RIP John Beasley

 

Actor John Beasley, known as Coach Warren in 'Rudy,' dies at 79

My San Antonio

Hearst Television

May 30, 2023

 

Actor John Beasley, who played Coach Warren in the classic sports film "Rudy," has died. He was 79.

His son Mike posted on Facebook that he had lost his best friend.

"They say you shouldn't ever meet your heroes because they don't turn out to be who you thought they were. That is so wrong. My hero was my father. Thank you for everything," Mike wrote on Facebook.

Sister station KETV spoke with Beasley earlier this year as he talked about being a mentor at Night Fox Entertainment. He was passionate about helping new generations of talent.

Beasley waited until he was in his 40s to become an actor himself.

Before that, he worked for the Union Pacific railroad.

Beasley has around 60 television and film credits. Aside from "Rudy," he had roles in "The General's Daughter," "Walking Tall," and "The Purge: Anarchy."

He also founded the John Beasley Theater and Workshop in Omaha, Nebraska.

No cause of death has been announced.

BEASLEY, John

Born: 6/26/1943, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.

Died: 5/30/2023, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.

 

John Beasley’s western – actor:

The Journeyman – 2001 (Cleofas)

RIP George Maharis

 

George Maharis, Star of ‘Route 66,’ Dies at 94

He had to leave the popular 1960s CBS series after coming down with hepatitis.

 

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes, Duane Byrge

May 27, 2023

George Maharis, who starred as the brooding Buz Murdock on Route 66 before he quit the acclaimed 1960s CBS drama after contracting hepatitis, has died. He was 94.

Maharis died Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, his longtime friend and caregiver Marc Bahan told The Hollywood Reporter.

Route 66, created by Stirling Silliphant and Herbert B. Leonard, featured the Hell’s Kitchen native Murdock and Martin Milner‘s Yale dropout Tod Stiles touring the highways of America in Tod’s Chevrolet Corvette, encountering adventure along the way.

The show “was really kind of a searching or what you may have seen hundreds of years ago where the people came over the mountains to go from one place to the other to find a better life, a place where they belonged, and they didn’t rely on anybody else to do it for them,” Maharis told The Seattle Times in 2008.

All 116 installments of the series over four seasons starting in October 1960 were filmed in cities across the U.S., making for a grueling production schedule.

Midway through the third season in late 1962, Maharis came down with hepatitis, was hospitalized for a month and missed several episodes. (On the show, it was explained that Buz was in a Cleveland hospital battling an “echo-virus,” and Tod got a new traveling companion, Lincoln Case, played by Glenn Corbett).

Maharis returned to Route 66 but didn’t stay long, suffering a relapse. “The doctor said, ‘If you don’t get out now, you’re either going to be dead or you’re going to have permanent liver damage,’ ” Maharis recalled in a 2007 interview.

Maharis, who had received an Emmy nomination in 1962 for playing Buz, said it took him more than two years before he was able to regularly work again.

The dark-haired actor ventured into movies, starring in John Sturges’ The Satan Bug (1965), a sci-fi thriller for The Mirisch Co. and United Artists, but he never attained the rebel-stardom his TV popularity augured.

Maharis was born on Sept. 1, 1928, in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York, one of seven children to Greek immigrants. He attended Flushing High School and spent 18 months with the U.S. Marines.

He aspired to become a singer but became interested in acting and studied with Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio, then did a parody of fellow Method actor Marlon Brando on the NBC comedy Mister Peepers in 1955.

Maharis landed his first big role in an off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s Deathwatch in 1958 and appeared in Edward Albee‘s first produced play, The Zoo Story, also off-Broadway, two years later.

He portrayed an underground freedom fighter for Otto Preminger in Exodus (1960), and on the CBS soap Search for Tomorrow, he starred as a gambler who mistreated his wife.

On an April 1959 episode of Naked City, the gritty ABC series created by Silliphant, Maharis appeared as a character who longed to see the world, and that installment served as a pilot for Route 66.

During production of Route 66, Maharis somehow found time to fly to New York City to record a 1962 album for Epic Records, and he had a single that made to No. 25 on the Billboard charts, “Teach Me Tonight.”

After he became sick, Maharis asked that his hours on Route 66 be reduced, but producers refused. In the 2007 interview, he discounted talk that he used his condition to break his contract in order to jump into the movies. A lack of chemistry between Milner and Corbett contributed to Route 66 being canceled in March 1964.

Maharis’ first movie after his starring turn on television was the light comedy Quick Before It Melts (1964). He then starred as a private detective opposite Carroll Baker in Sylvia (1965), in A Covenant With Death (1967) and, as a hippie, in The Happening (1967).

In the 1970s, Maharis turned back to TV. He, Ralph Bellamy and Yvette Mimieux portrayed criminologists on the short-lived series The Most Deadly Game, and he was a prizefighter on the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. He also appeared on such shows as Marcus Welby, M.D., Night Gallery, McMillan & Wife, The Bionic Woman and Fantasy Island.

MAHARIS, George (George Maharias)

Born: 9/1/1928, Astoria, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 5/24/2023, Beverly Hills, California, U.S.A.

 

George Maharis’ westerns - actor

The Desperados! – 1969 (Jacob Galt)

Land Raiders – 1969 (Pablo Cardenas)

RIP Gary Kent

 

Gary Kent, Fabled B-Movie Stuntman, Actor and Director, Dies at 89

He worked on Peter Bogdanovich's 'Targets' and Richard Rush's 'Psych-Out' and chatted with Quentin Tarantino as the filmmaker was writing 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.'

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

May 26, 2023

Gary Kent, the iconic B-movie stunt performer, actor and director who worked with Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Rush and Monte Hellman and served as an inspiration for Brad Pitt’s character in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has died. He was 89.

Kent died Thursday evening at an assisted care facility in Austin, his son Chris Kent told The Hollywood Reporter.

Kent suffered two of his most painful injuries as a stunt performer in Rush films. He sliced up his arm on broken glass during a barfight fracas in Hells Angels on Wheels (1967) and was run over by an out-of-control motorcycle in The Savage Seven (1968), where he shared scenes with Penny Marshall.

His half-century stunt career came to an end on the set of Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) when he tumbled down a hill and damaged his leg, but he kept at it as a stunt coordinator, working as recently as 2019 on Sex Terrorists on Wheels.

The amiable Kent played a gas tank worker (and handled special effects) for Bogdanovich’s career-launching Targets (1968) and was a thug (and did fire stunts) in Rush’s Psych-Out (1968), a hit man in Hell’s Bloody Devils (1970), a motorcyclist in The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971) and a rapist in Angels’ Wild Women (1971).

Tarantino interviewed Kent as he was putting together his script for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), according to Joe O’Connell, who directed Danger God, a nifty documentary about Kent that was released in 2018.

In Tarantino’s film, Pitt portrayed the charismatic Cliff Booth, a stunt double for Leonardo DiCaprio’s fading actor Rick Dalton, in an Oscar-winning turn.

Gary Warner Kent was born on June 7, 1933, on a ranch in Walla Walla, Washington, and raised about four hours north in Renton, Washington. He attended Renton High School and the University of Washington, where he studied journalism and was a backup quarterback and pole vaulter for the Huskies.

Kent left college to enter the U.S. Naval Air Force and was posted at Corpus Christi, Texas. There, he handled publicity for the famed flight demonstration squadron the Blue Angels and acted on local stages. He then moved to Houston and wrote, directed and acted at the Alley and Playhouse theaters.

Kent came by bus to Los Angeles in 1958 and worked in film production offices while landing parts in movies including Legion of the Doomed (1958), King of the Wild Stallions (1959), Battle Flame (1959), The Thrill Killers (1964) — as a psychopath — and Ted V. Mikels’ The Black Klansman (1966).

His career took off when he talked Jack Nicholson into hiring him for two Hellman-directed Westerns shot back-to-back in 1966 in Kanab, Utah: the Nicholson-penned Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting.

He doubled for Nicholson in those movies, impressing the actor with his willingness to fall off a horse without the use of landing pads.

In 1969 films, Kent wielded an ax in One Million AC/DC and batted his friend and fellow stunt performer John “Bud” Cardos in Satan’s Sadists.

While he was making low-budget flicks at the Spahn Ranch in the San Fernando Valley, he encountered Charles Manson and members of his “family,” which he made sure to tell Tarantino about.

Behind the camera, Kent served as an assistant director on Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) and was unit production manager on Phantom of the Paradise (1974), directed by Brian De Palma.

After he was sent to Dallas to helm a film for which financing fell through, he stayed to write and direct the new age drama The Pyramid (1976). The movie was included in the recent book TCM Underground: 50 Must-See Films From the World of Classic Cult and Late-Night Cinema.

Kent also wrote and directed Rainy Day Friends (1985), which featured another of his great stunt pals, Chuck Bail — he played the stunt coordinator in Rush’s acclaimed The Stunt Man — and Esai Morales as cancer patients.

KENT, Gary (Gary Warner Kent)

Born: 6/7/1933, Walla Walla, Washington, U.S.A.

Died: 5/25/2023, Austin, Texas, U.S.A.

 

Gary Kent’s westerns – stuntman, stunt coordinator, actor:

King of the Wild Stallions – 1959 (ranch hand)

Run Home, Slow – 1965 (Ritt Hagen)

Daniel Boone (TV) – 1965, 1969 [stunts]

Ride in the Whirlwind – 1966 [stunt coordinator]

The Shooting – 1967 [stunt coordinator]

Machismo: 40 Graves for 40 Guns – 1971 (Jim Harris)

Lash of Lust – 1972 (prospector)

Coyote Woman – 2022 (Major Albert V. Adamson)

RIP Ed Ames

 

Ed Ames, ‘Daniel Boone’ Star and Ames Brothers Singer, Dies at 95 

Variety

By Pat Saperstein

May 25, 2023

 

Ed Ames, a member of the Ames Brothers singing quartet who starred in TV series “Daniel Boone” in the 1960s, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 95.

Ed Ames and his brothers Vic, Joe and Gene had a hit with their version of “Rag Mop” in 1950. As a solo artist, he had hits with “Who Will Answer?,” “My Cup Runneth Over” and “Try to Remember.” In the 1950s, they had a syndicated TV program, “The Ames Brothers Show,” and 49 songs that charted before they broke up in 1963.

He then launched an acting career, which included off-Broadway performances in “The Crucible” and “The Fantasticks,” as well as a starring role on Broadway in “Carnival!” He starred with Kirk Douglas, Gene Wilder and William Daniels in the Broadway production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Although his background was Russian Jewish, Ames was cast several times as a Native American, and played Mingo, a Cherokee Indian character with a British father, for several seasons of the Fess Parker Western “Daniel Boone.”

He became known for his skill in throwing a tomahawk, and on “The Tonight Show” in 1965, he demonstrated his skill for Johnny Carson on a wood panel with an outline of a cowboy. When Ames hit the figure squarely in the groin, Carson ad-libbed: “I didn’t even know you were Jewish!” and then “Welcome to Frontier Bris.” The saucy response caused the studio audience to laugh for four minutes, which has been reported to be the longest laugh by a studio audience in television history.

He also made guest appearances on shows including “The Rifleman,” “McCloud,” “Murder She Wrote,” “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and “Jake and the Fatman.”

Born on July 9, 1927, in Malden, Mass., Ames was the youngest of nine children, and later received a B.A. in theater and cinema arts from UCLA in 1975.

He is survived by his wife Jeanne; two children, Ronald and Sonya, seven grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and stepson Stephen Saviano. Another daughter, Marcella, predeceased him.

AMES, Ed (Edmond Dantes Urich)

Born:  7/9/1927, Malden Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Died: 5/21/2023, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Ed Ames’ westerns – singer, actor:

The War Wagon – 1961 [sings “Ballad of the War Wagon”]

The Rifleman (TV) – 1962 (Lee Coyle)

Redigo (TV) – 1963 (John Talltree)

Daniel Boone (TV) – 1964-1968 (Mingo, Taramingo)

The Travels of Jamie McPheeters (TV) – 1963 (Kennedy)

RIP Michael Norell

 

Archive Today

Michael Alden Norell

October 4, 1937 - May 12, 2023

 

Michael Alden Norell, 85, of Huntingdon, PA passed away May 12, 2023. He was born on October 4, 1937 in Wallace, ID to the late James Alden and Wilma Helen (Snook) Norell. Michael received his Bachelor of Arts from Washington and Lee University in 1959 and served in the United States Army from 1959 - 1964. He married the late Liz Ingleson in 1965 and Cynthia Ann Cherbak in 1991.

Michael was an actor, writer and producer that enjoyed worthwhile memberships in the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Writers Guild of America West, Actors Equity Association and Sigma Delta Chi. In 1990 he won the Writers Guild Award for Longform. 

Michael was preceded in death by both parents, his brother, James and his first wife, Liz. He is survived by his wife of 32 years, Cynthia Ann Cherbak of Toluca Lake, CA; daughter, Chelsea Cherbak Norell of Eagle Rock, CA and son, James Cherbak Norell of West Los Angeles, CA.

Arrangements were entrusted to the Haky/Georgiana Centre County Funeral Home. Services are private per the request of the family. An online guestbook may be signed and condolences left for the family at www.hakygeorgianafh.com

To send a flower arrangement or to plant trees in memory of Michael Alden Norell, please click here to visit our Sympathy Store.

To plant Memorial Trees in memory of Michael Alden Norell, please click here to visit our Sympathy Store.

NORELL, Michael (Michael Alden Norell)

Born: 10/4/1937, Wallace, Idaho, U.S.A.

Died: 5/12/2023, Huntington, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

 

Michael Norell’s westerns – writer:

The Magnificent 7 (TV) – 1998, 2000

RIP Samantha Weinstein

 

‘Carrie’ star, voice actor Samantha Weinstein dies

The Bone Bonus

By Natalie Dreier

May 25, 2023

 

Canadian actor Samantha Weinstein has died after a long battle with cancer.

She was 28.

Weinstein was cast as Heather in the 2013 remake of “Carrie” appearing with Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore.

Weinstein started acting at the age of 6 and appeared in several movies such as “Big Girl,” “The Stone Age” and “Toronto Stories,” E! News reported.

She also voiced characters in animated shows such as “Let’s Go Luna!” and “Super Why!,” according to her IMDb profile.

Her death was announced earlier this month on her Instagram page, reading in part, “Sam died on May 14 at 11:25 am surrounded by her loved ones at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto,” Entertainment Tonight reported.

The post said she had battled cancer for two and a half years. She was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer at the age of 25 after saying she was “strangely bloated” adding that her health change “happened almost overnight,” E! News reported. A week after getting the health news she reconnected with Michael Knutson, Entertainment Tonight reported. E! News said they were old friends.

Weinstein and Knutson married in October and recently took a belated honeymoon to Japan.

WEINSTEIN, Samantha

Born: 3/20/1995, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Died: 5/14/2023, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

 

Samantha Weinstein’s western – voice actress:

Dino Ranch 2021 [English voice of Clara Tinhorn]

RIP Marlene Clark

 

Marlene Clark, Actress in ‘Sanford and Son’ and ‘Ganja & Hess,’ Dies at 85

Her body of work also included 'Switchblade Sisters,' 'Enter the Dragon,' 'Night of the Cobra Woman' and 'Slaughter.'

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

May 26, 2023

Marlene Clark, the statuesque actress who portrayed Lamont’s fiancée on Sanford and Son and stood out in such 1970s’ films as Ganja & Hess, Switchblade Sisters and Slaughter, has died. She was 85.

Clark died May 18 in her home in Los Angeles, her family announced. No cause of death was revealed.

Clark also starred as a reptilian seductress in Roger Corman’s Night of the Cobra Woman (1972) and as one of the suspected werewolves in the British horror film The Beast Must Die (1974), and she was an early victim in the Larry Hagman-directed Beware! The Blob (1972).

Clark played John Saxon‘s secretary in Enter the Dragon (1973), starring Bruce Lee, and her big-screen body of work also included Black Mamba (1974), Newman’s Law (1974), Lord Shango (1975) and The Baron (1977), where she appeared opposite her Beast Must Die onscreen husband, Calvin Lockhart.

In the surreal Ganja & Hess (1973), directed by Bill Gunn, Clark sparkled as a widow named Ganja who is turned into a vampire by Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones), an anthropologist turned immortal bloodsucker. He eventually gives up that way of life, but she soldiers on. The movie played as the only American entry in the Critics Week sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival that year.

“There are so many levels to her personality,” she said of her character in a 2000 Temple of Schlock interview. “She’s such a collection of contradictions. Playing that part was very rewarding.”

Clark portrayed a government agent in the Jim Brown-starring Slaughter (1972) and Muff, the leader of an all-female Black gang aiming to derail murderous drug dealers, in Switchblade Sisters (1975), directed by Jack Hill.

She then recurred as Janet Lawson, the love interest of Demond Wilson’s character, on six episodes of NBC’s Sanford and Son from 1976-77. Lamont’s pop, Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx), does not approve of them getting engaged at first, but he comes around.

Born in Harlem on Dec. 19, 1937, Clark often spent her summers in West Virginia, the birthplace of her mother.

She attended Morristown Junior College in Tennessee and City College in New York and worked as a model before making her film debut in For Love of Ivy (1968), starring Sidney Poitier.

Clark followed with parts in John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969), Robert Downey Sr.’s Putney Swope (1969) — she was a topless flight attendant in a spoof of an airline commercial in that — and Hal Ashby’s The Landlord (1970), co-written by Gunn.

Gunn hired her for his directorial debut with Stop! (1970), but the film was given an X rating, shelved by Warner Bros. and not seen for years.

“Most of the movies I starred in didn’t come out when they were supposed to or never came out at all — and if the movies aren’t going to be released, the studios aren’t going to do anything to promote them,” she said. “So you miss out on all that publicity that can lead to other jobs.”

Clark, though, managed to find work on episodes of Marcus Welby, M.D., Bonanza, Mod Squad, McCloud, The Rookies, Barnaby Jones, Flamingo Road, Highway to Heaven and Head of the Class before leaving acting in the late 1980s.

While still acting, she opened her own clothing store on Melrose Avenue in the ’80s and then became the manager of Hal’s Bar & Grill in Venice Beach.

“For 15 years she curated a bustling restaurant scene where underground artists mingled with locals and the stars of film and television,” her family said. “She had a vision of culinary excellence coupled with dynamic professional service and would lay out the blueprint for the glamorous L.A. restaurant scene brilliantly casted with her discerning eye.

“Marlene’s style was impeccable. She loved fashion, food and acting. Her large, full laugh that could fill a room will be missed. She leaves behind friends and family that will forever be grateful for her grace, love and beautiful heart. Marlene was one of our finest examples of Black beauty.”

She was the second wife of actor Billy Dee Williams (they were married from 1968-71), and they appeared together in the 1970 NBC telefilm Lost Flight.

CLARK, Marlene

Born: 12/19/1937, Harlem, New York U.S.A.

Died: 5/18/2023, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Marlene Clark’s western – actress:

Bonanza (TV) – 1971 (Liza Walter)

RIP Ken Westbury

 

Cinematographer who played a key role in bringing a dreamlike quality to many scenes in the BBC drama Pennies from Heaven

The Guardian

By Anthony Hayward

May 21, 2023

 

Pennies from Heaven, Dennis Potter’s groundbreaking 1978 television series about a travelling sheet music-seller of the 1930s, featured Bob Hoskins in daydreaming scenes where he lip-synced to popular songs of the time. Ken Westbury’s cinematography, particularly his use of light, was instrumental in giving those sequences a surreal, dreamlike quality that provided the fantasy element into which the drama – and the character – could escape from reality.

Westbury, who has died of skin cancer aged 96, became a film camera operator and director of photography in television after a grounding in cinema at Ealing Studios on classic comedies such as Whisky Galore! and Kind Hearts and Coronets (both 1949).

Over 40 years, mostly with the BBC, he switched from the police series Z Cars (from 1962 to 1964) and period pieces including The Forsyte Saga (1967) to sci-fi, filming for four different Doctor Who adventures between 1966 and 1978.

When he worked with Potter again on The Singing Detective (1986), directed by Jon Amiel, the New York Times wrote: “Mr Amiel and his cinematographer, Ken Westbury, use every inch of the television screen to make the most of shapes, colours, light and movement.”

Of the drama’s unusual technical demands, Westbury recalled: “We had to pan completely 180 degrees round the [hospital] ward and finish at exactly the right moment on the nurse at the desk as the tune ended.”

Earlier, in television’s black-and-white era, with the flamboyant director Ken Russell, he made programmes for the arts series Monitor. The most notable was The Debussy Film: Impressions of the French Composer (1965), a biopic written by Russell and Melvyn Bragg, with Oliver Reed in the lead role.

Westbury helped to achieve the director’s vision through his stark, sensual images and, again, use of light, such as in a woodland scene where it pierces through tree leaves as Debussy swings in a hammock while his lover plays with a balloon.

Working as a cinematographer shooting on film sometimes took him abroad. For all three series of the female prisoner-of-war drama Tenko (1981-84) and the 1985 feature-length Tenko Reunion, Westbury enjoyed time in Singapore. He was in Switzerland for Dr Fischer of Geneva (1984), starring James Mason, and again for Potter’s lavishly produced adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender Is the Night (1985), also shot in France.

Ken was born in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, to Kathleen (nee Gibson) and Albert Westbury, a postal worker. In 1942, on leaving Willesden technical college aged 15, he joined the camera workshop at Ealing Studios – famous for its screen comedies – running errands and sweeping the floor. He progressed to clapper loader, working on films such as Champagne Charlie (1944), then focus puller.

During three years’ national service (1945-48) after the second world war, he was a wireless operator and armoured-car driver with the Household Cavalry’s Life Guards, serving in Germany, Egypt and Palestine.

Westbury returned to Ealing Studios as clapper loader on Whisky Galore!, with location filming on Barra, in the Western Isles, Scotland. He clocked up more than 20 other feature films, including the comedy The Man in the White Suit (1951) and the wartime drama The Cruel Sea (1953).

Ealing’s golden era eventually ended and, in 1956, the studios were sold to the BBC, which based its film department there. Westbury joined it and, within a year, was promoted to film camera operator.

He worked on many popular TV series, including the police drama Dixon of Dock Green (from 1961 to 1964), reuniting him with Jack Warner, who as the programme’s title character had starred in the 1950 Ealing Studios film The Blue Lamp, on which Westbury was clapper loader.

Westbury enjoyed particular success shooting The Forsyte Saga, the BBC’s last major drama to be made in black-and-white, which was popular worldwide. His other period productions included the nautical “soap with salt” The Onedin Line (1971), filming along the Devon coast, and When the Boat Comes in (1976), set in the Depression-hit north-east of England between the wars.

He also did location filming for Warship (1973-77), including helicopter shots of the vessel breaking the waves for the opening titles and a rocky journey through the Bay of Biscay, and Donald Wilson’s 10-part adaptation of Anna Karenina (1977), in Hungary.

In 1978, for the wartime-resistance drama Secret Army, he filmed across England’s home counties and in Belgium, while the romantic costume serial Penmarric (1979) took him to Cornwall.

Providing film inserts for Doctor Who included enterprisingly shooting through wagon wheel spokes for the western adventure The Gunfighters (1966) and battling bad weather in a helicopter over the Thames estuary for Fury from the Deep (1968).

On reaching 60, then the BBC’s compulsory retirement age, Westbury turned freelance and filmed for programmes across all channels, from Malcolm Bradbury’s comedy The Gravy Train (1990) on Channel 4, and Chimera (1991) and a 1999 Ruth Rendell Mysteries story on ITV, to the 1994 and 1995 series of Pie in the Sky and 1997 episodes of Silent Witness on the BBC.

As the director of photography on the ITV production of the Catherine Cookson story The Black Velvet Gown (1991), he helped the film win an International Emmy award as best drama. He personally won the Royal Television Society’s 1987 judges’ award.

In 1949, Westbury married Doreen White; she died in 2013. He is survived by their four children, Nigel, Janet, Mark and Simon. The cinematographer John Daly is his son-in-law.

WESTBURY, Ken (Albert Kenneth Westbury)

Born: 1/5/1927, Sherpherd’s Bush, London, England, U.K.

Died: 4/28/2023, Staines, Middlesex, England, U.K.

 

Ken Westbury’s westerns – camera operator, cinematographer:

Dr. Who: The Gunfighters (TV) – 1966 [cameraman]

The Last of the Mohicans (TV) – 1971 [cameraman]

The Mad Trapper – 1972 [cinematographer]

RIP Jim Brown

 

Jim Brown, NFL Great and Star of Films Including ‘The Dirty Dozen,’ Dies at 87

Variety

By Camel Dagan

May 19, 2023

 

Jim Brown, the NFL titan who appeared in “The Dirty Dozen,” a number of Blaxploitation films and Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday,” The Running Man,” Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks” and Spike Lee’s “He Got Game,” to name a few films, died Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 87.

His wife Monique posted the news of his death on Instagram, saying, “He passed peacefully last night at our L.A. home.”

In nine extraordinary seasons as a fullback with the Cleveland Browns, Brown set an array of NFL records. In 2002 the Sporting News named him the greatest professional football player ever. That phenomenal athleticism and a charismatic personality made him bankable as the first African American action star.

Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr. and Bill Cosby had come before, but they were not action stars, and Fred Williamson was a Blaxploitation star like Brown in the 1970s, but he did not get the chance to appear in mainstream studio action films in the 1960s like Brown did.

Despite the strength of the cast in Robert Aldrich’s 1967 World War II film “The Dirty Dozen,” a tribute to the enlisted man that starred Lee Marvin, Brown was fourth-billed. An enormous commercial success, the film raised the fortunes of everyone involved, including Brown.

The football star-turned-actor next starred alongside Rod Taylor as a pair of mercenaries in Africa seeking to heist some diamonds in Jack Cardiff’s “Dark of the Sun,” then was first billed in the little-known mystery-drama “Kenner” as well as in the heist film “The Split,” starring alongside Diahann Carroll; his final film of 1968 was the fairly anemic but high-profile submarine thriller “Ice Station Zebra,” starring Rock Hudson.

Next was the far meatier “Riot,” Buzz Kulik’s grim, realistic prison drama in which Brown starred with Gene Hackman. Roger Ebert was underwhelmed by the film but declared: “‘Riot’ does demonstrate in Brown’s case that he can now move on from simple action roles to more challenging parts. He has an easy, humorous way of delivering a line that wins spontaneous approval from the audience.”

The 1969 Western “100 Rifles” starred Brown as an Arizona lawman who ventures into Mexico to find Burt Reynolds’ Yaqui Joe, a Native American who robbed a bank to buy rifles for his people. There he tangles with a beautiful native leader played by sex symbol of the day Raquel Welch; much was made in the press of the interracial love scene featuring Brown and Welch, but Brown apparently grew impatient with the actress because of the control her people exerted over the film. “When I’m on a picture,” he told Ebert at the time, “I have two bosses, the director and the producer. My co-star is not my boss.”

After playing Jacqueline Bisset’s husband in “The Grasshopper,” Brown starred opposite Lee Van Cleef in the Western “El Condor.” He was about to turn a page in his career: The actor starred in a series of Blaxploitation films starting with 1972’s “Slaughter,” in which he played a former Green Beret captain in Vietnam, referred to only by his last name — the title of the film — who seeks to avenge the murder of his parents by the Mafia (a sequel, “Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off,” followed in 1973). But also in 1972, he’d also made “Black Gunn,” in which he played a successful nightclub owner whose brother is part of the militant African American organization BAG (Black Action Group); the Mafia was again the enemy. In 1973 he starred in the Roger Corman-produced, “Papillon”-like exploitation film “I Escaped From Devil’s Island” and in prison picture “The Slams.”

For 1974’s “Three the Hard Way,” director Gordon Parks Jr. teamed the three biggest blaxploitation stars — Brown, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly  — in the story of a team that battles white supremacists plotting to somehow kill the black population of the U.S. by poisoning the water.

Brown, Williamson and Kelly were reteamed the next year in a largely bland spaghetti Western called “Take a Hard Ride” in which the villains, led by Lee Van Cleef, were mostly white; the film was released not by one of the exploitation distributors but by 20th Century Fox.

Brown did another Western with Van Cleef, “Vengeance,” in 1977, and then made an unexpected move for an action star: He appeared in James Toback’s directorial debut “Fingers,” starring Harvey Keitel as a pianist and collector for his loan-shark father.

Scott Tobias of the Onion A.V. Club wrote: “Keitel’s character gets involved with a sexually pliant sculptor who’s drawn more powerfully toward womanizing stud Jim Brown, whose supreme confidence throws Keitel’s weakness and uncertainty into sharp relief. Produced independently by George Barrie, ‘Fingers’ delves into racial and sexual territory that was considered taboo even in the more permissive and adventurous studio system of the ’70s.”

After action film “Pacific Inferno” in 1979, Brown appeared in the Fred Williamson-written and -directed “One Down, Two to Go” in 1982. On screen the film reunited Williamson, Brown and Jim Kelly and also starred Richard Roundtree (the star of “Shaft”).

During the early to mid-’80s Brown made appearances on TV shows including “CHiPs,” “Knight Rider,” “T.J. Hooker” and “The A-Team.”

He played one of the villains in futuristic Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle “The Running Man,” and he was among the stars of Keenen Ivory Wayans’ 1988 parody of Blaxploitation films, “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.”

Brown then spent years doing straight to video films before another effort to revive the genre, 1996’s “Original Gangstas,” starring Williamson, Brown and the top female Blaxploitation star of the ’70s, Pam Grier.

That same year he appeared in Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks” as a former heavyweight champion who works in a casino.

BROWN, Jim (James Nathaniel Brown)

Born: 2/17/1936, St. Simons Island, Georgia, U.S.A.

Died: 5/18/2023, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A

 

Jim Brown’s westerns – actor:

Rio Conchos – 1964 (Franklyn)

El Condor – 1969 (Luke)

100 Rifles – 1969 (Lyedecker)

Take a Hard Ride – 1975 (Frank Pike)

Kid Vengeance – 1976 (Isaac)

RIP Ray Austin

 

Moonbase Alpha

 

Born 1932. Austin began his career as a stuntman, first in his native Britain, then in the US in films like Spartacus (1960). He returned to Britain, working on the series The Saint (1963-68) first as an actor and stuntman, and graduating through directing action sequences until by 1968 he was directing whole episodes of the series. He also worked as a second unit director on The Champions (1968) and directed episodes of The Avengers (1968), Randall & Hopkirk Deceased (1969), Department S (1969) and UFO. He also directed documentaries, winning an Outstanding Film Award at the London Film Festival for The Perpetual Garden, and some films, including The Zany Adventures Of Robin Hood (1974).

He was involved early on with Space: 1999, helping cast the regulars. His wife Yasuko Nagazumi played Yasko in eight episodes of Year 2. He knew Martin Landau prior to making Space: 1999 as he was Landau's stunt double in the Mount Rushmore scene in North By Northwest (1959) and he was a stunt coordinator on Cleopatra (1962).

He has since directed episodes of The New Avengers (1976-77), The Return Of The Saint (1977), The Professionals (1978), and, after he moved to the US, Magnum P.I. (1984) and the 1984 TV movie Return Of The Man From Uncle. He has directed episodes of V (1985), Highlander (1992-1997), JAG (1995-2001) and CI5 The New Professionals (1998).

Sylvia Anderson on Ray Austin: “Ray Austin was an ex-stuntman, he used to be the driver for Cary Grant. He was quite a character. A lot of his stuff was a little difficult to edit, but he produced the goods.”

Christopher Penfold: “I think Ray Austin was absolutely right for the series. Ray started off life as a stuntman and then he made a name for himself as an action director, in Hollywood I think. He had a terrific raw energy he brought to his episodes. Everything I say about him as a director was in a sense the opposite of what I was looking for in writers and maybe that was a good thing.”

AUSTIN, Ray (Raymond John DeVere Austin)

Born: 12/3/1932, London, England, U.K.

Died: 5/17/2023, Earlysville, Virginia, U.S.A.

 

Ray Austin’s westerns – stuntman, stunt coordinator, director, producer:

Have Gun – Will Travel – 1957-1963 [stunts]

The Sundowners – 1960 [stunt coordinator]

Zorro (TV) – 1989-1992 [producer]

The Boys of Twilight (TV) – 1992 [director]

Zorro: A Conspiracy of Blood – 1996 [director]

Zorro: The Legend Begins – 1996 [director]

RIP Anatoly Yelizarov

The Mime And Actor Anatoly Yelizarov Died In Moscow At The Age Of 80. He Was Called The “Russian Marcel Marceau” 

The Eastern Herald

May 10, 2023

 

Honored artist of Russia, the master of pantomime Anatoly Yelizarov was found dead in his apartment in Moscow. On this subject informed TASS in reference to emergency services.

According to the interlocutor of the agency, Yelizarov stopped contacting his relatives. On May 8, experts opened the door to the artist’s apartment and found him dead. According to preliminary data, he died of cardiovascular failure. Yelizarov was 80 years old.

Anatoly Yelizarov was born on February 16, 1943, in Leningrad. From the age of 13, he studied the art of pantomime in the Mime studio of the famous circus artist Rudolf Slavsky. Since the 1960s, the artist began to tour in the USSR and abroad. The Soviet and foreign press compares him to the master of French mime Marcel Marceau.

Yelizarov was a laureate of international competitions and festivals, taught at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts (RATI), Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center, Boris Shchukin Theater Institute, State University all-Russian cinematographer named SA Gerasimov (VGIK), gave master classes in Russia and abroad.

Yelizarov also starred in the films “Aibolit-66” by Rolan Bykov, “Completely Lost” by Georgy Danelia, “The Sun, Again the Sun” by Svetlana Druzhinina, “The Crew” by Alexander Mitta, “The Imaginary Sick” by Leonid Nechaev.

YELIZAROV, Anatoly

Born: 2/16/1943, Leningrad, Russia, U.S.S.R.

Died: 5/8/2023, Moscow, Russia

 

Anatoly Yelizarov’s western – actor:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – 1973 (Man with top hat and cane)

 

RIP Iain Johnstone

 

Documentary maker, producer, writer and distinguished film critic for the Sunday Times and the BBC

The Guardian

By Will Wyatt

May 18, 2023

 

There were few great movie stars of the late 20th century not filmed, interviewed or profiled by the television producer, filmmaker and author Iain Johnstone, who has died aged 80. He was both a respected critic of the movie business and a participant, as screenwriter and maker of documentaries about the making of films.

He had a long professional relationship with Steven Spielberg, beginning in 1974, when Iain had just spent a year in the US as professor of broadcasting at Boston University. Having heard that the movie Jaws was being shot on Martha’s Vineyard, he made a short film, The Jaws Report, for the BBC. He went on to make seven more films about the director’s works, including Jurassic Park, Minority Report, the Indiana Jones sequence and War of the Worlds.

Before this, as a TV producer, he had originated BBC1’s flagship review programme Film …, beginning with Film 71, trying several presenters before settling on Barry Norman. Iain presented Film 82 himself for a year, in Norman’s absence.

He had been filming profiles of stars for the BBC since 1971, the first being Dustin Hoffman on location for Straw Dogs. Others followed, and in 1976 he spent time with John Wayne on board the star’s converted minesweeper off Mexico. Wayne assumed much of the camera directing and claimed his screen characterhad “never been mean or petty or small”, a phrase Iain liked to savour.

In 1975 Iain had formed his own company, and the following year Richard Attenborough asked him to make a documentary about the shooting of his film A Bridge Too Far. This was the subject of Iain’s first book, The Arnhem Report. His second, in 1981, a biography of Clint Eastwood, sprang from his 1977 documentary The Man With No Name.

Other film profiles included Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty, Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson making The Shining, Woody Allen and, in 1979, a documentary about the Monty Python team as they made The Life of Brian.

Iain became friends with John Cleese and filmed the making of A Fish Called Wanda in 1988. By then Iain had been working as film critic of the Sunday Times since 1983, and after a decade in the post gave it up to write a film script with Cleese. This was the less well-received Fierce Creatures (1997), starring Cleese, Kevin Cline, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Palin.

Fortunately Iain was then commissioned to write a companion volume to the 1999 Bond film, The World Is Not Enough. More biographies followed (he had published a third, of Dustin Hoffman, in 1984): Tom Cruise in 2006 and Meryl Streep in 2009.

He also wrote fiction – Cannes: The Novel (1990), a thriller, Wimbledon (2000) – Iain was a keen tennis player, a member of Queen’s and Campden Hill clubs in London – and Pirates of the Mediterranean (2010).

Born in Reading, Berkshire, to Ethel “Gillie” (nee Gilmour) and Jack Johnstone, Iain went to Crosfields school, before his father got a job as a postmaster in Belfast, and he went to Campbell college there. He studied law at Bristol University, graduating in 1965 – late in life he used his law to train as a commercial mediator, practising at central London county court from around 2005.

At Bristol he worked for BBC Points West and on graduation joined ITN reading the late bulletins. There he made a friend in Richard Whiteley, whose biography, Richard by Kathryn, he later co-wrote with Whiteley’s partner in 2006.

From ITN, Iain went to the BBC in 1968, where his work stretched far wider than films. I met him there the following year, when I was sent to work as his number two on Points of View, presented by Robert Robinson. He also made Robinson’s Travels documentaries about India (1979), while Robinson Cruising (1981), on a cruise liner, upset P&O. He worked on the nightly current affairs programme 24 Hours, ran Watergate coverage from Washington in 1973, and produced The Frost Interview (1974).

Three more productions stand out. First, a 1977 documentary about Muhammad Ali, when Iain spent 10 days with Ali, at his training camp, in his home town of Louisville and on a visit to Harvard where Ali had been invited to speak. Then, the chatshow Friday Night, Saturday Morning (1979-80), where Iain took the unheard of risk of changing presenters every two weeks – some triumphant professionals, such as Ned Sherrin and Tim Rice; one a disastrous amateur, the former prime minister Harold Wilson. The third, Snowdon on Camera (1981), two witty, insightful films about photography presented by Tony Snowdon, was nominated for a best documentary Bafta.

For eight years in the late 1980s to early 90s he was host of the BBC Radio 4 quiz Screenplay. He was marvellous company, a charmer, with a wry wit and an almost old-fashioned politeness. He valued good manners and said his nicest interviewee was James Stewart; the antithesis being Yul Brynner – “He actually thought he was the King of Siam.”

Close Encounters – A Media Memoir (2015), was his 12th and last book, brimming with tales of the film industry and the characters, famous and otherwise, who inhabit it. He was working on projects till nearly the end, including ghosting a memoir for a distinguished lawyer (as yet unpublished), and writing a drama about the pianist Glenn Gould.

A brief marriage to Renate Kohler ended in divorce. In 1980 he married Mo Watson, a script supervisor, and she, as well as their three children, Sophie, Holly, and Oliver, and six grandchildren, survive him.

JOHNSTONE, Iain (Iain Gilmour Johnstone)

Born: 4/8/1943, Reading, Berkshire, England, U.K.

Died: 5/4/2023, London, England, U.K.

 

Iain Johnstone western – author, producer:

The Man With No Name - 1977 [author]

The Man With No Name (TV) – 1977  

RIP Larry Mahan

 

Legendary Cowboy Larry Mahan Passes Away at Age 79

Cowboy Channel

May 7, 2023

 

One of the greatest cowboys in ProRodeo history, Larry Mahan, has passed away at the age of 79.

Mahan was a prolific roughstock cowboy in his career, making the NFR 26 times combined between bareback riding, saddle bronc riding and bull riding. He was the Bull Riding World Champion in 1965 and 1967 in addition to winning six All-Around Gold Buckles.

After Mahan’s career, which spanned, from 1964 until 1975, he was one of the first inductees to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979.

Mahan is also a member of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, Cheyenne Frontier Days Hall of Fame, Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame among many others.

Outside of the arena, Mahan found success in the western wear business with boot and hat collections, recorded an country album with Warner Brothers and was the subject of the Academy Award winning documentary “Great American Cowboy.”

He also served as a mentor to the man who would eventually break his All-Around World Title record, Ty Murray.

“He took me under his wing when I was 13,” Murray told ProRodeo.com. “I went and lived with him that summer and he didn’t really teach me anything about riding. He never really even mentioned anything about riding but taught me a lot about not being shy when people want to interview you and to try and give thoughtful answers and tell them what it is like because most people can’t fathom what it is like to ride a bull or a bucking horse. He taught me the importance of all that stuff, which was really a big help for me in my career because growing up, if it didn’t have to do with being a cowboy, I didn’t care about it.”

MAHAN. Larry (Larry E. Mahan)

Born: 11/21/1943, Midway Islands, Oregon, U.S.A.

Died: 5/7/2023, Valley View, Texas, U.S.A.

 

Larry Mahan’s westerns – actor:

The Honkers – 1972 [himself]

Mackintosh and T.J. – 1975 (Dan)

The Quest (TV) – 1976 (Cory)

The Good Old Boys (TV) – 1995 (Blue Hanigan)

Streets of Laredo (TV) 1995 (ranger)

A Time to Revenge – 1997 (Conrad)

Blood Trail – 1997 (Jim Valesky)

RIP John Refoua

 

John Refoua, ‘Avatar’ Series Film Editor, Dies at 58

Variety

By McKinley Franklin

May 16, 2023

 

John Refoua, the Oscar-nominated film editor who worked on both “Avatar” and “Avatar: The Way of Water,” died Sunday from complications related to bile cancer. He was 58.

Refoua’s career as an editor reached new heights with the success of 2009’s “Avatar.” Working alongside James Cameron and Stephen E. Rivkin, the trio was nominated for the best achievement in film edited at the Academy Awards in 2010.

After “Avatar,” Refoua returned to edit on the film’s 2022 sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water.” In years between, Refoua credits included “Transformers: The Last Knight” and “Geostorm,” as well as television series “Touched by an Angel,” “Law & Order,” “New York Undercover,” “Dark Angel” and “CSI: Miami.”

In the spring of 2022, Refoua was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, an infrequent form of bile duct cancer. He continued to contribute to editing director Cameron’s third “Avatar” entry up to his final weeks of life, his wife Serena Refoua confirmed. The film is set to release at the end of 2024.

“My brilliant, sweet, creative husband John Djahanshah Refoua passed away on May 14 surrounded by family and friends who loved him,” Serena shared in a statement. “Despite the pain and complexities of this aggressive disease, he faced it with courage and grit… His life’s trajectory was quite unique and anything he touched, he made better.”

Refoua was a 2010 Critics Choice Award winner for best editing for “Avatar.” He was also a member of the American Cinema Editors organization.

Refoua is survived by his wife, Serena; and his granddaughter, Avery Sophia.

REFOUA, John (John Djahanshah Refoua)

Born: 12/8/2964, New York City, New York, U.S.A

Died: 5/14/2023, Altadena, California, U.S.A.

 

John Refoua’s westerns – film editor:

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (TV) 1993

Legend – 1995

The Magnificent Seven - 2016

RIP Gonzalo Abril

 

Gonzalo Abril, Valladolid dubbing actor, dies

He put his voice to more than a thousand films, including 'Gladiator', 'Star Wars' or 'La, La, Land'

El Norte de Castilla

May 15 2023

 

Gonzalo Abril died in Barcelona, Spain on May 13, 2023. He was 63 years old. Born on August 13, 1959 in Valladolid, Castile and León. He was a Spanish director, adaptor and voice actor since the mid-eighties. He was the regular voice of John Diehl, Colm Feore, Steve Coogan and Kevin Pollak.

As a director and adaptor include works such as “Birdman”, “Monument's Men”, “Grand Budapest Hotel”, “Captain America”, “Enemy”, “Exodus: Gods and Kings”, “Lincoln”, “World War Z”, “The Descendants”, “The Untouchables”, “Mission Impossible”, “Moulin Rouge” and “(La La Land)”.

In addition to his professional side, he also highlights his work as a teacher at the School of Dubbing of Barcelona where he had been teaching for years.

ABRIL, Gonzalo (Gonzalo Abril Vega)

Born: 8/13/1959, Valladolid, Castile and León, Spain

Died: 5/13/2023, Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

 

Gonzalo Abril’s westerns - voice dubber, voice actor:

Silverado – 1985 [Spanish voice of Brad Williams]

The Boy from Oklahoma – 1989 [Spanish voice of Will Rogers Jr.]

Last of the Mohicans – 1992 [Spanish voice of Terry Kinner]

Geronimo an American Legend – 1994 [Spanish voice of Steve Reevis]

Asterix in America – 1995 [Spanish voice of Ives Pignot]

Red Rock West – 1995 [Spanish voice of Robert Guajardo]

Texas Rangers – 2002 [Spanish voice of Oded Fehr]

The Legend of Zorro – 2005 [Spanish voice of Pepe Oliveras]

Rango – 2011 [Spanish voice of Sergeant Turley]

Django Unchained – 2012 [Spanish voice of Christoph Waltez]

RIP Paul Playdon

 

Paul Playdon Spyfi writer dies

The Spy Command

May 13, 2023

 

Paul Playdon (1943-2023), when he was a child actor, in a memorable episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1957, The Glass Eye with Jessica Tandy.

Paul Playdon, who began his show business career as a child actor, then transitioned to being a television writer-producer, has died at 80.

His death was reported on Facebook by a friend, Danny Biderman in a detailed post. Biederman has an extensive collection of props from various examples of spy entertainment.

Playdon, born in the U.K., had been a child actor appearing in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in the 1957 episode The Glass Eye. Other performers in the episode included Jessica Tandy and William Shatner.

Playdon moved to being a writer-producer. His work covered a number of television series, including Hawaii Five-O, Cannon, The Wild Wild West and The Magician.

Perhaps his biggest television impact was on the original Mission: Impossible series. He was brought on as story editor after ace M:I writer-producers William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter exited the show after a dispute with creator-executive producer Bruce Geller.

Playdon, with his story editor hat, had to revise scripts. His M:I input as writer also included a two-part story as well as the show’s only three-part story. Bits of both adventures showed up in the 2011 Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol movie.

PLAYDON, Paul (Paul Christopher Playdon)

Born: 1/14/1943, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, U.K.

Died: 5/12/2023, Silicon Beach, California, U.S.A.

 

Paul Playdon’s westerns – actor: writer:

Sergeant Preston of the Yukom (TV) – 1958 (Tommy Smith)

Daniel Boone (TV) 1967, 1958 [writer]

Lancer (TV) 1968 [writer]

RIP Joe Kapp

 

Vikings Legend Joe Kapp Dies at Age 85; QB Led MIN to 1969 NFL Championship

Bleacher Report

By Paul Kasabian

May 9, 2023

 

Former NFL and CFL star quarterback Joe Kapp, who helped lead the 1969 Minnesota Vikings to the NFL title and a Super Bowl IV appearance, died early Tuesday morning at the age of 85.

Kapp's son, J.J., confirmed the news to Ron Kroichick of the San Francisco Chronicle and said that his father had suffered from dementia for 15 years.

Kapp played college ball at Cal, leading the Golden Bears to a 1959 Rose Bowl appearance. He then starred in the CFL for eight years with the Calgary Stampeders (1959-1960) and BC Lions (1961-1966). He was a two-time All-Star and led the Lions to the 1964 Grey Cup.

The Vikings then executed an NFL-CFL trade, acquiring Kapp to replace Fran Tarkenton, who had been dealt to the New York Giants. He joined the team in legendary head coach Bud Grant's first year at the helm.

Minnesota struggled in Kapp's first season, going 3-8-3. However, the team won the Central division in 1968 before winning the last-ever NFL championship in 1969 before the NFL and AFL merged in 1970. The Vikings played the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl IV but fell 23-7.

Kapp finished second in the NFL MVP voting in 1969 and even threw seven touchdown passes in one game against the Baltimore Colts, which tied a record that stands to this day.

Despite leading the Vikings to a Super Bowl, he never played another down for Minnesota. Craig Peters and Lindsey Young of vikings.com explained more:

"The Vikings and Kapp could not reach an agreement to return him for the 1970 season, and he played his final NFL season with the Boston Patriots. Kapp's lawsuit against the terms of the contract eventually led to free agency."

Kapp played one season with the then-Boston Patriots, who ended up selecting Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jim Plunkett with the first overall pick in 1971. Kapp reported to the Pats in training camp but left the team and never played professional football again.

Per ESPN News Services, Kapp stands as the only signal-caller to ever lead teams to a Rose Bowl, Grey Cup and Super Bowl.

Kapp coached his alma mater from 1982-1986 and was on the sidelines for one of the most infamous moments in college football history when Cal scored a game-winning touchdown on a kickoff return following numerous laterals against arch-rival Stanford while its band ran onto the field as time expired in the Golden Bears' eventual 25-20 win.

Many people expressed their condolences and remembrances of Kapp following news of his death.

"Men like Joe Kapp are the cornerstones the Minnesota Vikings franchise was built upon," Vikings owner/president Mark Wilf said, per Peters and Young.

"Joe's toughness and competitive spirit defined the Vikings teams of his era, and his tenacity and leadership were respected by teammates and opponents alike. We mourn Joe's loss with his family, friends and Vikings fans around the world."

"He was a great leader, a great friend and he really held our team together," Pro Football Hall of Famer and former teammate Paul Krause said, per ESPN.

"He was a guy who liked to have fun and win football games, and that's what counted. I respected him for his love of the game and love for his teammates. We lost a good friend."

Numerous people on Twitter did as well, offering their various thoughts on the colorful quarterback.

Kapp even had 27 acting credits to his name, including one- or two-episode roles in shows such as M*A*S*H, Dynasty and The Six Million Dollar Man. He also appeared in the 1974 film, the Longest Yard.

KAPP, Joe (Joseph Robert Kapp)

Born: 3/19/1938, Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A.

Died: 5/8/2023, San Jose, California, U.S.A.

 

Joe Kapp’s westerns – actor:

Breakheart Pass – 1975 (Henry)

The Frisco Kid – 1979 (Monterano)

RIP Lisa Montell

 

Lisa Montell, Actress in ‘World Without End’ and Lots of TV Westerns, Dies at 89

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

May 10, 2023

 

Lisa Montell, a starlet in the 1950s and ’60s who appeared in such films as World Without End opposite Rod Taylor and Ten Thousand Bedrooms alongside Dean Martin, has died. She was 89.

Montell died March 7 in Southern California Hospital at Van Nuys of heart problems and sepsis, her daughter, Shireen Janti, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A native of Poland, Montell portrayed characters of various ethnicities during her career. In Naked Paradise (1957) and She Gods of Shark Reef (1958), directed back-to-back in Kauai by Roger Corman, she played Hawaiians.

She also showed up on several TV Westerns, including The Gene Autry Show, Broken Arrow, Tales of Wells Fargo, Colt .45, Have Gun — Will Travel, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, Bat Masterson and Maverick.

In the sci-fi feature World Without End (1956), written and directed by Edward Bernds, Montell portrayed a woman on Earth in the 26th century, hundreds of years after a devastating atomic war, who falls for an accidental time-traveling astronaut (Taylor).

And in the musical comedy Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957) — Martin’s first film after he and Jerry Lewis split up their act — she was sisters with Anna Maria Alberghetti, Eva Bartok and Lisa Gaye in Rome.

Born Irena Ludmilla Vladimiovna Augustinovich in Warsaw on July 5, 1933, she and her family fled to the U.S. before the Nazi invasion of their country in 1939. They settled in New York City.

She studied drama at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art, the High School of Performing Arts and the University of Miami, then moved to Lima, Peru, when her dad, Walery, landed a job with a mining company.

In 1953, she was spotted in a play and made her onscreen debut in The Daughter of the Sun God, filmed in Peru — that movie, however, would not be released until 1962 — and came to Los Angeles after her father died.

She appeared in five films released in 1955 — Escape to Burma, Jump Into Hell, Daddy Long Legs, Finger Man and Pearl of the South Pacific — and portrayed a ballet dancer in the Leslie Caron-starring Gaby (1956).

Her résumé also included other films like Tomahawk Trail (1957), The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958) and The Firebrand (1962) and episodes of The Millionaire, Wire Service, The Ann Sothern Show, Surfside 6, Mike Hammer, The Magical World of Walt Disney and 77 Sunset Strip.

She left acting in the mid-1960s, worked on a local TV show with Tom Bradley and served in his administration after he was elected L.A. mayor.

In addition to her daughter, whom she had with her husband, actor David Janti, survivors include her granddaughter, Tatiana.

MONTELL, Lisa (Irena Ludmilla Vladimirovna Augustinovich)

Born: 7/5/1933, Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Died: 3/7/2023, Van Nuys, California, U.S.A.

 

Lisa Montell’s westerns – actress:

Cheyenne (TV) 1955, 1960 (Rheba Garcia, Rosa)

The Gene Autry Show (TV) – 1955 (Esther Cameron)

The Wild Dakotas – 1956 (Ruth Murphy)

Tomahawk Trail – 1957 (Tula)

Broken Arrow (TV) – 1957 (Tesalbe)

Colt .45 (TV) – 1957 (Teresa Valdez)

Tales of Wells Fargo (TV) – 1957 (Juanita)

The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold – 1958 (Paviva)

The Adventures of Jim Bowie (TV) – 1958 (Lisette Rochambeau)

Sugarfoot (TV) – 1958, 1959 (Carmencita, Kenoee)

Frontier Doctor (TV) - 1959 (Marguerite Lidell)

Northwest Passage (TV) – 1959 (Emily Duren)

Have Gun – Will Travel (TV) – 1959 (Soledad Artega)

Bat Masterson (TV) – 1960 (Selena Thorn)

The Long Rope – 1961 (Alicia Alvarez)

The Deputy (TV) - 1961 (Rosaria Martinez)

Maverick (TV) – 1961 (Andalucia Rubio)

The Firebrand – 1962 (Clarita Vasconcelos)

RIP Federico Savina

Facebook

May 10, 2023

Godspeed, Maestro.

Today the cinematic arts lose a mentor, an artist, and a gentleman: Federico Savina.

If you ever heard music by Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, and even Jerry Goldsmith and Leonard Bernstein, chances are you have been in contact with his mixing or soundtrack restoration work.

A pioneer of new technology in sound, he's been a Dolby consultant during the stereo, early surround and digital transitions, contributing to the establishment of what we know today as the Dolby standards.

He could dub an entire sequence, music and dialogue, all in one pass, running faders in real time on an analog desk with no meters, on a student film he had never seen before, and he was 80 at the time!

Federico was the brother of the late composer Carol Savina.

Federico was the music editor on Ennio Morricone’s 1971’s score for “Duck You Sucker!

SAVINA, Federico

Born: 6/9/1935, Turin, Piedmont, Italy

Died: 5/10/2023, Rome, Lazio, Italy

 

Federico Savina’s western – music editor:

Duck You Sucker! - 1971