with great sadness that we share the news that longtime #calartstheater faculty Lew Palter has passed away. Lew retired from @CalArts in 2013, having served our community since 1971 as an acting teacher, director, and mentor.”
Among his students at CalArts was Cecily Strong, said it was Palter who encouraged her to try out for improv/sketch comedy group The Groundlings, leading to her breakout role on SNL.
“Lew loved the craft of acting, and taught his students to do the same,” said CalArts School of Theater Dean Travis Preston in a statement. “He fostered deep curiosity, care, intellect,...
- 6/27/2023
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Ron Faber, a theater, television and film actor who appeared in “The Exorcist,” died on March 26 of lung cancer. He was 90.
Faber’s career as an actor landed him roles in films including “The Exorcist,” “Tree of Guernica” and “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover,” in addition to appearances on TV episodes of “Law and Order,” “Kojak” and “The Edge of Night.”
In 1973’s “The Exorcist,” Faber played the role of Chuck, an assistant director who reveals to Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) that Burke Dennings (Jack MacGowran) has died. He was also part of Broadway productions including “First Monday in October” with Henry Fonda and “Medea” with Irene Papas.
Faber was born on Feb. 16, 1993 in Milwaukee, Wis., where he grew up with a passion for jazz music and the Disney film “Fantasia.” After being accepted into Marquette University and pursuing a business degree, Faber swiftly landed his first entertainment...
Faber’s career as an actor landed him roles in films including “The Exorcist,” “Tree of Guernica” and “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover,” in addition to appearances on TV episodes of “Law and Order,” “Kojak” and “The Edge of Night.”
In 1973’s “The Exorcist,” Faber played the role of Chuck, an assistant director who reveals to Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) that Burke Dennings (Jack MacGowran) has died. He was also part of Broadway productions including “First Monday in October” with Henry Fonda and “Medea” with Irene Papas.
Faber was born on Feb. 16, 1993 in Milwaukee, Wis., where he grew up with a passion for jazz music and the Disney film “Fantasia.” After being accepted into Marquette University and pursuing a business degree, Faber swiftly landed his first entertainment...
- 4/24/2023
- by McKinley Franklin
- Variety Film + TV
Producer was longtime BAFTA LA board member.
Paul Heller, the US producer whose credits included Withnail & I and Enter The Dragon and My Left Foot as executive producer, died on December 28 in Los Angeles. He was 93.
Heller, a longtime board member of BAFTA LA, was born in New York on September 25, 1927, and spent many years in England producing some of his most acclaimed films.
His first feature, the 1962 mental health drama David And Lisa directed by Frank Perry, earned two Oscar nominations for directing and for Eleanor Perry’s adapted screenplay.
Encouraged to pursue his career with gusto, Heller...
Paul Heller, the US producer whose credits included Withnail & I and Enter The Dragon and My Left Foot as executive producer, died on December 28 in Los Angeles. He was 93.
Heller, a longtime board member of BAFTA LA, was born in New York on September 25, 1927, and spent many years in England producing some of his most acclaimed films.
His first feature, the 1962 mental health drama David And Lisa directed by Frank Perry, earned two Oscar nominations for directing and for Eleanor Perry’s adapted screenplay.
Encouraged to pursue his career with gusto, Heller...
- 12/31/2020
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Welcome to BroadwayWorld.com's newest photo series 'Photo Blast From the Past'. Featuring some of the collected theatre gem's of BroadwayWorld's own senior photographer Walter McBride, the series will feature images from his archives of theatre and Hollywood related gems.Today, we bring you Tony-winner Jane Alexander, who starred in over a dozen Broadway shows including Honour, The Sisters Rosensweig, The Night of the Iguana, The First Monday in October, Find Your Way Home, 6 Rms Riv Vu, The Great White Hope and more. Alexander also served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1993 to 1997.
- 3/9/2012
- by Walter McBride
- BroadwayWorld.com
Witty and sophisticated American film star known for her role in An Unmarried Woman
The actor Jill Clayburgh, who has died of leukaemia aged 66, was one of the brightest female stars of the 1970s, yet was somewhat forgotten in the decade that followed. "If they don't give me good parts in movies, I'm just not going to do them. And there's a time when they just move on to the next person," Clayburgh said prophetically at the height of her fame in 1978. Perhaps conservative Hollywood did not really know how to cope with an independent-minded, intelligent performer who refused to be pigeonholed.
Born in Manhattan, New York, Clayburgh was the daughter of wealthy parents. Her father was the vice-president of two large companies and her mother was a secretary to the Broadway producer David Merrick. As a child, Clayburgh was inspired to become an actor when she saw Jean Arthur...
The actor Jill Clayburgh, who has died of leukaemia aged 66, was one of the brightest female stars of the 1970s, yet was somewhat forgotten in the decade that followed. "If they don't give me good parts in movies, I'm just not going to do them. And there's a time when they just move on to the next person," Clayburgh said prophetically at the height of her fame in 1978. Perhaps conservative Hollywood did not really know how to cope with an independent-minded, intelligent performer who refused to be pigeonholed.
Born in Manhattan, New York, Clayburgh was the daughter of wealthy parents. Her father was the vice-president of two large companies and her mother was a secretary to the Broadway producer David Merrick. As a child, Clayburgh was inspired to become an actor when she saw Jean Arthur...
- 11/7/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
The consummate stage, film, and TV star died today of cancer just weeks shy of the release of her last film role playing the mother of Jake Gyllenhaal's character in the upcoming 20th Century Fox film Love And Other Drugs. But she will be remembered best as a feminist icon for starring in one of the most seminal women's lib films, 1978's An Unmarried Woman, winning the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and also portraying a female U.S. Supreme Court judge in 1981's First Monday In October the same year it became America's reality. Her husband, Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe told the AP that Clayburgh lost a 21-year battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia surrounded by her family and brother when she passed away at her home in Lakeville, Conn. She was 66. Quietly sexy, Clayburgh was all about the work and rarely about the stardom.
- 11/6/2010
- by NIKKI FINKE
- Deadline Hollywood
We knew her as the strong matriarch of a family of carpetbaggers in ABC's short-lived "Dirty Sexy Money," but her screen roles go back to the first female characters born of the feminist era in film.
Jill Clayburgh passed away at her Lakeville, Conn. home Friday (Nov. 5) at the age of 66, her husband, playwright David Rabe, tells The New York Times.
Clayburgh passed from chronic leukemia, which she had been struggling with for 21 years.
She burst onto the acting scene on Broadway in 1966 alongside Jack Klugman in "The Sudden & Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson" and went on to do several more productions including "Pippin" in 1972. She last appeared on the Broadway stage in 2006's "Barefoot in the Park" alongside Tony Roberts and Amanda Peet.
Clayburgh's film career includes Oscar-nominated performances in 1978's "An Unmarried Woman," "Starting Over" in 1979 and her turn opposite Walter Matthau in 1981's "First Monday in October.
Jill Clayburgh passed away at her Lakeville, Conn. home Friday (Nov. 5) at the age of 66, her husband, playwright David Rabe, tells The New York Times.
Clayburgh passed from chronic leukemia, which she had been struggling with for 21 years.
She burst onto the acting scene on Broadway in 1966 alongside Jack Klugman in "The Sudden & Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson" and went on to do several more productions including "Pippin" in 1972. She last appeared on the Broadway stage in 2006's "Barefoot in the Park" alongside Tony Roberts and Amanda Peet.
Clayburgh's film career includes Oscar-nominated performances in 1978's "An Unmarried Woman," "Starting Over" in 1979 and her turn opposite Walter Matthau in 1981's "First Monday in October.
- 11/6/2010
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Pop2it
Jill Clayburgh, the Oscar-nominated actress whose portrayal of suddenly single women in the 1970s helped define feminism in movies and reshape the role of leading lady, died today at her home in Lakeville, Connecticut; she was 66.
A stage actress who started appearing onscreen in the 70s, she suddenly became the "It Girl" -- or rather, "It Woman" -- with her acclaimed performance as an upper-class Manhattan wife suddenly left by her husband in the comedy-drama An Unmarried Woman. For a brief time one of Hollywood's most recognizable actresses in both comedy and drama, her career took a rapid decline in the 80s before she resuscitated her career with a number of television and film roles. Still, despite her career ups and downs, she remained one of the most important actresses of the 70s, alongside Jane Fonda, Glenda Jackson, Diane Keaton, and the young Meryl Streep (with whom she was friends) -- women whose films were marked by their portrayals of strong, independent women who didn't need a man to complete their lives and were prepared to take a stand by doing so.
Born in New York City to a manufacturing executive father and a mother who was the production secretary for theatrical producer David Merrick, Clayburgh had a privileged Upper East Side upbringing, attending the noted Brearley Academy and then Sarah Lawrence College. After joining the Charles Street Repertory Theater in Boston, she worked primarily onstage, moving to Broadway for such shows as Pippin and The Rothschilds.
After sporadic film and TV appearances (including a stint on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow), Clayburgh nabbed her first big role in 1972's Portnoy's Complaint. Roles in TV shows such as Medical Center, Maude, and The Rockford Files followed (she received an Emmy nomination for the 1975 TV movie Hustling), before she essayed the role of Carole Lombard opposite James Brolin's Clark Gable in the critically lambasted Gable and Lombard (1976). The lavish biopic was soundly drubbed and might have marked the end of her career had it not been for a number of acclaimed performances and box office hits in rapid succession. Clayburgh earned acclaimed opposite Peter Falk in the TV cancer drama Griffin and Phoenix: A Love Story (1976) and that same year co-starred opposite Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in the blockbuster hit comedy Silver Streak. She held her own against two other high-profile, wildly popular leading men--Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson--in the football comedy Semi-Tough (1977) before landing the role that would make her a superstar of the decade: Erica in Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman.
The story of a well-to-do wife and mother who is left by her husband for a younger woman, and attempts to reclaim her identity as a single woman in a world marked by the rise of feminism, the film was a lightning rod for many of the issues of the late 70s, from divorce to sexual liberation. With its message that it was okay not to be married, the film was a box office and critical hit, winning Clayburgh the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. An Unmarried Woman would receive three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Actress, but lost both awards to Vietnam-themed dramas The Deer Hunter and Coming Home (Jane Fonda was the Best Actress winner).
Anointed as the screen's quintessential liberated woman, Clayburgh followed that film in 1979 with two wildly disparate roles, as an opera singer who seduces her 15 year old son in Bernardo Bertolucci's Luna, and as a slightly ditzy kindergarten teacher who falls in love with a recently divorced Burt Reynolds in the comedy Starting Over. The former film was reviled by critics, while the latter earner her a second Academy Award nomination (surprisingly, she received Golden Globe nominations for both films).
The early 80s saw Clayburgh play two more independent women in the comedies It's My Turn and First Monday in October, as well as a Valium addict in the adaptation of the bestselling memoir I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can. But as the 80s came under the influence of the Reagan administration and lost interest in the burgeoning feminist movement, roles for Clayburgh became less easy to attain, and a string of film flops followed throughout the decade. Roles in low-budget movies and telefilms followed, though it was through a number of television appearances in the late 90s and early 2000s that Clayburgh revitalized her career on the small screen: there were acclaimed but failed sitcoms Everything's Relative and Leap of Faith, and a well-received turn as the mother of Calista Flockhart's titular character in the hit show Ally McBeal.
After appearances on The Practice and Nip/Tuck (the latter earning her a second Emmy nomination), she co-starred in the TV series Dirty Sexy Money opposite Donald Sutherland as the matriarch of a wealthy New York family. In the mid-2000s Clayburgh also starred on Broadway in Richard Greenberg's A Naked Girl on the Appian Way and in the 2006 revival of Barefoot in the Park. Her most recent roles include the upcoming comedy-drama Love and Other Drugs, as well as next year's Bridesmaids.
Clayburgh married acclaimed playwright David Rabe (Hurlyburly, Streamers) in 1979; she is survived by Rabe and their daughter, actress Lily Rabe, who will be appearing opposite Al Pacino, with whom Clayburgh was involved in the early 70s, in the new Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice, which has currently been delayed.
A stage actress who started appearing onscreen in the 70s, she suddenly became the "It Girl" -- or rather, "It Woman" -- with her acclaimed performance as an upper-class Manhattan wife suddenly left by her husband in the comedy-drama An Unmarried Woman. For a brief time one of Hollywood's most recognizable actresses in both comedy and drama, her career took a rapid decline in the 80s before she resuscitated her career with a number of television and film roles. Still, despite her career ups and downs, she remained one of the most important actresses of the 70s, alongside Jane Fonda, Glenda Jackson, Diane Keaton, and the young Meryl Streep (with whom she was friends) -- women whose films were marked by their portrayals of strong, independent women who didn't need a man to complete their lives and were prepared to take a stand by doing so.
Born in New York City to a manufacturing executive father and a mother who was the production secretary for theatrical producer David Merrick, Clayburgh had a privileged Upper East Side upbringing, attending the noted Brearley Academy and then Sarah Lawrence College. After joining the Charles Street Repertory Theater in Boston, she worked primarily onstage, moving to Broadway for such shows as Pippin and The Rothschilds.
After sporadic film and TV appearances (including a stint on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow), Clayburgh nabbed her first big role in 1972's Portnoy's Complaint. Roles in TV shows such as Medical Center, Maude, and The Rockford Files followed (she received an Emmy nomination for the 1975 TV movie Hustling), before she essayed the role of Carole Lombard opposite James Brolin's Clark Gable in the critically lambasted Gable and Lombard (1976). The lavish biopic was soundly drubbed and might have marked the end of her career had it not been for a number of acclaimed performances and box office hits in rapid succession. Clayburgh earned acclaimed opposite Peter Falk in the TV cancer drama Griffin and Phoenix: A Love Story (1976) and that same year co-starred opposite Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in the blockbuster hit comedy Silver Streak. She held her own against two other high-profile, wildly popular leading men--Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson--in the football comedy Semi-Tough (1977) before landing the role that would make her a superstar of the decade: Erica in Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman.
The story of a well-to-do wife and mother who is left by her husband for a younger woman, and attempts to reclaim her identity as a single woman in a world marked by the rise of feminism, the film was a lightning rod for many of the issues of the late 70s, from divorce to sexual liberation. With its message that it was okay not to be married, the film was a box office and critical hit, winning Clayburgh the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. An Unmarried Woman would receive three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Actress, but lost both awards to Vietnam-themed dramas The Deer Hunter and Coming Home (Jane Fonda was the Best Actress winner).
Anointed as the screen's quintessential liberated woman, Clayburgh followed that film in 1979 with two wildly disparate roles, as an opera singer who seduces her 15 year old son in Bernardo Bertolucci's Luna, and as a slightly ditzy kindergarten teacher who falls in love with a recently divorced Burt Reynolds in the comedy Starting Over. The former film was reviled by critics, while the latter earner her a second Academy Award nomination (surprisingly, she received Golden Globe nominations for both films).
The early 80s saw Clayburgh play two more independent women in the comedies It's My Turn and First Monday in October, as well as a Valium addict in the adaptation of the bestselling memoir I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can. But as the 80s came under the influence of the Reagan administration and lost interest in the burgeoning feminist movement, roles for Clayburgh became less easy to attain, and a string of film flops followed throughout the decade. Roles in low-budget movies and telefilms followed, though it was through a number of television appearances in the late 90s and early 2000s that Clayburgh revitalized her career on the small screen: there were acclaimed but failed sitcoms Everything's Relative and Leap of Faith, and a well-received turn as the mother of Calista Flockhart's titular character in the hit show Ally McBeal.
After appearances on The Practice and Nip/Tuck (the latter earning her a second Emmy nomination), she co-starred in the TV series Dirty Sexy Money opposite Donald Sutherland as the matriarch of a wealthy New York family. In the mid-2000s Clayburgh also starred on Broadway in Richard Greenberg's A Naked Girl on the Appian Way and in the 2006 revival of Barefoot in the Park. Her most recent roles include the upcoming comedy-drama Love and Other Drugs, as well as next year's Bridesmaids.
Clayburgh married acclaimed playwright David Rabe (Hurlyburly, Streamers) in 1979; she is survived by Rabe and their daughter, actress Lily Rabe, who will be appearing opposite Al Pacino, with whom Clayburgh was involved in the early 70s, in the new Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice, which has currently been delayed.
- 11/6/2010
- by Mark Englehart
- IMDb News
Oscar-nominated Jill Clayburgh passed away on Friday at her home in Lakeville, Connecticut at the age of 66, reports The New York Times . The cause was chronic leukemia, with which she had lived for 21 years, her husband, the playwright David Rabe, said. Clayburgh received an Oscar nomination for starring in 1978's An Unmarried Woman , directed by Paul Mazursky. She also received an Oscar nomination for Starting Over (1979), directed by Alan J. Pakula. Her other credits include Semi-Tough (1977), It's My Turn (1980), First Monday in October (1981) and I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982). Her many television credits include guest appearances on "Law & Order," "The Practice" and "Nip/Tuck," and a recurring role on "Ally...
- 11/5/2010
- Comingsoon.net
Producer, director and cinematographer of many well-loved British film classics, including Oliver Twist, Tunes of Glory and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The producer, director, writer and cinematographer Ronald Neame, who has died aged 99, played an important role in British cinema for more than half a century. The critic Matthew Sweet once called him "a living embodiment of cinema, a sort of one-man world heritage site". Neame was assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock on Blackmail (1929), the first British talkie; he was the cinematographer on In Which We Serve (1942), Noël Coward's moving tribute to the Royal Navy during the second world war; he co-produced and co-wrote David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946); and he directed Alec Guinness in two of his best roles, in The Horse's Mouth (1958) and Tunes of Glory (1960). As if this wasn't enough, Neame also conquered Hollywoo d with one of the first and most successful disaster movies,...
The producer, director, writer and cinematographer Ronald Neame, who has died aged 99, played an important role in British cinema for more than half a century. The critic Matthew Sweet once called him "a living embodiment of cinema, a sort of one-man world heritage site". Neame was assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock on Blackmail (1929), the first British talkie; he was the cinematographer on In Which We Serve (1942), Noël Coward's moving tribute to the Royal Navy during the second world war; he co-produced and co-wrote David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946); and he directed Alec Guinness in two of his best roles, in The Horse's Mouth (1958) and Tunes of Glory (1960). As if this wasn't enough, Neame also conquered Hollywoo d with one of the first and most successful disaster movies,...
- 6/20/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
British filmmaker Ronald Neame, whose career dates back to serving as assistant cameraman on the first feature film made with sound in Great Britain, Alfred Hitchcock's "Blackmail," has died, according to reports. He was 99.
No details were available.
His directing credits ranged from "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) to "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969), for which Maggie Smith won the Oscar for best actress.
As a producer, Neame was involved with three British classics: "Brief Encounter" (1945), "Great Expectations" (1946) and "Oliver Twist" (1948). "Brief Encounter" and "Great Expectations" were the fruition of a production partnership called Cineguild that Neame had formed with David Lean and Anthony Havelock-Allan.
As a screenwriter, Neame earned Oscar nominations for the screenplays of "Brief," adapted from a Noel Coward play, and "Expectations," from Charles Dickens' novel. He shared those distinctions with Lean and Havelock-Allan.
Cineguild broke up in 1947 with a fall-out between Neame and Lean when...
No details were available.
His directing credits ranged from "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) to "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969), for which Maggie Smith won the Oscar for best actress.
As a producer, Neame was involved with three British classics: "Brief Encounter" (1945), "Great Expectations" (1946) and "Oliver Twist" (1948). "Brief Encounter" and "Great Expectations" were the fruition of a production partnership called Cineguild that Neame had formed with David Lean and Anthony Havelock-Allan.
As a screenwriter, Neame earned Oscar nominations for the screenplays of "Brief," adapted from a Noel Coward play, and "Expectations," from Charles Dickens' novel. He shared those distinctions with Lean and Havelock-Allan.
Cineguild broke up in 1947 with a fall-out between Neame and Lean when...
- 6/18/2010
- by By Duane Byrge
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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