RIP Lina Wertmuller

 Lina Wertmuller, Famed Italian Filmmaker, Dies at 93

The writer-director, a two-time Oscar nominee, combined politics, sex and humor in such 1970s classics as 'Swept Away,' 'Seven Beauties' and 'The Seduction of Mimi.'

The Hollywood Reorter

By Duane Byrge, Mike Barnes

December 9, 2015

 

Lina Wertmüller, the masterful Italian filmmaker who created a sensation in the 1970s with her earthy mix of sex and politics seen in such classics as Seven Beauties, Swept Away and The Seduction of Mimi, has died. She was 93.

Wertmüller, the first woman to receive an Oscar nomination for best director (for 1975’s Seven Beauties), died Thursday in Rome, the Italian Film Archive told The Hollywood Reporter.

In October 2019, she was given an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards.

“She would like to change the Oscar to a feminine name,” Isabella Rossellini said, translating as Wertmüller accepted her statuette. “She would like to call it ‘Anna.’ Women in the room, please scream, ‘We want Anna, a female Oscar!'”

One of the first female helmers to be internationally recognized and acclaimed, Wertmüller attained the kind of last-name notoriety reserved for countrymen like Fellini (a mentor and employer), Bertolucci, Antonioni and De Sica. Her films skewered politics and contemporary values with comic anarchy.

Wertmüller also penned the original screenplay for Seven Beauties, with her regular leading man, Giancarlo Giannini, portraying a would-be ladies’ man who deserts the Italian army and winds up in a Nazi concentration camp, where he does anything to stay alive.

In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Candy called the film “a handbook for survival, a farce, a drama of almost shattering impact. It’s a disorderly epic, seductively beautiful to look at, as often harrowing as it is boisterously funny, though it has a solid substructure of common sense and precisely observed details from life.”

Her screenplay and Giannini also received Oscar noms, and Seven Beauties was one of the five finalists for best foreign-language film that year.

It was the fifth Wertmüller feature to be released in the U.S. inside of two years, capping off a remarkable run that began with The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973), All Screwed Up (1974) and Swept Away (1974).

The risque Swept Away told the story of a domineering rich woman (played by Mariangela Melato, another Wertmüller regular) and a working-class sailor (Giannini) whose class roles are reversed after they are shipwrecked alone on a remote island. Not only does he order her around, she likes it.

Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert wrote that Swept Away showed that “a woman is an essentially masochistic and submissive creature who likes nothing better than being swept off her feet by a strong and lustful male. This is a notion the feminists have spent the last 10 years trying to erase from our collective fantasies, and it must be unsettling, to say the least, to find the foremost woman director making a whole movie out of it.”

(Bereft of Wertmüller’s humor and sensual style, Swept Away was disastrously remade in 2002 by writer-director Guy Ritchie, starring his then-wife, Madonna, and Giannini’s son, Adriano.)

Recognizable by film cognoscenti for her white-framed glasses and pert hairstyle, Wertmüller had first come to international attention at Cannes with The Seduction of Mimi, a comedy about a macho Sicilian metal worker (Giancarlo Giannini again) who sacrifices happiness for his code of masculinity. It was the first movie from her company, Liberty Films, in which Giannini was a partner.

Love and Anarchy (1973), starring Giannini and Melato, revolves around a brothel and an assassination attempt of Mussolini in the fascist Italy of the 1930s,and the satireAll Screwed Up (1974) is an ensemble piece set in the kitchen of a restaurant in frenetic Milan. Wertmüller wrote both of those films as well.

In 1978, Wertmüller, after signing a four-film deal with Warner Bros., made her English-language debut with A Night Full of Rain, starring Giannini as a communist journalist who falls for a feminist American photographer (Candice Bergen) and follows her to San Francisco. Warners terminated her deal after the film performed poorly at the box office.

The future filmmaker was born in Rome into an aristocratic Swiss family on Aug. 14, 1928. Her name was Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller von Elgg Spanol von Brauchich, and her father was a successful attorney. Precocious and individualistic as a child, she was expelled from a number of Catholic schools.

She entered the Theater Academy of Rome and toured Europe as an actress and with a puppet troupe. Through her friend, the wife of actor Marcello Mastroianni, she was introduced to Federico Fellini and began her film career as an assistant director on 8 1/2 (1963). She shared his interest in juxtaposing reality and fantasy.

Wertmüller then wrote and made her feature directorial debut with The Lizards (1963), a story about aimless kids that was backed by Fellini and inspired by his 1953 film I Vitelloni. She followed with Let’s Talk About Men (1965), comprising four vignettes about abusive male-female relationships.

Although Wertmüller’s more recent works never attained the level of her 1970s films, she stayed active and made a number of films in her home country.

Her other efforts, many of which never played in U.S. theaters, included Blood Feud (1978), A Joke of Destiny (1983), Softly … Softly (1984), A Complex Plot About Women, Alleys and Crimes (1985), Summer Night With Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil (1986) and Crystal or Ash, Fire or Wind, as Long as It’s Love (1989), starring Faye Dunaway, Nastassja Kinski and Rutger Hauer.

She directed Italian comic Paolo Villaggio in Ciao, Professore! (1992) and called the shots for Sophia Loren in the comedy Saturday, Sunday, Monday (1990), in the 2001 telefilm Francesca and Nunziata and in Too Much Romance … It’s Time for Stuffed Peppers (2004).

The other women who have been Oscar-nominated for best directing are Jane Campion for The Piano (1993), Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation (2003), Kathryn Bigelow, who won, for The Hurt Locker (2009), Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird (2017) and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland (2020), who won.

She was married to Enrico Job, who served as her production designer, costume designer and/or art director on many of her films. He died in 2008.

 

WERTMULLER, Lina (Arcangela Felice Assunta Job Wertmüller von Elgg Espanol von Brauchich)

Born: 8/14/1928, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Died: 12/9/2021, Rome, Lazio, Italy

 

Lina Wertmuller’s westerns – director, screenwriter:

Belle Star - 1968 [D = Nathan Wich, SP = George Brown]

 

 

RIP Vincenzo Restucci

 Drummer and percussionist Vincenzo ‘Enzo’ Restuccia died in Rome on December 5, 2021. He was 80. Born in Naples, Italy on March 19, 1941 his mother was a Neapolitan mother and his father was a Sicilian (from Avola ), he began to play the drums becoming a pupil of Romeo De Piscopo , the early dead brother of the more famous Tullio .

After receiving his diploma in percussion obtained at the Conservatory of L'Aquila, he moved to Rome; Restuccia soon began working as a session man activity for Italian RCA , often working with Ennio Morricone and was part of the release of some 45 rpm records (for example for Paul Anka ). He married the violist Anna Giordano, and in 1969 he became the father of Marina, who later embarked on a career as a singer under the stage name ofMarina Rei.

 
He then became a drummer in the Rai orchestra, taking part in countless television broadcasts and participating, among other things, in eight consecutive editions of the Sanremo Festival (from 1993 to 2000); over the years he played on many records that have entered the history of our pop music, with names such as Sergio Endrigo, Fabrizio De André, Angelo Branduardi and Claudio Baglioni.

 
He often collaborated with Nicola Piovani, on the albums that the musician recorded as an arranger at the Ortophonic studios in Rome located in Piazza Euclide (now called Music Village; with the sound engineer is Sergio Marcotulli, father of the jazz pianist Rita).

At the same time he also pursued a career as a jazz drummer, playing in the Marcello Rosa quintet and in the Marcello Rosa Trad Band, and playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman and Paco de Lucía among others.

In the 1980s he became a drum teacher at the Perugia Conservatory, and at the Saint Louis College of Music. In recent years he often performed with his daughter, and was especially busy with Ennio Morricone's tours, in whose orchestra he was the drummer.

 

RESTUCCI, Enzo (Vincenzo Restucci)

Born: 3/19/1941, Naples, Campania, Italy

Died: 12/5/2021, Rome, Lazio, Italy

 

Enzo Restucci’s westerns – musician:

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – 1966 [percussionist]

My Name is Nobody – 1973 [percussionist]

RIP Stonewall Jackson

 Longtime country singer Stonewall Jackson dues at 89

 

News 4 Nashville

By Tony Garcia

December 4, 2021

 

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) – The country music world lost one of its legends today.

Longtime country music performer Stonewall Jackson passed away Saturday morning after a long battle with vascular dementia, according to a Jackson family member.

Stonewall came to Nashville in 1956 from Tabor City, North Carolina, looking to sing his songs for anyone who will hear it.

He famously walked into one of Nashville’s top publishing companies at the time, Acuff-Rose, just to “see if anybody in country music would talk to me.”

Stonewall’s songs quickly earned him a meeting with the founder of the Grand Ole Opry, George D. Hay, and its manager, W.D. Kilpatrick. Jackson recalls, “They took me down the hall and signed me to a regular member’s contract…I’ve been here ever since.”

Before Stonewall’s career took flight, he spent his time shipping Opry souvenir books from the basement of the National Life Building, according to the Opry website. 

His first hit, “Life to Go,” changed everything in 1958.

Stonewall recorded several hit country songs in the late 1950s and early 1960s, such as “Smoke Along the Track,” “B.J. the D.J.,” and “Waterloo,” which became his signature tune.

Over his career, Stonewall would record 44 singles that placed on the Billboard country charts.

Stonewall is credited with the first “live” album recorded at the Ryman Auditorium, with his Recorded Live at the Grand Ole Opry album in 1971.

Stonewall joined the Grand Ole Opry on Nov. 3, 1956, longer ago than any other current Opry member. He was on Billboard's county singles chart more than 40 times.

The late Porter Wagoner used to introduce Stonewall on his show by saying he came to the Opry “with a heart full of love and a sack full of songs.”

Stonewall lived in Brentwood, TN, with his wife, Juanita, who ran his publishing company Turp Tunes. Juanita died in 2019 from Alzheimer’s Disease.

His son, Stonewall Jackson Jr., remains in the Nashville area and served as primary caretaker for both of them through their illnesses.

Stonewall Jackson died at 5:35 a.m. on Saturday...he was 89 years old.

Tonight's performance of the Opry will be dedicated in Stonewall's honor. Announcements on further arrangements are pending.  

JACKSON, Stonewall

Born: 11/6/1932, Tabor City, North Carolina, U.S.A.

Died: 12/4/2021, Brentwood, Tennessee, U.S.A.

 

Stonewall Jackson’s westerns – actor:

Joshua – 1975 (Pete)

High Noon Part II: The Return of Wil Kane (TV) – 1980 (telegrapher)

RIP Yvonne Wilder

 Yvonne Wilder, Actor Know for ‘West Side Story’ and ‘Seems Like Old Times’ Dies at 84

Variety

By Cynthia Littleton

December 3, 2021

 

Yvonne Wilder, the actor known for her work in “West Side Story,” “Seems Like Old Times” and numerous TV shows, died Nov. 24 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 84.

Wilder played the role of Consuelo in Robert Wise’s landmark 1961 film adaptation of the Broadway musical “West Side Story.” She also appeared in a West End production of “West Side Story” and in the first international touring production of the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim musical.

Wilder was remembered by friends for her love of dancing and her fiery sense of humor. “West Side Story” co-star George Chakiris recently hailed her contributions to the stage production and the movie.

“Yvonne Wilder had an extraordinary, unique sense of humor. I did the play in London with Yvonne so I knew her before the movie,” George Chakiris told TCM in May. “But Yvonne’s humor was adopted by all of us.”

Born Yvonne Othon in the Bronx, Wilder grew up in New York’s Upper West Side in a family with Puerto Rican and Cuban roots. She attended New York’s High School of Performing Arts and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

In the mid-1960s, after changing her last name, Wilder was part of a comedy duo with actor Jack Colvin. Colvin and Wilder played West Hollywood’s Troubadour, and the pair also made numerous appearances on TV variety shows including “The Tonight Show,” “The Ed Sullivan Show” and programs hosted by Merv Griffin and Dean Martin.

On screen, Wilder co-starred with Goldie Hawn and Charles Grodin in 1980’s “Seems Like Old Times,” and she had a small role in Mel Brooks’ 1976’s “Silent Movie.” She logged dozens of TV credits over the years, from “Bracken’s World,” “Room 222” and “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” in the late 1960s and early 1970s to “Archie Bunker’s Place,” “Gimme a Break,” “Operation Petticoat” and “Full House.”

With her third husband, Bob Kelljan, Wilder co-wrote and co-starred in the 1971 cult-favorite horror movie “The Return of Count Yorga.” That film also marked early credits for future stars Mariette Hartley and Craig T. Nelson.

In the 1990s Wilder turned her attention to painting and sculpting. Her work has been shown at the Santa Monica Art Institute.

She is survived by Zach Kleiman, her fifth husband of 21 years and companion of 42 years. Survivors also include a son, Chris, and two grandchildren.

WILDER, Yvonne (Yvonne Ithon)

Born: 9/21/1937, Bronx, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 11/24/2021, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Yvonne Wilder’s western – actress:

Waterhole #3 – 1967 (Dove)