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With the elections less than two months away and the highly anticipated debate between former President Donald Trump and current vice president Kamala Harris on Sept 10, it’s time to revisit classic political movies. TCM is currently presenting a nine-week series “Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.” Political films run the gamut from thrillers, to dramas (“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”), to the historical, to satirical comedies.

Speaking of satires, Preston Sturges received his one and only Oscar for his screenplay for 1940’s “The Great McGinty,” his smart, funny comedy about a hobo (Brian Donlevy) who rises to governor only to lose it all. Sturges had originally written a piece “The Story of Man” in 1933 with Spencer Tracy in mind. Tracy had just starred in 1933’s “The Power and the Glory,” which marked Sturges’ first film script. He attempted to sell it to Universal which also turned the story down; so,...

It was the laugh that got you first: A staccato giggle combined with what sounded like a T. rex’s roar. If you watch The Pee-wee Herman Show, the HBO special taken from Paul Reubens’ 1981 stage show that — along with a handful of appearances on Late Night with David Letterman — introduced this hyperactive goofball to a larger audience, you actually hear that arrrgghhhh–heh-heh-heh-heh-heh before you see him. And then, when Herman pokes his head through a window and bursts through a jagged front door (if the set looks like...

At the conclusion of Apple TV +’s delightful 2021 musical comedy “Schmigadoon!,” Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) realized they loved each other and returned to the real world. The second season finds them blissfully married, but boredom soon sets in. And to add insult to injury, they can’t get pregnant. The two decide they need a boost, so they decide to return to the cotton-candy colored tuneful world of Schmigadoon.

But what they find this time around is Schmicago, a much darker town they can’t leave until they find their happy ending. Happy endings, though, are few and far between in the city that never sleeps. And it certainly looks like the two won’t find one anytime soon after Josh is soon arrested for murdering a showgirl.

Schmicago is Fosse-fied with more than a few jazz hands reflecting the adult musicals of the 1960s and 1970s including “Chicago,...

Ted Donaldson, who starred as Bud Anderson on the original radio version of Father Knows Best and as Neely Nolan in the beloved family drama A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the first feature directed by Elia Kazan, has died. He was 89.

Donaldson died Wednesday of complications from a fall in his Echo Park apartment in January, his friend Thomas Bruno told The Hollywood Reporter.

In his big-screen debut, Donaldson portrayed a boy who gets his pet caterpillar Curly to dance when he plays “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” on the harmonica in the comedy fantasy Once Upon a Time (1944), starring Cary Grant and Janet Blair.

He also starred as Danny Mitchell in eight B-movies from Columbia Pictures that revolved around a German shepherd named Rusty. The first one, Adventures of Rusty (1945), featured Ace the Wonder Dog.

An only child, Donaldson was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 20, 1933. His father was...

William “Biff” McGuire, whose Broadway career spanned seven decades and included a role in the original South Pacific and Tony-nominated turns in The Young Man From Atlanta and Morning’s at Seven, has died. He was 94.

McGuire’s death was announced by the Seattle Rep, for whom he performed in more than 30 productions, including Life With Father (directed by George Abbott), Saint Joan, Noises Off and A Flaw in the Ointment, starting in the 1970s.

“Reserved, even shy in real life, Biff gained a nearly scary confidence once he stepped on a stage,” former Seattle Rep associate artistic director Doug Hughes said. “He ...

William “Biff” McGuire, whose Broadway career spanned seven decades and included a role in the original South Pacific and Tony-nominated turns in The Young Man From Atlanta and Morning’s at Seven, has died. He was 94.

McGuire’s death was announced by the Seattle Rep, for whom he performed in more than 30 productions, including Life With Father (directed by George Abbott), Saint Joan, Noises Off and A Flaw in the Ointment, starting in the 1970s.

“Reserved, even shy in real life, Biff gained a nearly scary confidence once he stepped on a stage,” former Seattle Rep associate artistic director Doug Hughes said. “He ...

As August winds down, it’s time to look ahead to everything that’s hitting the major streaming services in September. As always, there’s an enormous haul of originals and newly licensed titles going up across Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu and Prime Video over the month, including content from every genre out there.

The first day of September brings the usual lengthy list of movies arriving on most of the sites. Just a few of the highlights include all three Back to the Future films returning to Netflix, every entry in the Twilight saga arriving on Hulu and countless iconic movies going up on HBO Max, including Grease, Miss Congeniality and V for Vendetta. Also, Doctor Who fans will want to take note, as the most recent season of the show lands on HBO Max the same day.

Feel free to inspect the full list of everything...

Although it still has a long way to go to catch up to Netflix, HBO Max is gradually building a reputation for both an impressive library of content and its own original programming. As well as reportedly working on a number of Batman-focused series, the WarnerMedia streamer is also absorbing shows from DC Universe, and funding the Snyder Cut of Justice League. We now know what’s coming to HBO Max in September, and there’s plenty there for subscribers to sink their teeth into.

The big original series highlight next month is the Ridley Scott-produced Raised by Wolves, which explores two androids raising human children. Created by Adam Guzikowski, the program could be one of HBO Max’s first big hits with critics and audiences, and is set to arrive on September 3rd. Other notable originals include comedy Unpregnant, wherein a pregnant teenager travels to Mexico with her...

HBO Max is out with its list of everything new coming to the streaming service in the month of September.

Highlights include Ridley Scott’s “Raised by Wolves,” out Sept. 3, which follows two androids raising a human child on a distant planet; “Coastal Elites” starring Bette Midler, Kaitlyn Dever, Dan Levy, Sarah Paulson and Issa Rae, out Sept. 12, and “The Murders at White House Farm,” which is out in Sept. but doesn’t yet have an exact premiere date.

Others without a premiere date coming in Sept. include season one of “Haute Dog,” “Mo Willems: Don’t Let the Pigeon Do Storytime!” and seasons one through three of “The Great Pottery Throw Down.”

Also Read: 'Lovecraft Country' Premiere Draws 1.4 Million Multiplatform Viewers - Including HBO Max

Read the full list below:

Sept. 1

93Queen, 2018

All The Right Moves, 1983 (HBO)

The Astronaut Farmer, 2007 (HBO)

Badlands, 1973

Ballmastrz: 9009, 2018

Bandidas, 2006 (HBO)

Barnyard, 2006 (HBO)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,...

WarnerMedia’s grand streaming experiment continues apace with HBO Max’s list of new releases for September 2020.

This month, HBO Max is bring some serious dramatic heat with the Ridley Scott-directed sci-fi series Raised by Wolves arriving on Sept. 3. And if science fiction isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, then HBO Max has identified something that is: true crime. The Murders at White House Farm will arrive at a date to be determined in September.

In addition to those intriguing original offerings, HBO Max is making the best of its WarnerMedia library this month. Doctor Who season 12 makes its long-awaited streaming debut on Sept. 1. Also arriving on the first of the month are Clerks, Election, and the hopefully-not-too-timely V for Vendetta.

Recent horror hit The Invisible Man arrives on Sept. 19. It is complemented by HBO Max original comedy Unpregnant on Sept. 10.

Here is everything else coming to HBO Max this month.

by Nathaniel R

Let's look at some cultural background on the year 1947 before we reach the new Smackdown event in exactly one week (have you voted yet?). Light entertainments were very popular but Post-War America and by extension Hollywood was feeling a dark undertow and anxiety. Cinema went deep into noir territory (men really didn't know who to trust or what to make of women after they'd becoming working girls during the War and the anxiety definitely showed onscreen) and offscreen things were treacherous. The infamous witchhunt for Communists began in Hollywood, cutting off the careers of many talented actors and filmmakers who wouldn't 'name names', beginning with "The Hollywood Ten". 

Great Big Box Office Hits:

A now long-forgotten picture, Welcome Stranger (reteaming the Oscar-winning stars of Going My Way) was one of the year's very biggest attractions. The best-seller turned rom-com The Egg and I was also a huge success.

James Drury, best known for starring in the long-running Western series “The Virginian,” died Monday of natural causes. He was 85.

His assistant, Karen Lindsey, posted the news on Facebook: “It is with immense sadness that I let you all know that James Drury, our beloved Virginian and dear friend passed away this morning of natural causes, Monday, April 6, 2020. He will be missed so much. It is beyond words. Memorial service to be determined later.”

Drury was born April 18, 1934 in New York City. During his childhood, the family made multiple trips to the family ranch in Oregon, where he developed a love for horses and the outdoor life. He first appeared on stage at the age of 8 when he played King Herod in a children’s Christmas play. He made his professional acting debut at the age of 12 in a touring company of “Life With Father.”

Drury was trained as an...

James Drury, who starred in one of the longest running Westerns in TV history, “The Virginian,” has died. He was 85.

His assistant, Karen Lindsey, shared the news on Facebook Monday, writing that he “passed away this morning of natural causes.” TheWrap reached out to his agent for additional comment.

While his most famous role was “The Virginian,” Drury also starred in Westerns on the big screen, including 1959’s “Good Day for Hanging,” 1960’s “Ten Who Dares” and “Ride the High Country.” His other credits include “Love Me Tender,” alongside Elvis Presley, and “Bernardine,” opposite Pat Boone.

Also Read: Shirley Douglas, Mother of Kiefer Sutherland, Dies at 86

“The Virginian” was based on Owen Wister’s 1902 novel of the same name and ran on NBC for nine seasons, from 1962 to 1971. It was launched by executive producer Roy Huggins and his father-in-law Frank Price, who would go on to run Columbia and Universal Pictures.

Ben Cooper, an film icon who starred in dozens of Westerns and starred as the bandit Turkey Ralston in Johnny Guitar, has died. He was 86.

Cooper’s death was confirmed by his nephew Pete Searls to The Hollywood Reporter. Cooper died in Memphis, Tennessee after a long battle with an undisclosed illness.

A native of Hartford, Connecticut, his career first started on Broadway at the age of 9 when he starred in Life with Father in 1942, where he went on to play two of the central family’s sons after growing enough to star as an older brother.

He went on...

The slate of awards hopefuls is new each year, but there is always a sense of continuity, of new contenders’ connections to the past.

For example, Alexandre Desplat, a strong Golden Globes and Oscar possibility this year for his score to Sony’s “Little Women,” can trace the influence of his predecessors on his work. Growing up in Paris, Desplat knew he wanted to be a film composer. “When I was very young, I was collecting soundtracks and it was an education. I learned to listen to music outside the film. When home video arrived, I would watch a movie over and over, to figure out when the music started and when it stopped and why.

“I listened to Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, John Barry, Maurice Jarre. And my parents had earlier scores, by George Duning, Bernard Herrmann and many others. I was also very much into the earlier Hollywood composers: Max Steiner,...

Hepburn and Tracy. Loy and Powell. Garson and Pidgeon. They’re all iconic movie duos, and it’s time to add another: Bale and Adams. With three films together, Christian Bale and Amy Adams‘ joint filmography is much smaller than Myrna Loy and William Powell‘s 14, but Bale and Adams have done something none of any of these pairs have: They’ve received Oscar nominations for all three of their movies together so far.

Bale and Adams picked up Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress nominations Tuesday for “Vice.” This follows a Best Supporting Actor win for him and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her for “The Fighter” (2010) and matching lead nominations for “American Hustle” ( 2013).

Before the Bale-Adams hat trick of nominations, no pair of co-stars had been nominated for the same film more than twice. Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon made eight pictures together, but were only jointly...

This week I caught the Off Broadway hit Red Speedo about a swimmer who thinks he needs performance enhancement drugs. It was a totally solid thought-provoking play and if that sounds like faint praise it's only that because the raves have been so breathless. I had front row seats (not intentional) which is a weird angle with which to see this show because the pool part of the stage looms large in front of you (you do get splashed). I don't mind getting wet so I wished they'd used the pool part of the well designed stage a little more. The actors were uniformly terrific so if you're interested in the topic, by all means go. 

But back to Broadway itself. After finally seeing The King and I, one of last year's Tony winners, and the news that Hello Dolly will finally return (with Bette Midler!) after decades of invisibility,...

Martin Milner, the actor known for his roles on the TV series “Route 66” and “Adam-12,” passed away Sunday. He was 83. Milner was born in Detroit in 1931, but moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he quickly took up acting. His first part was the role of John Day in 1947’s “Life With Father,” according to his official IMDb page. Milner appeared in various roles across film and television before landing the part of Stephen Banner on several episodes of the popular police drama “Dragnet.” Also Read: Curt Hecht, Weather Channel Executive, Dead at 47 His big break, however, came.

Martin Milner, a veteran actor known for work on TV dramas such as Adam-12 and Route 66, has died, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirms to People. Milner died at his home in L.A. Sunday at the age of 83.

Milner made his big-screen debut in 1947's Life With Father, in which he played John Day, son to William Powell's fiery patriarch Clarence Day. He went on to appear in John Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima in 1949 and Operation Pacific in 1951, before transitioning to TV with several appearances in the classic police procedural Dragnet beginning...

Teresa Wright and Matt Damon in 'The Rainmaker' Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright vs. Samuel Goldwyn: Nasty Falling Out.") "I'd rather have luck than brains!" Teresa Wright was quoted as saying in the early 1950s. That's understandable, considering her post-Samuel Goldwyn choice of movie roles, some of which may have seemed promising on paper.[1] Wright was Marlon Brando's first Hollywood leading lady, but that didn't help her to bounce back following the very public spat with her former boss. After all, The Men was released before Elia Kazan's film version of A Streetcar Named Desire turned Brando into a major international star. Chances are that good film offers were scarce. After Wright's brief 1950 comeback, for the third time in less than a decade she would be gone from the big screen for more than a year.

Teresa Wright movies: Actress made Oscar history Teresa Wright, best remembered for her Oscar-winning performance in the World War II melodrama Mrs. Miniver and for her deceptively fragile, small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's mystery-drama Shadow of a Doubt, died at age 86 ten years ago – on March 6, 2005. Throughout her nearly six-decade show business career, Wright was featured in nearly 30 films, dozens of television series and made-for-tv movies, and a whole array of stage productions. On the big screen, she played opposite some of the most important stars of the '40s and '50s. It's a long list, including Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Gary Cooper, Myrna Loy, Ray Milland, Fredric March, Jean Simmons, Marlon Brando, Dana Andrews, Lew Ayres, Cornel Wilde, Robert Mitchum, Spencer Tracy, Joseph Cotten, and David Niven. Also of note, Teresa Wright made Oscar history in the early '40s, when she was nominated for each of her first three movie roles.

Nancy O’Connor, the widow of All in the Family star Carroll O’Connor, died Nov. 10 at her Malibu home after suffering for a decade from Alzheimer's, the Missoulian newspaper reported. She was 84. The O'Connors were working on stage productions of Life With Father and Winterset when they met at the University of Montana after World War II. They were married in 1951 in Dublin, where Carroll had gone to accompany his brother and complete his studies. He died in June 2001 at age 76. Read more 'All in the Family': Read THR's 1971 Review Nancy, who was raised in Missoula,

read more...

Irene Dunne movies: Five-time Best Actress Academy Award nominee starred in now-forgotten originals of well-remembered remakes In his August 2007 Bright Lights article "The Elusive Pleasures of Irene Dunne," Dan Callahan explained that "the reasons for Irene Dunne’s continuing, undeserved obscurity are fairly well known. Nearly all of her best films from the thirties and forties were remade and the originals were suppressed and didn’t play on television. She did some of her most distinctive work for John Stahl at Universal, and non-horror Universal films are rarely shown now. Practically all of her movies need to be restored; even her most popular effort, The Awful Truth (1937), looks grainy and blotchy on its DVD transfer, to say nothing of things like Stahl’s When Tomorrow Comes (1939), or Rouben Mamoulian’s High, Wide, and Handsome (1937), two key Dunne films that have languished and deteriorated in a sort of television/video purgatory.

Greetings from the apocalypse! You want destruction? This weekend's got Massive destruction. You want egos? This weekend's got Massive egos. Whether it’s the bickering Apatow Mafia or Zack Snyder pounding Superman's face into the pavement over and over it just might be the end of the world as we know it. Feeling fine optional.

Friday, June 14

Pow! In Theaters

Nap before Zod! Sorry, boys and girls, but I must be the bearer of sour tidings: "Man of Steel" isn't that great. Is it better than the coat hanger abortion that was "Superman Returns"? Yeah, but not by leaps and bounds. On the plus side the cast is terrific, anchored by the measured charisma of Henry Cavill as the superest man there is and Lois Lane at her spunky best courtesy of Amy Adams. Unfortunately, the retro sci-fi trappings are "Green Lantern"-level ponderous and a climactic Metropolis battle that's 9/11 times-a-hundred ("Yes,...

Orphans (at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater through June 30) Few actors can make ridiculous things sound as true as Alec Baldwin can. Or true enough. With his excellent ear and oddball air of earnest insincerity, he managed to wrap his mouth around seven years of 30 Rock bizarrerie as if it were Wilde. He’s a dab hand, too, at Orton farce and thirties screwball: He knows when to bunt and when to swing for the fences. Now, in Lyle Kessler’s Orphans, he is giving such a good old-timey performance—commanding and sentimental, precise but unfussy—that you may find yourself imagining him in a remake of Life with Father. Or Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Or, really, anything better than Orphans.Not that it’s a bad play. It’s just weirdly trifling. Baldwin is Harold, a prosperous Chicago criminal of some kind, now relocated to Philadelphia, where he...

Feature Aliya Whiteley 13 Mar 2013 - 06:59

Aliya salutes one of Hollywood's most suave and talented actors - the great Louis Jourdan...

Traditionally Hollywood works in boxes. It finds a box, and then it places an actor in it. The box of the French lover has been filled by quite a few stars over the years: Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier, Yves Montand, Pepe Le Pew, Alain Delon, and even Gerard Depardieu for one moment in the madly entertaining Green Card.

Louis Jourdan was the most classically handsome of these actors (yes, even more debonair than the skunk). He had a smile that the camera loved and a way of cocking his head and crossing his legs that exuded style. Most well known for Vincent Minnelli’s chocolate-box love affair with France, Gigi, he brought a sense of humour to the film that kept it fresh, but it was a retread of his standard role.

In his introduction to Psychos: Serial Killers, Depraved Madmen, and the Criminally Insane, the latest short story anthology from Black Dog & Leventhal - who have previously brought us collections entitled Zombies (2009), Werewolves and Shape Shifters (2010), and Demons (2011) - editor John Skipp hits us with the revelation that  'some people kill people', which is not only true, but in terms of this weighty new tome is also something of a gross understatement.

John Skipp, of course, needs no introduction to anybody familiar with horror literature. In collaboration with former partner in crime Craig Spector, Skipp penned half a dozen novels, reworked writer/director Tom Holland's script for the original (and superior in this writer's opinion) Fright Night (1985) movie into a novelization, and wrote the screenplay for A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1993). Skipp and Spector also edited two anthologies together, 1989's The Book Of The Dead (which...

With the arrival of the auteur theory, filmmakers like Michael Curtiz no longer get as much sway among the current generation of directors. Curtiz (born Kertész Kaminer Manó in Hungary in 1886), was a journeyman, a man who flourished in the studio system after being picked out by Jack Warner for his Austrian Biblical epic "Moon of Israel" in 1924. He stayed at the studio for nearly 20 years, taking on whatever he was assigned at a terrifyingly prolific rate -- he made over 100 Hollywood movies up to "The Comancheros" in 1961. And some of them are terrible, as you might expect.

But Curtiz was also responsible for some of the greatest films of the era, and those who diminish his abilities (including the director himself, who once said "Who cares about character? I make it go so fast nobody notices") are ignoring his enormous skill behind the camera, and his undeniable capacity for...

Irene Dunne Irene Dunne, Lucille Ball, Orson Welles and nearly two dozen other celebrities of the mid-20th century are to be found in Washington's National Portrait Gallery exhibition “In Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits From the Harry Warnecke Studio.” In the New York Times, Neil Genzlinger explains that Harry Warnecke was a photographer for New York's The Daily News who "understood early — in the 1930s — that a newspaper with a color photograph in it would have an edge over the competition." During his years as a news photographer, Warnecke shot movie stars and other celebrities in show business, sports, and the military. As can be attested by the "In Vibrant Color" images, those ranged from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and General George S. Patton and future U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Of the "In Vibrant Color" images I've seen, the one...

Director Allan Dwan, actor George O'Brien, cinematographer George Webber, East Side, West Side Are you a movie lover in Los Angeles, unable to travel either to Venice or Telluride? Don't despair. L.A. has its own glamorous film festival this weekend. It's called Cinecon, now in its 47th year. What's more: unlike the vast majority of movies screening at the more highly publicized Venice and Telluride — which will shortly be made available at theaters, DVD stores, or online streaming services — most Cinecon movies are nearly impossible to be seen anywhere else. In other words, it's September 1-5 at the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at Grauman's Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard or (quite possibly) never. [Cinecon 2011 Schedule.] This year's Cinecon rarities includes the following: The first Los Angeles area screening in eight decades of Allan Dwan's East Side, West Side (1927), a risque silent drama starring Sunrise's George O'Brien and Virginia Valli, the...

They're Happy To Be Hooked

By Agnes Eckhardt Nixon

Chief writer of the current serial Another World and creator of One Life To Live, which starts July 15

New York Times

July 7, 1968

Time after tedious time, when critics suffer an aridity of fresh, inventive phrases with which to denigrate a film, play or book, they fall back on "soap opera"; it has become the classic cliché of derogation.

But the critic cannot be singly criticized when his attitude is shared by a good part of the television industry itself. The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, for example, did not simply fail to give an Emmy to any soap opera: by having no award category for them, it failed to recognize their existence.

Of course, after viewing the recent fiasco of the Emmy awards, it may well be considered a mark of distinction to have been ignored by this group.

Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor started her film career as a child, hitting it big when she starred as a 12-year-old girl hoping to become a jockey in "National Velvet." The violet-eyed beauty went on to star in some of cinema's classics, including "Giant," "Cleopatra" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Take a look back at her filmography, along with great quotes and trivia!

The Best Elizabeth Taylor Movies'National Velvet' (1944)

Velvet Brown (Elizabeth Taylor...

Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor, one of the greatest beauties to ever grace the big screen, and one of the most benevolent, died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles Wednesday. She turned 79 on Feb. 27th while in the hospital.

Her son, Michael Wilding, released this statement: "My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love. Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held...

A Hollywood legend has passed away. Actress Elizabeth Taylor, who made her fame with glamour roles in classic movies, charity work and failed romances, died today at the age of 79. She passed away at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of a congestive heart failure. Her publicist Sally Morrison said she was in the hospital for the past six weeks and was surrounded by her four children. “My mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor and love,” said Michael Wilding, her son in a statement. “We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will forever in our hearts.” Taylor was a winner of two Academy Awards, including Best Actress for 1967’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and Best Actress for 1961’s “Butterfield 8.

Elizabeth Taylor, one of the last great screen legends and winner of two Academy Awards, died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles of complications from congestive heart failure; she was 79. The actress had been hospitalized for the past few weeks, celebrating her birthday on February 27th (the same day as this year's Academy Awards) while at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with friends and family. Her four children, two sons and two daughters, were by her side as she passed.

A striking brunette beauty with violet eyes who embodied both innocence and seductiveness, and was known for her flamboyant private life and numerous marriages as well as her acting career, Taylor was the epitome of Hollywood glamour, and was one of the last legendary stars who could still command headlines and standing ovations in her later years. Born to American parents in England in 1932, Taylor's family decamped to Los Angeles as World War II escalated in the late 1930s. Even as a child, her amazing good looks -- her eyes were amplified by a double set of eyelashes, a mutation she was born with -- garnered the attention of family friends in Hollywood, and she undertook a screen test at 10 years old with Universal Studios. She appeared in only one film for the studio (There's One Born Every Minute) before they dropped her; Taylor was quickly picked up by MGM, the studio that would make her a young star.

Her second film was Lassie Come Home (1943), co-starring Roddy McDowall, who would become a lifelong friend. She assayed a few other roles (including a noteworthy cameo in 1943's Jane Eyre) but campaigned for the part that would make her a bona fide child star: the young Velvet Brown, who trained a champion racehorse to win the Grand National, in National Velvet. The box office smash launched Taylor's career, and MGM immediately put her to work in a number of juvenile roles, most notably in Life With Father (1947) and as Amy in 1949's Little Women. As she blossomed into a young woman, she began to outgrow the roles she was assigned, often playing women far older than her actual age. She scored another hit alongside Spencer Tracy as the young daughter preparing for marriage in Father of the Bride (1950), but her career officially entered adulthood with George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951), as a seductive rich girl who bedazzles Montgomery Clift to the degree that he kills his pregnant girlfriend (Shelley Winters). The film was hailed as an instant classic, and Taylor's performance, still considered one of her best, launched the next part of her career.

Frustrated by MGM's insistence at putting her in period pieces (some were hits notwithstanding, including 1952's Ivanhoe), Taylor looked to expand her career, and took on the lead role in Elephant Walk (1954) when Vivian Leigh dropped out after suffering a nervous breakdown. As her career climbed in the 1950s, so did Taylor's celebrity: she married hotel heir Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr. in 1950, and divorced him within a year. She then married British actor Michael Wilding in 1952, with whom she had two sons, though that marriage ended in divorce in 1957, after she embarked on an affair with the man who would be her next husband, producer Michael Todd (who won an Oscar for Around the World in 80 Days). As her personal life made headlines, she appeared alongside James Dean and Rock Hudson in Giant (1956), and received her first Academy Award nomination for Raintree County in 1957. Roles in two Tennessee Williams adaptations followed -- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly Last Summer (1959), both considered two of her best performances -- earning her two more Oscar nominations, just as tragedy and notoriety would strike her life.

Todd, whom she married in 1957 and had a daughter with, died in a plane crash in 1958 in New Mexico, leaving a bereft Taylor alone at the height of her stardom. Adored by millions, she went from lovely widow to heartless home-wrecker in the tabloids after starting an affair with Eddie Fisher, Todd's best friend and at the time husband of screen darling Debbie Reynolds. The relationship was splashed across newspapers as Fisher left Reynolds and their two children (including a young Carrie Fisher) for Taylor. The two appeared together in 1960's Butterfield 8, where Taylor played prostitute Gloria Wandrous in a performance that was considered good but nowhere near her previous films, and earned her another Oscar nomination. As the Academy Awards ceremony approached, Taylor was thrust into the headlines again when a life-threatening case of pneumonia required an emergency tracheotomy, leaving her with a legendary scar on her neck. Popular opinion swung yet again as newspapers and fans feared for her life, and the illness was credited with helping her win her first Oscar for Butterfield 8.

Taylor was now the biggest female star in the world, in terms of film and popularity, and her notoriety was only about to increase. Twentieth Century Fox, making a small biopic about the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, tried to offer Taylor the part; she laughed them off, saying she would do it for $1 million, a then-unheard of sum for an actress. The studio took her seriously, and soon she was signed to a million-dollar contract (the first for an actress) and a movie that would soon balloon out of control as filming started. Initially set to film in England with Peter Finch and Rex Harrison as Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, the movie encountered numerous problems and after a first shutdown was moved to Italy, with director Joseph L. Manckiewicz at the helm. Finch left and was replaced by acclaimed stage actor and rising movie star Richard Burton.

The rest was cinematic and tabloid history, as Taylor and Burton, whose electric chemistry was apparent to all on set, embarked on quite possibly the most famous Hollywood affair ever, while the filming of the epic movie took on gargantuan proportions and its budget increased exponentially. After the dust settled, Fox was saddled with a three-hour-plus film that, despite starring the two actors whose every move was hounded by photographers and reporters, was considered a bomb. The 1963 film almost sunk the studio (which only rebounded thanks to the megahit The Sound of Music two years later), while Burton and Taylor emerged from the wreckage relatively unscathed and ultimately married in 1964.

However, despite carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, the newly married couple made two marginally successful films, The V.I.P.s (1963) and The Sandpiper (1965), both glossy soap operas that made money but hardly challenged their talents. That opportunity would come with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), the adaptation of the Edward Albee play directed by first-time filmmaker Mike Nichols. As the beleaguered professor George and his shrewish wife Martha, whose mind games played havoc one fateful night with a younger faculty couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis), the two gave perhaps their best screen performances ever, tearing into the roles -- and each other -- with a gusto never seen in their previous pairings. They both received Oscar nominations, but only Taylor won, her second and final Academy Award.

A successful adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew (1967) followed, but the couple's next films were a string of notorious bombs, including Doctor Faustus, The Comedians, and the so-bad-it's-good Boom. Though still one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Taylor's cinematic output in the 1970s became somewhat dismal, as her fraying marriage with Burton took center stage in the press, as did her weight gain after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The couple divorced in June 1974, only to remarry briefly in October 1975; by then, Taylor was more celebrity than movie star, still appearing occasionally onscreen and in television, but to less acclaim.

Taylor married U.S. Senator John Warner at the end of 1976, and during the late 1970s and 1980s played the politician's wife, and her unsatisfying life led her to depression, drinking, overeating and ultimately a visit to the Betty Ford Center. After TV and stage appearances during the 1980s (including a reunion in 1983 with Burton for a production of Private Lives), Taylor found another, surprising role, that of social activist as longtime friend Rock Hudson died of complications from AIDS in 1985. She threw herself into fund-raising work, raising by some accounts $50 million to fight the disease, helping found the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR).

Though later generations only saw Taylor on television in films like Malice in Wonderland, and the mini-series North and South, and in her final screen appearance as the mother of Wilma in the live-action movie adaptation of The Flintstones, she remained a tabloid fixture through her marriage to construction worker Larry Fortensky (her eighth and final husband), her friendship with singer Michael Jackson, and her continual charity work, which was only sidelined by hospital visits after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2004. She is survived by four children -- two sons with Michael Wilding, a daughter with Michael Todd, and another daughter adopted with Richard Burton -- and nine grandchildren.

--Mark Englehart...

Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton in Mike Nichols‘ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Elizabeth Taylor, Butterfield 8, Her First Oscar Schedule (Pt) and synopses from the TCM website: 3:00 Am Lassie Come Home (1943) A faithful collie undertakes an arduous journey to return to her lost family. Cast: Roddy McDowall, Elizabeth Taylor, Donald Crisp. Dir: Fred M. Wilcox. C-89 mins. 4:30 Am National Velvet (1944) A British farm girl fights to train a difficult horse for the Grand National Steeplechase. Cast: Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor, Donald Crisp. Dir: Clarence Brown. C-124 mins. 6:45 Am Life With Father (1947) A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost. Cast: William Powell, Irene Dunne, Elizabeth Taylor. Dir: Michael Curtiz. C-118 mins. 8:45 Am Father Of The Bride (1950) A doting father faces mountains of bills and endless trials when his daughter marries. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth [...]...

Former child star Raymond Roe has died at the age of 84.

The actor, who shot to fame as a youngster on Broadway, passed away on 2 July in San Leandro, California after suffering complications following surgery.

Roe began his career as a child star on the New York stage and enjoyed roles in productions such as Our Town and Life With Father before moving to California to kickstart his film career.

His big screen debut came in 1939's Back Door to Heaven and he went on to star in films including The Major and the Minor with Ginger Rogers, June Bride with Bette Davis, and The West Point Story alongside James Cagney.

Roe retired from Hollywood in his later years and served as a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, according to Variety.com.

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, two sons and a daughter.

In each episode of the Emmy-winning Saturday morning CBS series "Pee-wee's Playhouse" (1986–91), there was a "secret word of the day." When someone uttered it, everyone else would scream. If there's a secret word for the show's star, Paul Reubens, right now, it would be "comeback."The actor has spent the past year prepping his brand-new stage show, "The Pee-wee Herman Show," running through Feb. 7 at Club Nokia in downtown Los Angeles. The ambitious production features 11 actors and 20 puppets—a first for Reubens, who on his series relied on the magic of editing to bring puppets like Pterri, Chairry, Conky, Globey, and Magic Screen to life. Reubens says the tension and anxiety of creating the live show are palpable, and he has one question on his mind: Are the puppets going to perform?"This show is in many ways like the series, except we never did that live," says Reubens. "A...

No 78: Edmund Gwenn 1877-1959

He was born Edmund Kellaway in Wandsworth, London (or possibly the Vale of Glamorgan), grew to be 5ft 4in, was described over the years as "endearing", "cherubic", "portly", "elfin", with "a twinkle in his eye" and a seductively "soothing voice". All these attributes contributed to his appearance as Kris Kringle, the New York department store Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) who believes he's Father Christmas and convinces a Manhattan court to agree with him.

This brought him an Oscar as best supporting actor and a kind of immortality. In 1951, he was nominated for a similar role in Mister 880 as a sweet-natured counterfeiter who only forges dollar bills when he needs them. But there's much more to Gwenn than this.

Gwenn's stern Victorian father kicked him out of the house for wanting to go on the stage and he travelled around England and...