Noticias

The Children's Hour Photo: 1961 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved

San Sebastian Film Festival will dedicate the retrospective of its 73rd edition to US screenwriter Lillian Hellman, who worked alongside filmmakers including William Whyler, Arthur PEn, William Dieterle and George Roy Hill.

Hellman, who also wrote plays and novels, was born in 1905 and died, at the age of 79 in 1984. The retrospective will encompass all of her work for the big screen, which ranged from the Thirties through to the Sixties.

Retrospective will be dedicated to Lillian Hellman Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival

Among the films screening are Wyler's The Little Foxes (1941), starring Bette Davis, which had a screenplay based on Hellman’s own play and starring Bette Davis and The Children’s Hour (1961), by the same director, starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. Other entries will include The Chase (1966) by Arthur Penn, which considers widespread violence and racism riddling...

Kim Zimmer, the four-time Daytime Emmy award-winning actress known for her many years as Reva Shayne on “Guiding Light,” is set to star in Theatre Raleigh’s highly anticipated production of “The Trip to Bountiful.” The Tony Award-winning play by renowned playwright Horton Foote is set to captivate audiences from March 26 to April 6, 2025, […]

The post Kim Zimmer Leads Cast for “The Trip to Bountiful” appeared first on Soap Opera News.

Gwen Van Dam, whose 70-year career as a character actress for film, television and the stage included turns in True Confessions, Halloween, Coming Home, Stir Crazy and The Trip to Bountiful, has died. She was 96.

Van Dam, who compiled about 140 acting credits on IMDb, died Dec. 19 at her home in West Los Angeles after a recurrence of cancer, her son, Dirk Smillie, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Van Dam remained a busy actress until the end, appearing on the first five episodes of Prime Video’s Homecoming in 2018, on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie in 2019 and on two installments of Hulu’s Interior Chinatown last year. She recently finished a play, too.

Her TV résumé included The Brady Bunch, Mannix, Maude, House Calls, Days of Our Lives, Moonlighting, 227, Knots Landing, Star Trek: Generations, ER, Gilmore Girls, Charmed, New Girl, Criminal Minds, Angie Tribeca and Modern Family.

Meanwhile, she spent the...

Cicely Tyson was an Emmy Award-winning actress for “The Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All” in 1994 and 20 years earlier for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”

Tyson worked steadily in film and television since the 1960s until her death in 2021 at age 96 . Her Emmy nominations were for a variety of categories and for some highly acclaimed television shows such as “Roots” and “King”.

Tyson also had an acclaimed career on the Broadway stage. She appeared in a number of productions both on and off-Broadway throughout her life. In 2013 and at age 88, Tyson won the Tony as Best Actress in a Play for a revival of the Horton Foote play “The Trip to Bountiful.” (That was the same role that won Geraldine Page the Best Actress Oscar in 1985.)

She received an honorary Oscar for life achievement, induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame and the Kennedy Center Honors. But its her...

Exclusive: Following a Tony season in which it collected 28 nominations and a number of notable wins, UTA has upped Patrick Herold and Rachel Viola to co-heads of its theater practice.

Based in the agency’s New York office, the pair will oversee day-to-day operations of the department and report to Jay Gassner, partner and co-head of talent; and Allan Haldeman, partner and co-head of TV lit.

Herold joined UTA in 2022 after nearly 20 years at ICM, where he was a partner and head of theater. His previous roles in the industry have included owning literary agency Helen Merrill Ltd. and holding the posts of associate general manager of Lincoln Center Theater, director of development at New York Theatre Workshop and trustee of Dramatists Play Service.

Herold’s clients include the estates of Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, Sam Shepard, Horton Foote, Moss Hart, Tina Howe, Christopher Durang, and Wendy Wasserstein. He...

Joan Benedict Steiger, who was part of the original stock company for Candid Camera and later became the wife of actor Rod Steiger, died June 24 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a stroke. She was 96.

Her death was announced by a family spokesperson.

As Joan Benedict, she got her start on TV during the medium’s early days, appearing in the 1950s on Candid Camera and The Steve Allen Show. She would go on to score dozens of TV credits with guest appearances in the 1970s on such series as The Smith Family, Apple’s Way, The Incredible Hulk and Fantasy Island, among others.

Later TV and film credits include The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, Hotel, The Trials of Rosie O’Neill and Dollhouse. She recurred on soap General Hospital as the character Edith Fairchild, and also appeared in Days of Our Lives and Capitol.

Born July 21, 1927, in Brooklyn,...

Just as most young actors who headed to New York post World War II, Eva Marie Saint was a staple on live television. In fact, her first TV appearance was in 1947 in a production of “A Christmas Carol” starring John Carradine as Scrooge. Saint, who celebrates her 100th birthday on July 4, told me in a 2013 L.A. Times interview that she didn’t appear on screen in her first TV gig that same year on NBC’s “The Borden Show.” She was hired to simply supply applause off-camera and called her parents to tell them the good news. “After the show, they called me and mom said, ‘Honey, we just love the show, and Dad thinks he heard you applauding.”’

Doing live TV got the lithe blonde actress a lot of exposure. One time it was way too much exposure. Between 1950-52, Saint appeared as the daughter of a high-powered San...

2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the creature feature C.H.U.D. (watch it Here), which is best remembered for its title – which stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers – and for its cast, which included John Heard, Daniel Stern, Christopher Curry, and Kim Griest, with appearances by Jon Polito, Jay Thomas, and John Goodman. To celebrate C.H.U.D.‘s big anniversary, the folks at Dread Central decided to ask Goodman about the film – and found that he was quite happy to reminisce about his experience working with the cannibalistic humanoids!

Goodman said, “I am definitely in C.H.U.D. I’m from St. Louis and I moved to New York in ’75 to do theater and I wanted to do film. I knew if I didn’t go and try to do films, I would kick myself for the rest of my life. C.H.U.D. was made by a lot of the guys I was...

Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" is about as quintessentially American as a classic book can get. The 1960 novel, which is still commonly read in schools today, follows young Alabaman girl Scout Finch as she endures the trials and tribulations of her pre-teen years -- and witnesses the grim realities of the Jim Crow-era South. Some aspects of "To Kill A Mockingbird" haven't aged perfectly, but the book remains beloved for good reason. It's funny, sharp, and emotional, full of wisdom and harsh truth, and builds a world that's vividly alive.

That world made the leap from the page to the big screen in 1962, when director Robert Mulligan and playwright Horton Foote adapted "To Kill A Mockingbird" as a film. The movie version is indelible in its own right. It's anchored by a precise performance from Gregory Peck, who plays compassionate defense attorney Atticus Finch. In the 60 years since...

As of this writing, based on the combined Oscar predictions of Gold Derby users, Fantasia Barrino is the front-runner to win Best Actress with 9/2 odds for playing Celie in “The Color Purple.” Currently in seventh place with 11/1 odds is Annette Bening for “Nyad.” Bening is long overdue for her first win. So could this be similar to 1985 when another overdue veteran beat an actress playing Celie in “The Color Purple?”

In “The Color Purple,” Barrino plays Celie Harris Johnson, an African-American woman struggling to live in the South during the early 1900s. In “Nyad,” Bening plays Diana Nyad, a real-life swimmer who, at age 60 and with the help of her best friend and coach (Jodie Foster), commits to achieving her life-long dream: a 110-mile open ocean swim from Cuba to Florida.

SEEOscar predictions: Fantasia Barrino (‘The Color Purple’) is the early favorite for historic Best Actress victory

During the 1985 season...

Jerome Coopersmith, who received a Tony nomination for writing a 1965 Sherlock Holmes musical and penned more than two dozen episodes of the original Hawaii Five-o during the series’ first nine seasons, has died. He was 97.

Coopersmith died peacefully Friday in Rochester, New York, his family announced.

After earning a Purple Heart for his service during World War II, Coopersmith broke into television writing for quiz shows and historical programs. In the early 1950s, he and Horton Foote worked on the kids-focused Gabby Hayes Show and Johnny Jupiter, and the future Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winner behind To Kill a Mockingbird would become his mentor.

Coopersmith wrote 30 regular installments and two feature-length episodes of CBS’ Hawaii Five-o from 1968-76. Among those was the notable 1975 eighth-season installment Retire in Sunny Hawaii … Forever, which featured Helen Hayes in an Emmy-nominated guest-starring stint as the aunt of her real-life son, James MacArthur.

He then...

Bo Goldman, the late-blooming guru of screenwriting who received Academy Awards for his work on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Melvin and Howard, has died. He was 90.

Goldman died Tuesday in Helendale, California, his son-in-law, director Todd Field, told The New York Times.

Goldman’s first screenplay was, years after he wrote it, directed by Alan Parker for Shoot the Moon (1982), which featured Diane Keaton and Albert Finney in a raw, seriocomic drama about a disintegrating marriage.

He also co-wrote the Mark Rydell-directed rock drama The Rose (1979), starring Bette Midler in an Oscar-nominated turn, and Martin Brest’s Scent of a Woman (1992), which netted him his third Academy Award nom (and Al Pacino the best actor Oscar, too).

Goldman was one of the handful of screenwriters — Paddy Chayefsky, Francis Ford Coppola, Horton Foote, William Goldman, Billy Wilder and Joel and Ethan Coen among them — to win Academy...

Despite what the splashy yacht parties in Cannes suggest, media companies really are trying to save money right now. Really!

Top execs at Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Netflix, Paramount Global, Amazon and NBCUniversal parent Comcast have all promised shareholders during recent quarterly earnings calls that they’ll be spending wisely amid the economic downturn. Sweeping layoffs and other cost-cutting strategies, including the removal of underperforming content from some streaming services, has been among the first orders of business in 2023.

But no matter how many jobs these Hollywood heavyweights cut, reaching an outlandish savings target (nearly $4 billion for the post-merger Warner Bros. Discovery) is going to require pinching pennies in more areas than staff headcount. While CFOs are shredding budgets to ribbons, TV’s latest FYC season poses another quandary: What is the cost vs. benefit of an Emmy this year? And does the statuette’s symbolic value go down if...

It was an epic night for the Academy, with now-classic films and performances in competition, an anomaly between Best Picture and Best Director nominations, a young actress redefining the acting categories and the culmination of a decades-long feud. Let’s flashback to when first-time host Frank Sinatra guided the 35th Academy Awards ceremony on April 8, 1963.

In the years of the Best Picture category being limited to five films, the Best Director category typically fell in line with those productions, with maybe one variation. In 1963, only two directors from Best Picture nominees received bids; unsurprisingly, those two films also had the most nominations and the most wins. David Lean‘s sprawling epic biopic “Lawrence of Arabia” led the pack, coming into the night with ten bids and leaving with seven statues, including Best Picture and Lean’s second career win for Best Director. It has the unusual distinction of being the...

Actors doing the absolute most in commitment to their character have a long history in the film industry. To achieve his coyote-esque look in Dan Gilroy's 2014 neo-noir "Nightcrawler," Jake Gyllenhaal dropped 30 pounds, while Christian Bale's extreme weight loss to play a boxer dealing with drug addiction in 2010's "The Fighter" earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his troubles. A comedic scene in Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" wasn't working until Jonah Hill took a real sock in the jaw from co-star Jon Bernthal. But men aren't the only ones unafraid of getting physical for their roles; for John Sturges' western classic "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," Jo Van Fleet requested help from her co-star, a pre-"Spartacus" Kirk Douglas, to galvanize her for a tense scene by hitting her across the face.

Sturges' 1957 U.S. Western stars Van Fleet as Kate Fisher, a...

Andrew Leynse, whose 21-year tenure as the artistic director of the Off Broadway theater company Primary Stages saw the production of works by such prominent playwrights as Terrence McNally, A.R. Gurney, Theresa Rebeck, Charles Busch and Donald Margulies, died Jan. 20 after a sudden illness. His age was not immediately available.

“It is with endless sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Artistic Director, Andrew Leynse,” reads a statement released by Primary Stages, which concludes, “Andrew’s dedication to playwrights and the theater launched dozens of careers and brought hundreds of new plays to life. His work had an incredible and indelible contribution to the American theater, and his vision and generosity will never be forgotten.”

Leynse began his career at Primary Stages in a variety of different roles, including Production Manager and Literary Manager, after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University’s directing program. In 1999, he left Primary to...

If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Just one year after failing to score an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for penning Netflix’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” Aaron Sorkin is back and vying once more to become the latest screenwriter to take home both screenplay Oscars. This time, he’s eligible for writing the script for the upcoming film “Being the Ricardos.”

The movie stars Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, respectively, and depicts the personal and professional relationships between the married couple and “I Love Lucy” co-stars over the course of a particularly fraught week in 1952. Early reactions to the film have been overwhelmingly positive, with many critics praising Kidman’s performance. The movie is currently sitting in sixth place in Gold Derby’s combined odds for Best Original Screenplay at 14/1, but it’s been on the rise of late,...

Woodstock, N.Y. — Indie film distributor Neon is hoping to make a statement with its awards consideration plan for the animated documentary “Flee.”

Tom Quinn, co-founder of Neon, told Variety that Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s story of a gay refugee who fled to safety in Denmark from his home in Afghanistan as a child, will be submitted for Oscar best picture consideration in addition to the documentary, animation and foreign language categories. “Flee” was picked up by Neon and Participant after premiering in January at Sundance, where it won the Grand Jury Prize.

“I think it’s high time that a non-fiction feature film be a part of the best picture category,” Quinn said Saturday during an interview at the 22nd annual Woodstock Film Festival. “Flee” is timely and unfortunately more relevant than ever. It’s a film that resonates culturally, but it’s also pure cinema. It’s also...

Dramatists Play Service, the theatrical licensing and publishing agency formed in 1936 that represents scores the stage’s most prominent playwrights, has been acquired by Broadway Licensing in what the companies are calling a landmark agreement.

Broadway Licensing, a full-service theatrical licensing partner specializing in the development, production and worldwide distribution of new and established theatrical properties, will now house Dps under its slate of brands. Among the dramatists now represented under this newly formed umbrella are Ayad Akhtar, Edward Albee, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Christopher Durang, Horton Foote, Richard Greenberg, Katori Hall, Beth Henley, George S. Kaufman, Tracy Letts, Martyna Majok, Donald Margulies, Terrence McNally, Arthur Miller, Lynn Nottage, Eugene O’Neill, Susan-Lori Parks, John Patrick Shanley, Alfred Uhry, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, Tennessee Williams, Lanford Wilson, and Doug Wright.

The deal was announced today by Sean Cercone, CEO/President, Broadway Licensing, and David J. Moore, Acting President, Dramatists Play Service.

Aaron Sorkin already has a number of awards to his name, many of them Primetime Emmys for his television work, but he could add another statuette to his collection with an Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay for “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” The movie, which debuted on Netflix in October and tells the story of the real-life Chicago 7, who were anti-Vietnam War protesters charged with a number of crimes, including intention to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, is currently leading Gold Derby’s combined odds at 18/5. And frankly, it’s not even a close competition at this point.

Although the much-hyped “Mank” was close behind the Sorkin-directed film for a while, it started a downward trend soon after its release on Netflix in early December. Written by the late Jack Fincher, “Mank” actually continues to dive in the odds, and this week fell below Lee Isaac Chung‘s “Minari,...

Honorary Oscar winner Cicely Tyson passed today at the age of 96. During a career that spanned seven decades, Tyson appeared in dozens of films, TV series, telefilms and on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for The Trip to Bountiful in 2013. She might be best known to younger audiences for her role in the hit ABC drama How to Get Away with Murder, on which she recurred as Ophelia Harkness, mother of lead character Annalise Harkness (Viola Davis).

Tyson made her silver-screen debut in 1957’s Carib Gold and went on to appear in such films as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1967), George Cukor’s The Blue Bird (1976) — which also featured Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda and Ava Gardner — A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich (1978) and 1981 Richard Pryor comedy Bustin’ Loose, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) and Madea’s Family Reunion (2006) and Best Picture...

Exclusive: The 27th annual Austin Film Festival (Aff) has unveiled their first wave of programming for its virtual edition for the fest which takes place October 22-29.

In addition to panels, the writers-driven fest will feature the world premiere of Anne Rapp’s Horton Foote: The Road to Home, which puts the spotlight on the work of the titular Oscar-winning screenwriter of the 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Aff will also feature world premieres from second-round writers through the Festival’s Screenplay competitions, including The Catch from first-time director Matthew Ya-Hsiung Balzer as well as Paper Tiger, which also marks the directorial debut of Paul Kowalski. Khaled Ridgeway will also debut the Texas Premiere of his film Death of a Telemarketer starring Larmorne Morris, Haley Joel Osment, and Jackie Earle Haley.

Aff will spotlight Texas filmmakers with the North-American premiere of Blinders, directed by former Terrence Malick...

Here’s a story about a different kind of ‘lockdown.’ This near-perfect Americana drama might be the real pinnacle of Sissy Spacek’s wonderful career. The no-baloney tale of rural life on the Texas coastline during WW2 is packed with strong emotions and solid sentiment. Wartime hardship and catch-as-catch-can romance strike an uneasy balance with more threatening material, including a highly suspenseful finish. First-time director Jack Fisk hits this one out of the park, with help from Eric Roberts, William Sanderson, Tracey Walter, R.G. Armstrong, Sam Shepard and little Henry Thomas. This is one of those special pictures that creates a warm feeling about people. The ‘Rum and Coca Cola’ scene is perfection of a special kind.

Raggedy Man

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 94 min. / Street Date July 28, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Sissy Spacek, Eric Roberts, Sam Shepard, William Sanderson, Tracey Walter, R.G. Armstrong, Henry Thomas,...

Bettina Gilois, a screenwriter who worked on “McFarland USA” and “Bessie,” has died from cancer. She was 58.

Gilois passed away on Sunday, her friend told multiple media outlets. TheWrap has reached out to representatives for Gilois.

Along with “McFarland USA,” Gilois co-wrote the film “Glory Road” about Texas Western college basketball team of the 1960s, and “The Lost Wife of Robert Durst,” a 2017 Lifetime TV movie that starred Katharine McPhee. The HBO pic “Bessie” starred Queen Latifah as Bessie Smith. Gilois received an Emmy nomination for co-writing the biopic about the legendary blues singer, which she shared with Dee Rees, Christopher Cleveland and Horton Foote.

Also Read: Charlie Daniels, Country Music Singer of 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia,' Dies at 83

Gilois was in the middle of writing the series “Muscle Shoals” about the famed Alabama recording studio, which was being produced by Johnny Depp, with Nancy Wilson of Heart composing the music.

A group of young, scrappy and brilliant writers penned some of the most accomplished dramas presented live during the Golden Age of TV in the 1950s. Writers such as Paddy Chayefsky, J.P. Miller (“The Days of Wine and Roses”), Reginald Rose (“Twelve Angry Men”), Tad Mosel (“The Haven”), James Costigan (“Little Moon of Alban”) and Horton Foote.

But the most influential and best-known of these writers was Rod Serling, who became a superstar as not only creator and writer but host of the landmark 1959-1964 CBS sci-fi/fantasy anthology series “The Twilight Zone,” for which he won two Emmys for his writing. “The Twilight Zone” and even his less successful 1970-73 NBC anthology series “Night Gallery” has overshadowed his earlier work for which he won three Emmys for his writing.

Among his earliest work was the 1953 “Kraft Television Theatre” presentation “A Long Time Till Dawn,” which gave a 22-year-old James Dean...

Actress Shirley Knight, star of “Sweet Bird of Youth,” and “As Good As It Gets” has died, her daughter actress Kaitlin Hopkins announced in a facebook post. She was 83.

Knight received two Oscar nominations for her work in her third and fourth films, “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” and “Sweet Bird of Youth, and appeared in numerous movies such as “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” and television shows such as “Thirtysomething” and “NYPD Blue.”

A native from Kansas, Knight received a Tony Award in 1976 for her portrayal as an alcoholic actress in “Kennedy’s Children,” and received a second nomination again in 1997 in Horton Foote’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Young Man From Atlanta.” Knight won two Emmys in 1995 and a Golden Globe, the first Emmy was for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie in the the television movie “The McMartin Trial,” where she starred as Peggy Buckley,...

Shirley Knight, who was twice Oscar nominated for best supporting actress, for “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” (1960) and “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1962), and won a Tony and three Emmys, died on Wednesday of natural causes in San Marcos, Texas. She was 83.

Her daughter, actress Kaitlin Hopkins, paid tribute to Knight in a lengthy Facebook post.

Knight continued to work as she approached 80, reprising her role as Mom in “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2” in 2015 after appearing in the 2009 original.

In 1997’s “As Good as It Gets,” starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, Knight played the mother of Hunt’s character; the New York Times called her performance “tenderly funny.”

Other film credits of recent vintage include Luis Mandoki’s “Angel Eyes” (2001), starring Jennifer Lopez; thriller “The Salton Sea” (2002); “Grandma’s Boy” (2006); Rebecca Miller’s “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” (2009), with Robin Wright; “Our Idiot Brother” (2011), toplined by...

The Young Man from Atlanta is the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by two-time Academy Award winner and former Signature Residency One Playwright Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson. Tickets are on sale now for the production, which officially opened on Sunday, November 24th in The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center. Let's see what the critics are saying...

The Young Man from Atlanta is the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by two-time Academy Award winner and former Signature Residency One Playwright Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson. Tickets, priced at 35 thanks to the Signature Ticket Initiative, are on sale now for the production, which officially opens on Sunday, November 24th in The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center 480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues.

Aidan Quinn (CBS’ Elementary) has been cast in a lead role of Signature Theatre’s upcoming Off Broadway revival of Horton Foote’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man From Atlanta.

The production will be directed by Michael Wilson (The Orphans’ Home Cycle), and is set to begin previews at the Irene Diamond Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center on Nov. 5, with an opening night of Nov. 24. The engagement runs through Dec. 8.

Signature announced the casting today. In addition to Quinn, the previously announced production will feature Devon Abner, Dan Bittner, Pat Bowie, Kristine Nielsen, Jon Orsini and Larry Pine. Additional casting will be determined at a later date.

Quinn and Nielsen (Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus) will play Will and Lilly Dale Kidder, the play’s central couple. The drama follows the aging Kidders as they grieve the recent drowning death of their son Bill, who may or...

Tony Sokol Jul 10, 2019

Rip Torn, who played characters from Judas Iscariot to the producer on The Larry Sanders Show, dies at 88.

Respected and versatile character actor Rip Torn died Tuesday in Lakeville, Conn., according to Variety. Publicist Rick Miramontez did not release a cause of death, but said Torn was with his wife, Amy Wright, and two daughters, Katie and Angelica. He was 88.

Torn believed actors should “play drama as comedy and comedy as drama,” according to the statement, and the actor was equally at home both. He starred in comedies like Albert Brooks' Defending Your Life and the Men in Black films, as well as TV comedies 30 Rock, playing General Electric CEO Don Geiss, mentor to Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Torn won an Emmy for his part in HBO's The Larry Sanders Show, and was nominated for a Tony award in...

Rip Torn, who played Garry Shandling’s profane, fiercely loyal producer on HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show, co-starred in the original Men in Black films and was a major star of Broadway and Off Broadway during a seven-decade career, died today surrounded by family at his home in Lakeville, Ct. He was 88.

The prolific Torn played the unstoppable and unflappable Artie on Larry Sanders, which aired from 1992-98 and followed the behind-the-scenes and onstage antics of a successful late-night network talk show. Along with scoring a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Emmy in 1996, he was nominated for each of the show’s six seasons.

The year Torn won his Emmy, he also had been up for Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his turn on CBS’ Chicago Hope. In 2008, he earned his ninth and final Emmy nom, for his recurring role as Don Geiss on NBC’s 30 Rock.

“We approach it as if we’re originating the role,” reveals Jeff Daniels. The role in question is Atticus Finch in Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Daniels’ fresh approach to the iconic character netted the actor his third Tony nomination (following his two for “God of Carnage” in 2009 and “Blackbird” in 2016). Watch the exclusive video interview above.

“Mockingbird” is one of the most beloved stories in the American canon, and has already become an acclaimed film. Gregory Peck played Atticus in that 1962 Horton Foote treatment, and took home an Oscar for his efforts. In order to play the character to the fullest and not allow the legacy of Peck to get in the way, Daniels says “you tip your hat to him and all that he achieved with that success. And then you hit the delete button.” Instead of treating Peck’s performance as the definitive version,...

Hollywood icon and multiple award-winner Cicely Tyson has signed with CAA for agency representation, while she continues to be managed by her longtime manager, Larry Thompson.

With a career spanning over six decades, Tyson has solidified her standing as of one of Hollywood’s most revered performers. The fashion model-turned-actress breakout role came in the 1972’s Sounder, which earned her an Oscar and Golden Globe award nom for best actress. She followed that up with memorable turns in films such as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Help, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and most recently Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying. She also received an Honorary Oscar at the Motion Picture Academy’s Governors Awards in 2018.

On the TV side, Tyson nabbed her first and second Emmy in 1974 for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman television movie. Other credits include the original Roots miniseries,...

Jeff Daniels is in it for the art, not the awards. That’s why he’s co-hosting two films on Turner Classic Movies this Sunday May 19 with Ben Mankiewicz: “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962) and “The Trip to Bountiful” (1985) — both are films written by legendary scribe Horton Foote.

“Why did I want to pay tribute to Horton Foote?” Daniels said. “He’s a great writer. End of story.”

Daniels has earned a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a play in the role of Atticus Finch in Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic novel, currently running on Broadway. That Daniels wants to talk about Horton Foote and his screenplay for the 1962 “Mockingbird” film is striking, considering how much Sorkin’s take on the material departs from both the novel and the film. This Atticus Finch has feet of clay — or is at least a tad less godlike than Gregory Peck’s portrayal,...

Anna Deavere Smith has been named a playwright in residence of Off Broadway’s Signature Theatre’s 2019-20 season, with two of her groundbreaking plays set for revival.

Though Smith will not perform in either of the shows, her Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 are set to debut next October and April, respectively. Signature announced that a new play by the author will be produced in an upcoming season.

Signature’s Artistic Director Paige Evans said, “I’m delighted to be bringing Anna Deavere Smith to Signature next season. Anna revolutionized the theatrical form with her groundbreaking documentary work, and it will be fascinating to see how these two seminal plays resonate today.”

Also announced for Signature’s 2019-20 season is the first New York revival of Horton Foote’s The Young Man from Atlanta, which debuted at the Signature in 1995 before a 1997 Broadway staging. Performances begin Nov.

The 2019-2020 Signature Theatre Season will feature six works by five resident playwrights, including two productions by Signature's new Residency 1 playwright Anna Deavere Smith, world premiere plays from Residency 5 playwrights Katori Halland Dominique Morisseau, a New York premiere from new Residency 5 playwright Lauren Yee, and a new production of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play from Legacy playwright Horton Foote, the company announced today.

George Morfogen, an actor whose career spanned Broadway (most recently in 2008’s A Man For All Seasons), film and the TV role for which he’s probably most widely known — as the seen-it-all inmate Bob Rebadow of HBO’s Oz — died March 8 at his home in New York.

His death was announced by his family in a New York Times obituary. No cause was disclosed, but donations in his memory can be made to the Parkinson’s Foundation.

Although Morfogen will be instantly recognizable to viewers of the intense, addictive Oz (1997–2003), in which his quiet, laid-back, eldery survivor of the brutal Oswald State Correctional Facility often was a mentor to younger, hotter heads, the actor appeared on no fewer than 12 TV series. Among them were St, Elsewhere, Deadly Matrimony, Blood Feud and Sherlock Holmes. His TV credits go back to Kojak and The Adams Chronicles...

“One time Atticus said you never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them; just standin’ on the Radley porch was enough. The summer that had begun so long ago had ended, and another summer had taken its place, and a fall, and Boo Radley had come out.”

We live in a time of super heroes and intergalactic adventurers, but according to the American Film Institute, the greatest hero in film history doesn’t wear a cape, carry a gun or crack a whip: He’s Atticus Finch, played with soft-spoken, gentle conviction by Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird.

The greatest movie hero of all time doesn’t wear a cape, carry a gun or crack a whip – he’s Atticus Finch, the soft-spoken Southern lawyer at the center of To Kill a Mockingbird. Named the screen’s greatest hero by the American Film Institute,...

Atticus Finch returns to movie theaters to inspire a new generation in To Kill a Mockingbird, part of the TCM Big Screen Classics Series. The greatest movie hero of all time doesn't wear a cape, carry a gun or crack a whip, he's Atticus Finch, the soft-spoken Southern lawyer at the center of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Named the screen's greatest hero by the American Film Institute, Atticus is played by Gregory Peck in director Robert Mulligan's adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The unforgettable film returns to the big screen for two days only, on March 24 and 27, as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics series, featuring newly produced commentary from TCM Primetime Host Ben Mankiewicz.

Told through the eyes of Atticus Finch's young daughter, Scout (Mary Badham), the black-and-white film explores how the small-town idyll of the Finches' Southern town is shattered when educated,...

Peter Masterson, director of the movie “A Trip to Bountiful” and co-writer of the musical “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” died Tuesday at his home in Kinderhook, N.Y. He was 84.

Masterson’s son, also named Peter, told the Associated Press that his father died from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

Masterson, a native of Houston, had a wide-ranging career as an actor, director, and writer. He and Larry L. King wrote the book for “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” which opened on Broadway in 1978. His wife, Carlin Glynn, starred as Mona Stangley in the play and won a Tony Award. Masterson also directed that production with Tommy Tune and was nominated for two Tonys and a Drama Desk Award.

Survivors include his wife and his daughter, actress Mary Stuart Masterson. The Mastersons starred in the 1975 movie “The Stepford Wives” as the Walter Eberhart character and his 8-year-old daughter,...

When Scout, Jem and Dill take the stage in Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill a Mockingbird, they’re not rolling a tire down the sidewalk or peering into the knothole of some old oak tree. The children — played, with no excuses offered or needed, by adults — appear in what seems to be an empty, dilapidated building, maybe an old courthouse fallen into neglect. Justice itself has become a thing of memory, its paint peeling.

What really happened that night Bob Ewell died, wonders Scout (Celia Keenan-Bolger), the most inquisitive and persistent of the three? Could a man really fall on his own knife? Something about the grim story of that harvest night doesn’t add up, no matter what Atticus or the local newspaper said, and young Miss Finch (is she still young?) wants her brother, her best friend and the audience at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre to reconsider. Everything.

Film fans can take a yearlong journey through Hollywood history in 2019 when Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) come together for the fourth annual "TCM Big Screen Classics," presenting 14 film favorites throughout the year, spanning seven decades.

From the Golden Age of Hollywood to groundbreaking movies from the seventies, eighties and nineties, the TCM Big Screen Classics series combines each film with little-known facts and insight provided by TCM Primetime Host Ben Mankiewicz. In addition, every film is presented in its original aspect ratio, offering audiences the chance to see these movies on the big screen just as they were originally enjoyed.

The lineup for the 2019 "TCM Big Screen Classics" includes:

&#8226 The Wizard of Oz - 1/27, 29 & 30&#8226 My Fair Lady - 2/17 & 20&#8226 To Kill a Mockingbird - 3/24 & 27&#8226 Ben-Hur - 4/14 & 17 &#8226 True Grit - 5/5 & 8&#8226 Steel Magnolias - 5/19, 21 & 22&#8226 Field of Dreams - 6/16 & 18&#8226 Glory - 7/21 & 24 &#8226 Hello, Dolly! - 8/11 & 14&#8226 Lawrence of Arabia - 9/1 & 4&#8226 The Shawshank Redemption...

Horton Foote strikes again, with a warm and thoughtful tale of life as it was lived in East Texas in 1950. Geraldine Page won an Oscar for her unguarded portrait of Carrie Watts, a woman who has outlived her peers and been uprooted from an ideal hometown of her youth. Her trip to recover her life becomes a bittersweet acknowledgment that some things just need to be accepted with as much grace as can be mustered.

The Trip to Bountiful

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1985 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 108 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn, Richard Bradford, Rebecca De Mornay.

Cinematography: Fred Murphy

Film Editor: Jay Freund

Original Music: Norman Kasow, J.A.C. Redford

Written by Horton Foote from his play

Produced by Dennis Bishop, Horton Foote, Sam Grogg, Sterling Van Wagenen, George Yaneff

Directed by Peter Masterson

They say ‘you can’t go home...

Mary Willard, playwright, TV writer and wife of four-time Emmy nominee Fred Willard, has died at the age of 71.

Willard died on July 13, but news of her death was recently made public.

Champion is the one word that comes to mind when remembering Mary Willard and she wasn’t just Fred Willard’s best cheerleader, but she also mentored and nurtured a number of creative comedic writers and actors through the Willards’ Los Angeles-based comedy sketch group The Mohos over the last two-plus decades (which anecdotally I was a part of some years ago).

‘Let’s put on a show’ was an unofficial mantra, and within less than two-weeks time, the troupe would pull wigs out of the closet and brush up pages for performances at the Io West and The Bang Theater and even as far as the Inland Empire. Those trying out sketches at Mohos had the opportunity...

Off Broadway’s Signature Theatre has announced a 2018-19 season featuring six works by five resident playwrights, including two productions by Signature’s new playwright-in-residence, Lynn Nottage, and a world premiere musical from Dave Malloy.

A Tony nominee for Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, Malloy is Signature’s first musical theater writer-in-residence. His new musical, Octet, will be directed by Annie Tippe.

Nottage, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes (for Ruined and Sweat) will see new productions of two of her comedies, Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark. Signature said a new play by Nottage will be produced during the 2019-20 season.

All performances will take place at the company’s Frank Gehry-designed Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street, at the western edge of the Broadway theater district.

Signature’s Legacy Program, which welcomes past playwrights-in-residence. It will feature productions from...

“A Quiet Place” is an amusing title for what turns out to be a meticulously muscle-clenching exercise in gimmicky horror, the type that imagines a future population terrorized by sight-challenged predators who hunt by human noise. The title is all kinds of winking: It sounds like a lost Horton Foote play about hardscrabble people of the land, and yet that’s the setting here — a quaint, secluded farm, only the struggle is to survive being ripped apart by aliens.

Then there’s the last thing a theater showing a well-made horror movie is … again, see title. Director-star-co-writer John Krasinski’s careful deployment of nerve-distressing moments doesn’t even need a burst of gnarly monster to get an audience vocalizing: listen for the crowd reaction when his wife (off and onscreen) Emily Blunt cautiously ascends a staircase, and the camera stays back to show an errant nail jutting from a step, awaiting someone’s bare foot on the way down.

The collective, dread-inducing moan I heard from the audience around me at that reveal is surely, in my estimation, what horror filmmakers live for more than the shock and gore. (Because it’s real suspense; like Hitchcock’s ticking bomb under the table, we know it’s there.)

Watch Video: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt Live in Fear in First Trailer for 'A Quiet Place'

So yes, “A Quiet Place” is sweat-it-out fun in a trap-rich minefield. (I would also have been happy with a “Get Out”-like exclamatory title: maybe “Shut the F— Up”?) It’s also perfectly in keeping with the near-ubiquity of whisper-acting lately across television and movies of all stripes, dialogue delivered as if mumbling weren’t inarticulate enough. Finally, here’s a movie in which hushed talking would make absolute sense. And yet communication in the Abbott family is mostly with sign language, since their pre-teen oldest, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), is deaf.

Of course, Asl is a beneficial tool when speaking is a no-no, until you realize a child who can’t hear also can’t tell when she’s making a sound. (Hence, the markers in the floorboards that tell Regan where they won’t squeak.) It’s one of the cleverest things about the survival architecture of “A Quiet Place”; what seems ingeniously helpful in one sense can suddenly look useless when applied to other scenarios. At the same time, in the screenplay by Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, and Krasinski, there are tactics to outlast the creatures when in their midst — it’s related to a given noise’s volume — which creates other pulse-quickening moments of near-miss panic.

Also Read: Emily Blunt and John Krasinski Explain Why They Joined Forces for 'A Quiet Place' (Exclusive Video)

After a ghost-town-foraging prologue that introduces the Abbott clan as a tight unit, but then deals them a horrific tragedy, “A Quiet Place” settles in nearly a year later at their forest-enclosed homestead, where a system of lights, soft household items (they eat on leaves instead of plates), sanded pathways and padded spaces ensure a base level of safety for Lee (Krasinski), Evelyn (Blunt, sublimely good), Regan, and Marcus (Noah Jupe, “Wonder”).

Security-minded Lee toils away in his lair of radios and electronic parts trying to find survivors or to build a better hearing aid. Otherwise he’s a grim-faced survivalist with little time to address Regan’s sense of neglect, feeling that dad considers her the weak link. Simmonds, who made such a strong impression in “Wonderstruck,” continues to impress here, deftly offering a believable picture of how jeopardy and inner turmoil motivate a lonely adolescent.

Watch Video: 'A Quiet Place' Star Emily Blunt on Working With Director-Husband John Krasinski: 'Wonderful Relief'

At the top of the readiness concerns, however, is Evelyn’s pregnancy. But as prepared as the family is — from a soundproofed barn bunker for the birth to the creepily coffin-like box through which oxygen can be pumped to an squealing infant — Evelyn’s unexpected labor still partly triggers the second half’s rollicking succession of nail-biting encounters with the audio-aroused and relentless fiends. You won’t get a description here of the shrieking, hungry predators (who wants a design spoiler?) but they’re among the nastiest-looking in recent memory.

Krasinski, aided greatly by Charlotte Bruus Christensen’s textured cinematography, knows when the monsters are best kept offscreen and when to give them their close-up. And as you might expect in a movie that hinges on sound, the mix of silence with noises variously environmental, exposing, and terrifying, coupled with the occasional music-laced excitement (Marco Beltrami composed the score), is spot on.

“A Quiet Place” grounds its existential fear with a fair amount of emotion, too, convincingly played. Threaded throughout the peril is a simple but effective message about familial love, communication, and sacrifice, and there are just enough small moments — for the cast to convey with their faces between major frights — that serve to deepen things ever so slightly.

Whether you’re in it for the ride, or the story of loved ones under siege, it’s safe to say nobody could have expected Krasinski (after two unassuming features, including the dysfunctional-clan dramedy “The Hollars”) to have this in him as a director. Maybe for some filmmakers sincerely interested in human emotions, all they need to show their stuff is to add monsters.



Read original story ‘A Quiet Place’ Film Review: Make Some Noise for John Krasinski’s Nerve-Racking Horror Tale At TheWrap...

“A Quiet Place” is an amusing title for what turns out to be a meticulously muscle-clenching exercise in gimmicky horror, the type that imagines a future population terrorized by sight-challenged predators who hunt by human noise. The title is all kinds of winking: It sounds like a lost Horton Foote play about hardscrabble people of the land, and yet that’s the setting here — a quaint, secluded farm, only the struggle is to survive being ripped apart by aliens. Then there’s the last thing a theater showing a well-made horror movie is … again, see title. Director-star-co-writer John Krasinski’s careful...

A big welcome to UK disc purveyors Indicator, or Powerhouse, or how does Powerhouse Indicator sound? Savant’s first review from the new label is a favorite from the Columbia library. The extras are the lure: they company has snagged long-form, in-depth interviews with James Fox and director Arthur Penn. Everybody’s written about The Chase but here Penn tells his side of the story.

The Chase (1966)

Blu-ray + DVD

Powerhouse: Indicator

1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date September 25, 2017 / Available from Amazon UK / £14.99

Starring: Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, E.G. Marshall,

Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Richard Bradford,

Robert Duvall, James Fox, Diana Hyland, Henry Hull, Jocelyn Brando, Clifton James, Steve Ihnat

Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle

Production Designer: Richard Day

Art Direction: Robert Luthardt

Film Editor: Gene Milford

Original Music: John Barry

Written by Lillian Hellman from the novel by Horton Foote

Produced by Sam Spiegel

Directed by Arthur Penn

Yes,...

As America's great playwrights go, Horton Foote, who passed on in 2009, just shy of his 93rd birthday, was perhaps the most understated of them all. In a prolific career that involved golden age television dramas, Academy Award winning screenplays and dozens of stage works, his favorite source of inspiration was the relatives and neighbors he observed growing up in the quiet comfort of East Texas.