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One of the driving forces behind The Simpsons believes Manchester has the potential to eclipse Los Angeles as a worldwide hub for the media industries.
During an ‘in conversation’ session with Manchester music legend Clint Boon at the Salford Media Festival, Josh Weinstein, former writer and executive producer for the American animated sitcom, told delegates that Manchester had all the infrastructure and talent to claim its place as the new centre for animation and scriptwriting excellence.
For two days in March 2010, VFS presented an immersive 2-day educational experience, exclusively for the most creative and driven high school students in North America.
Find out more at vfs.com/standout
For two days in March 2010, VFS presented an immersive 2-day educational experience, exclusively for the most creative and driven high school students in North America.
Find out more at vfs.com/standout
Sandra Bullock Proposal // Movie // 2009 3:19 The Proposal is a 2009 American romantic comedy film set in Sitka, Alaska. Directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Peter Chiarelli, the film features Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in the leading roles, with Betty White, Mary Steenburgen, and Craig T. Nelson in supporting roles. The film was produced by Mandeville Films and released on June 19, 2009, in North America by Touchstone Pictures. The plot centers on a Canadian woman, Margaret Tate, who learns that she may face deportation charges because of her expired visa. Determined to retain her position as executive chief, Tate convinces her assistant, Andrew Paxton, to temporarily act as her fiancé. Initially planning on resuming their lives after Tate resolves her visa issues, they appear to abandon those plans as their relationship intensifies. Development on the film began in 2005, when Chiarelli wrote the film's script. Principal filming occurred over a period of two months from March to May 2008. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized its scriptwriting, but praised the performances and chemistry between Bullock and Reynolds. The film was a box office success, grossing over $317 million worldwide, becoming the highest grossing romantic comedy film of 2009. ift.tt/190v3nU Sandra Annette Bullock (born July 26, 1964) is an American and Academy Award winning best actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, Hope Floats, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. In the new millennium, she appeared in such films as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House, and Crash, the third of which received critical acclaim. In 2007, she was ranked as the 14th richest female celeb with an estimated fortune of US$85 million. In 2009, Bullock starred in two of the more financially successful films of her career, The Proposal and The Blind Side. We've already saw her on The Heat, acting as Sandra Bullock Drunk, so... why don't give a closer look at her! "You're drunk for 15 hours, is an odd experience, cause you hit this level of euphoria, you think that's funny..." Bullock was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, and the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side. She is listed in the 2012 edition of the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress, with $56 million. But days after her Oscar victory, Bullock's husband of five years apologized for having an affair, leading to the end of their marriage – and the beginning of Bullock's new life as mom to adopted son Louis. It is impossible for one of the greatest Hollywood star ever to be safe from gossip celebs news listings. The actress returned to the big screen in 2013, packing a box office punch with the comedy The Heat and earning an Oscar nomination for Gravity. Her life is object of gossip celebs, and running on celeb news. Celebration cinema always acclaims her new film releases, while she is on top of cinema listings, name a star, you just call for Sandra Bullock. She is one of the best actress, acting with the best supporting actress. If you wonder how to become an actress like Sandra Bullock, you may attend the best acting schools and acting colleges, to learn the acting technique, the top acting exercises, so that your how to become an actor dream can come true, passing the acting auditions to became the next Hollywood boulevard star. Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Her father, John W. Bullock (born 1925), was a United States Army employee and part-time voice coach. Please stay tuned on the best updates about Sandra Bullock Proposal // Movie // 2009, SUBSCRIBE NOW: ift.tt/1Nc5k9b ift.tt/1NieW4g
This is a point of contention among many writers. How many scenes should your script contain and how long should each script be?
The short answer is that there isn’t a correct answer. This isn’t arithmetic. In a typical script of around 110 pages, I’ve read scripts with as many as 150 scenes and ...
Up-and-coming writers will have the opportunity to learn from one of the UK’s leading TV dramatists in a question and answer session at the University of Salford’s MediaCityUK building on Wednesday 10 October.
Award-winning screenwriter Sally Wainwright, creator of BAFTA and Emmy-nominated series At Home with the Braithwaites and writer of ITV detective drama series Scott & Bailey, will be in conversation with BBC Creative Director of New Writing Kate Rowland at the ‘Face 2 Face’ event, organised by BBC writersroom as part of Manchester Literature Festival.
Full story at bit.ly/TbqLdO.
One of the driving forces behind The Simpsons believes Manchester has the potential to eclipse Los Angeles as a worldwide hub for the media industries.
During an ‘in conversation’ session with Manchester music legend Clint Boon at the Salford Media Festival, Josh Weinstein, former writer and executive producer for the American animated sitcom, told delegates that Manchester had all the infrastructure and talent to claim its place as the new centre for animation and scriptwriting excellence.
An intensive four-day training session for 17 Somali female journalists ended this week, with the participants receiving intensive instruction in writing for broadcast media. Organized by Somali Women Journalists (SWJ), with UNSOM’s support, the session covered topics such as scriptwriting, interview skills, use of social media, ethical journalism and treatment of news sources.
“We want this training to lead girls into a positive direction. We expect them to move away from the traditional reporting style and adopt modern TV and radio reporting methods,” said the SWJ’s Chairperson, Farhia Mohamed Kheyre, at the opening of the training.
The participants were drawn from the city of Mogadishu, and the Hirshabelle and South West State.
One of the driving forces behind The Simpsons believes Manchester has the potential to eclipse Los Angeles as a worldwide hub for the media industries.
During an ‘in conversation’ session with Manchester music legend Clint Boon at the Salford Media Festival, Josh Weinstein, former writer and executive producer for the American animated sitcom, told delegates that Manchester had all the infrastructure and talent to claim its place as the new centre for animation and scriptwriting excellence.
Sweet Briar College welcomed the University of Virginia’s Young Writers Workshop back for its second year in residence this summer. Two sessions brought about 90 participants from 20 states and four countries for intensive studio workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, songwriting, and scriptwriting for screen and stage.
Mary and Dick Locher.
Naperville honored artist and writer Dick Locher on Sunday, Oct. 9, in connection with the 80th anniversary of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip. The ceremonies took place in front of a larger-than-life statue of the famous detective that Locher designed for the city's Riverwalk.
My colleague Jim Doherty, a law-enforcement officer who authors the strip's Crimestoppers feature, best sums up Locher's contribution to the "Dick Tracy" saga:
"Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Dick Locher broke into the field in 1957 as Chester Gould's assistant. Twice Locher saved the strip during times of crisis, taking over the art in 1983 when Rick Fletcher suddenly died, and the scriptwriting duties in 2005 after Mike Kilian's sudden death. Except for Gould himself, no one, artist or writer, has had a longer association with 'Dick Tracy.'"
One of the driving forces behind The Simpsons believes Manchester has the potential to eclipse Los Angeles as a worldwide hub for the media industries.
During an ‘in conversation’ session with Manchester music legend Clint Boon at the Salford Media Festival, Josh Weinstein, former writer and executive producer for the American animated sitcom, told delegates that Manchester had all the infrastructure and talent to claim its place as the new centre for animation and scriptwriting excellence.
Sandra Bullock Proposal // Movie // 2009 3:19 The Proposal is a 2009 American romantic comedy film set in Sitka, Alaska. Directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Peter Chiarelli, the film features Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in the leading roles, with Betty White, Mary Steenburgen, and Craig T. Nelson in supporting roles. The film was produced by Mandeville Films and released on June 19, 2009, in North America by Touchstone Pictures. The plot centers on a Canadian woman, Margaret Tate, who learns that she may face deportation charges because of her expired visa. Determined to retain her position as executive chief, Tate convinces her assistant, Andrew Paxton, to temporarily act as her fiancé. Initially planning on resuming their lives after Tate resolves her visa issues, they appear to abandon those plans as their relationship intensifies. Development on the film began in 2005, when Chiarelli wrote the film's script. Principal filming occurred over a period of two months from March to May 2008. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized its scriptwriting, but praised the performances and chemistry between Bullock and Reynolds. The film was a box office success, grossing over $317 million worldwide, becoming the highest grossing romantic comedy film of 2009. ift.tt/190v3nU Sandra Annette Bullock (born July 26, 1964) is an American and Academy Award winning best actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, Hope Floats, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. In the new millennium, she appeared in such films as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House, and Crash, the third of which received critical acclaim. In 2007, she was ranked as the 14th richest female celeb with an estimated fortune of US$85 million. In 2009, Bullock starred in two of the more financially successful films of her career, The Proposal and The Blind Side. We've already saw her on The Heat, acting as Sandra Bullock Drunk, so... why don't give a closer look at her! "You're drunk for 15 hours, is an odd experience, cause you hit this level of euphoria, you think that's funny..." Bullock was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, and the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side. She is listed in the 2012 edition of the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress, with $56 million. But days after her Oscar victory, Bullock's husband of five years apologized for having an affair, leading to the end of their marriage – and the beginning of Bullock's new life as mom to adopted son Louis. It is impossible for one of the greatest Hollywood star ever to be safe from gossip celebs news listings. The actress returned to the big screen in 2013, packing a box office punch with the comedy The Heat and earning an Oscar nomination for Gravity. Her life is object of gossip celebs, and running on celeb news. Celebration cinema always acclaims her new film releases, while she is on top of cinema listings, name a star, you just call for Sandra Bullock. She is one of the best actress, acting with the best supporting actress. If you wonder how to become an actress like Sandra Bullock, you may attend the best acting schools and acting colleges, to learn the acting technique, the top acting exercises, so that your how to become an actor dream can come true, passing the acting auditions to became the next Hollywood boulevard star. Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Her father, John W. Bullock (born 1925), was a United States Army employee and part-time voice coach. Please stay tuned on the best updates about Sandra Bullock Proposal // Movie // 2009, SUBSCRIBE NOW: ift.tt/1Nc5k9b ift.tt/1NieW4g
Front left: Rachel Starbuck G&T youngster on the editing course, Catherine Tyldesley VIP actress currently starring in BBC drama Liles, front left, Sarah Calhaem Birmingham City University programme coordinator, Ellie Sixsmith a G&T youngster on scriptwriting course and Angela Morris Excellence Hub and Gifted and talented coordinator.
For more info see the full news story at www.bcu.ac.uk/news/releases08/summer_film_school.html
Naperville honored artist and writer Dick Locher on Sunday, Oct. 9, in connection with the 80th anniversary of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip. The ceremonies took place in front of a larger-than-life statue of the famous detective that Locher designed for the city's Riverwalk.
My colleague Jim Doherty, a law-enforcement officer who authors the strip's Crimestoppers feature, best sums up Locher's contribution to the "Dick Tracy" saga:
"Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Dick Locher broke into the field in 1957 as Chester Gould's assistant. Twice Locher saved the strip during times of crisis, taking over the art in 1983 when Rick Fletcher suddenly died, and the scriptwriting duties in 2005 after Mike Kilian's sudden death. Except for Gould himself, no one, artist or writer, has had a longer association with 'Dick Tracy.'"
The Official Evolution whip is what we ride in for travels to live remote and beat reporting locations. Be sure to look out for this ride on the streets of Vancouver! And my big hair in the driver's seat for that matter.
Dora Kola
BCIT Radio Arts and Entertainment
School of Business
A Product of Masters from Michigan University and a Doctor in Literature from Purdue University, Dr. Raman .K Singh took a workshop on Creative writing with the Students of AAFT. Already a visiting faculty with Virginia University and a writer, he had just finished writing a script named ‘OPPA’ for Famous Hollywood producer Elliott Castner, who has given hit films like, Where the Eagles Dare, The Night of the Following Day, Man, Woman and Child, Sweet November and many more…Talking to students at length, the writer
gave students the modus operandi for scriptwriting.He also organized a premiere for his movie at the Campus as a part of the workshop. Students were glad to have such an eminent personality as their Professor.
But the true question is, #FaceForRadio or #VoiceForTV?
Dora Kola
BCIT Radio Arts and Entertainment
School of Business
Crimestoppers author Sgt. Jim Doherty congratulates Dick Locher on his association with "Dick Tracy."
Naperville honored artist and writer Dick Locher on Sunday, Oct. 9, in connection with the 80th anniversary of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip. The ceremonies took place in front of a larger-than-life statue of the famous detective that Locher designed for the city's Riverwalk.
My colleague Jim Doherty, a law-enforcement officer who authors the strip's Crimestoppers feature, best sums up Locher's contribution to the "Dick Tracy" saga:
"Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Dick Locher broke into the field in 1957 as Chester Gould's assistant. Twice Locher saved the strip during times of crisis, taking over the art in 1983 when Rick Fletcher suddenly died, and the scriptwriting duties in 2005 after Mike Kilian's sudden death. Except for Gould himself, no one, artist or writer, has had a longer association with 'Dick Tracy.'"
SE10 is the building where all broadcasting students receive the "hands on" training that BCIT is famous for. Some students consider this building as a second home. However, for certain hardworking individuals such as myself, SE10 is where I proudly call MY home.
Dora Kola
BCIT Radio Arts and Entertainment
School of Business
Representing the campus radio station in which we work at!
Dora Kola
BCIT Radio Arts and Entertainment
School of Business
Naperville honored artist and writer Dick Locher on Sunday, Oct. 9, in connection with the 80th anniversary of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip. The ceremonies took place in front of a larger-than-life statue of the famous detective that Locher designed for the city's Riverwalk.
My colleague Jim Doherty, a law-enforcement officer who authors the strip's Crimestoppers feature, best sums up Locher's contribution to the "Dick Tracy" saga:
"Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Dick Locher broke into the field in 1957 as Chester Gould's assistant. Twice Locher saved the strip during times of crisis, taking over the art in 1983 when Rick Fletcher suddenly died, and the scriptwriting duties in 2005 after Mike Kilian's sudden death. Except for Gould himself, no one, artist or writer, has had a longer association with 'Dick Tracy.'"
Naperville honored artist and writer Dick Locher on Sunday, Oct. 9, in connection with the 80th anniversary of the "Dick Tracy" comic strip. The ceremonies took place in front of a larger-than-life statue of the famous detective that Locher designed for the city's Riverwalk.
My colleague Jim Doherty, a law-enforcement officer who authors the strip's Crimestoppers feature, best sums up Locher's contribution to the "Dick Tracy" saga:
"Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Dick Locher broke into the field in 1957 as Chester Gould's assistant. Twice Locher saved the strip during times of crisis, taking over the art in 1983 when Rick Fletcher suddenly died, and the scriptwriting duties in 2005 after Mike Kilian's sudden death. Except for Gould himself, no one, artist or writer, has had a longer association with 'Dick Tracy.'"
K. Bhagyaraj (born 7 January 1953) is a Tamil film director, actor, writer and producer. He has also written and directed Telugu, Hindi films and TV serials. He won a Filmfare Best Actor Award for Mundhanai Mudichu (1983). He is editor of weekly magazine Bhagya and has also written several novels.Personal life[edit]
Bhagyaraj was born in Vellankoil near Gobichettipalayam in Erode district in Tamil Nadu. His parents were Krishnaswamy and Amaravathiamma. He married actress Praveena, in 1981 his co-star in the film Bhama Rukmani. She died in August 1983 due to an aggravated case of jaundice. Later, he married Poornima Jayaram, in 1984 his co-star in Darling Darling Darling.[1] The couple have a daughter Saranya and a son Shantanu
Film career[edit]
Early years (1977–79)[edit]
Beginning his career as an assistant to directors G. Ramakrishnan and Bharathiraja, Bhagyaraj became recognized for his scriptwriting talent. He first appeared as a junior artist playing small supporting roles with scree-space of not more than 3 minutes in the film like Pathinaru Vayathinile (1977) and later appeared similarly in Sigappu Rojakkal (1978). He was assistant director to Bhartiraja in 2 films - 16 Vayathnile and Kizhake Pogum Rail. Among his early work was writing the script for Bharathiraja's films, Kizhake Pogum Rail (1978), Tik Tik Tik (1981) and writing dialogues for Sigappu Rojakkal. He made his directorial debut with Suvarillatha Chiththirangal in 1979 and also his debut as the leading man in Puthiya Vaarpugal in 1979 directed by Bharatiraja. He received Best Dialogues Award for Puthiya Vaarpugal (1979). Kanni Paruvathile, a film for which he wrote dialogues and screenplay and acted in negative role, was a huge success. Though now he had not achieved success as a director till 1979, he was motivated with success as the hero with Puthiya Vaarpugal, negetive role and as a writer of story and dialogues in Kanni Paruvathile and decided to direct-act-write Oru Kai Oosai,which though not a huge success, gave him his first Best Actor Award.
Rise to stardom (1980–99)[edit]
He quickly established his own concern by 1980 and started producing and directing a string of distinctive films made mainly in the Tamil language. His first commercially successful main lead hero film was Bhama Rukmini in 1980. This film was neither directed-produced nor written by him. His voice was dubbed by some one else in all the films he did till 1980 including Bhama Rukmini. It was from films like Mouna Geetangal he started to dub his own lines in his films.He often stars in lead roles of the films he scripts and directs, effectively carving out a niche for himself in the actor-auteur vein. His style of film making is notable for its relatively elaborate, witty, and double-entered-laced script and socially themed framework. His on-screen personae are typically characterized by their ironic sense of humor and intelligent bravado.[2] Success of Bhama Rukmini was followed by 12 films directed by him - starring him as the main lead which were box-office hits - Vidiyum Vari Kaathiru, Mouna Geethanagal, Indru Poyi Naalai Vaa, Antha Ezhu Natkal, Thooral Ninnu Pochhu, Poyi Satchi, Darling Darling Darling, Dhavani Kannavukal, Munthanai Mudichu, Chinna Veedu,Enga Chinna Rasa and Idhu Namma Aalu. From 1981 onwards successful Tamil films starring him, directed and written by him started being remade in Hindi with first being Mouna Geetangal remade as Ek Hi Bhool and Anztha Ezhu Natkal remade as Woh Saat Din. In the period 1980-1990, he rarely acted in films not directed or not written by him with exceptions being Naan Sigappu Manithan, Anbulla Rajinikanth and En Rathathin Rathame. His next directorial venture Chithirame Chithirame was box-office flop and he directed Mayadari Mogudu in Telugu which was a success. He introduced actress Urvashi in Tamil film Mudhanai Mudichu and actress Kalpana (sister of Urvashi) made her debut with 1985 film Chinna Veedu directed by Bhagyraj, a commercially successful film. He received Filmfare Award for Best Tamil Actor for his performance in Mundhanai Mudichu. He became nationally famous when he wrote the script for Mundhanai Mudichu remake in Hindi as Masterji with Rajesh Khanna in the lead role, which was flopped at the box-office. He decided to direct Hindi remake of Bhartiraja's 1984 directorial venture Oru Kaidhayin Diary with Rajesh Khanna in the lead in 1985, but later Khanna due to his date issues had to opt out and Bhagyaraj casted Amitabh Bachchan in the Hindi remake Aakhree Rasta the Hindi version was became a blockbuster .[3] Movies like Anbulla Rajinikanth and En Rathathin Rathame were flops. Now due to flopping of the Hindi remake, Bhagayraj decided to play safe and remade classic old Kannada movie Mallammana Pavada starring Rajkumar and B. Saroja Devi into a new Tamil movie Enga Chinna Rasa in 1987, which became a huge blockbuster. In 1989, K.Balaji produced Tamil remake of Mr. India as En Rathathin Rathame but the film was unsuccessful.In 1989, he wrote script for Idhu Namma Allu and decided to produce it but chose not to direct it by himself as he wanted to act-write-direct a film on a serious issue which was Aararo Aaariraro. He received Best Film Award for Idhu Namma Aalu in 1990, directed by Balakumar whereas the other film Aararo Aaariraro also was critically acclaimed, proved to be successful at box-office. After death of MGR in 1987, during a meeting with director C.V Sridhar and producer Duraiswamay, an idea came across to Bhagyaraj to make use of unfinished 1977 film Anna Nee En Deivam starring MGR and Lata and make the film Avasara Police 100 starring himself as well in the lead. This 1990 film was widely promoted as a film with MGR and Bhagyaraj in lead role and the film was a huge blockbuster in 1990.
From 1991, he gradually started accepting more acting offers as lead hero where director-producer-scripwriter would be three different people than he himself writing-directing-acting in his films. Rudhra (film), Amma Vanthachu, Gnanapazham(1996), Suyamvaram(1999) were such successful films where he was involved only in capacity of that of actor. He also started the weekly magazine 'Bhagya' and he is the editor of that magazine. His successful directorial ventures written by him from 1991 were Pavunnu Pavunutha, Sundara Kandam, Raasukutti, Veetla Visheshanga, Oru Oorla oru Rajakumari, Vaettiya Madichu Kattu. Failure of his Hindi directorial ventures Akhree Rasta and Mr.Bechara made Bhagyaraj to decide that though he may only write scripts for Hindi films and that he would not direct by himself. He decided to remake Veetla Visheshanga as Mr.Bechara in Hindi but again his directorial venture in Hindi was not successful. He casted his son Shanthanu Bhagyaraj as the child artist in Vaettiya Madichu Kattu in 1998 and the film dealt with father-son relationship. His successful Tamil films written by him continued to be in demand for Hindi remakes in 1990's and were huge hits in Hindi - with Avasara Police 100 remade into Gopi Kishen, Sundara Kandam remade as Andaz(1994), Raasukutti remade as Raja Babu, Vaettiya Madichu Kattu remade as Papa The Great which were successful. He also wrote the script for Tamil film Thaikulame Thaikulame(1995) starring Pandiarajan, whose actor-director was not himself in Hindi as Gharwali-Baharwali(1998).[4]
Later years (2000–present)[edit]
He took a break from acting as the lead hero in Tamil films after release of Vaettiya Madichu Kattu(1998) and Suyamvaram(1999) as he was not happy with new scripts from other banners offered to him in 2000 and so from 2000-06 he did not accept any film as the lead hero. Instead he directed TV shows Neenga Nenaicha Saadhikkalanga, Idhu Oru Kadhayin Kadhai(for DD Podhigai) and appeared in Apapadi Podu in Jaya TV in this period. His teleserial ‘Rules Rangachari’ as very famous in DD channel & it completed 390 episodes. He wrote and directed the commercially successful 2003 film Chokka Thangam, an action film starring Vijayakanth. He launched his daughter Saranya Bhagyaraj with Parijatham, which he wrote and directed in 2006 and was a huge success.[5] He returned to acting with Something Something... Unakkum Enakkum and Rendu in a supporting role and with Kaasu Irukkanum as the lead hero in 2007.From 2007 to present he has been seen in more films as an actor in supporting roles. He directed his adult son Shanthanu Bhagyaraj in a romantic film Siddhu +2 in 2010. He ventured into Malayalam films as supporting actor with Mr. Marumakan.
He wrote books like Vaanga Cinemavai Pattri Pesalam, Neenga Nenaicha Saadikkalaam, Ungal Bhagyaraj in Kezhvi Bhadhil (Five Parts) and has written 7 novels.
British postcard in the Greetings series, no. A.Photo: 20th Century Fox.
Tall and handsome Rory Calhoun (1922-1999) was an American film and TV actor who also worked as a screenwriter, producer and author. He appeared in more than 80 films and more than a thousand episodes of various TV shows. His films include How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), River of No Return (1954), and The Spoilers (1955).
Rory Calhoun was born Francis Timothy McCown in 1922 in Los Angeles, California. His father was James 'Floyd' McCown, a professional gambler, and his mother was Elizabeth Cuthbert. When he was nine months old his father died. After his mother remarried he occasionally used the last name of his stepfather, Durgin. His young criminal career was rather extensive. A high school dropout, he stole a revolver at age 13, which landed him in the California Youth Authority's Preston School of Industry reformatory at Ione, CA. He escaped while in the adjustment centre (jail within the jail). He left home at 17 to escape beatings from his stepfather and began hot-wiring cars. After robbing several jewellery stores, he stole a car and drove it across state lines. This offence sent him to the federal penitentiary in Springfield, MO, for three years. When he finished his sentence he was incarcerated in San Quentin State Penitentiary in California on other charges and remained there until he was paroled just before his 21st birthday. Before becoming an actor he worked as a boxer, a lumberjack, a truck driver and a cowpuncher. His life changed when a Hollywood agent, Sue Carol, auditioned him at 20th Century Fox. He was noticed by Alan Ladd, Sue's husband when Rory was riding a horse in a Los Angeles park. Impressed with Calhoun's physique, Ladd introduced him to Sue. Rory got a bit role in Something for the Boys (Lewis Seiler, 1944), with Carmen Miranda. He got his first credited role as Frank McCown in the Laurel and Hardy comedy, The Bullfighters (Malcolm St. Clair, 1945). He was signed to a contract by Henry Wilson, an agent known for a stable of young and attractive actors with unusual names like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter. He initially christened him "Troy Donahue", then changed it to "Rory Calhoun". Wilson used the Troy Donahue name later on another up-and-coming actor. Wilson was an employee of David O. Selznick and he signed Calhoun in Selznick's company. His first public appearance was as Lana Turner's escort to the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), a Selznick production. The glamorous blonde and her handsome companion attracted the paparazzi, and photos appeared in newspapers and fan magazines. In 1945, he was sent again to prison for beating a detective. Calhoun did not appear in a film for a year before being lent to producer Sol Lesser for the thriller The Red House (Delmer Daves, 1947) with Edward G. Robinson. In the same year, he worked in two more films, Adventure Island (Sam Newfield, 1947) and That Hagen Girl (Peter Godfrey, 1947) starring Shirley Temple. He graduated to starring in Westerns such as Sand (Louis King, 1949). He first appeared in a negative role in Return of Frontiersman (Richard L. Bare, 1950), starring Gordon MacRae and Julie London.
In August 1950, Rory Calhoun signed a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Some of his first films for Fox were such Westerns as A Ticket to Tomahawk (Richard Sale, 1950), and Rogue River (John Rawlins, 1951). With Susan Hayward, he co-starred in the musical With a Song in My Heart (Walter Lang, 1952) and with Gene Tierney in the Western Way of a Gaucho (Jacques Tourneur, 1952). He co-starred with Marilyn Monroe in the comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953) as Betty Grable's love interest and the Western River of No Return (Otto Preminger, Jean Negulesco, 1954), starring Robert Mitchum. Both films were big hits. Calhoun then left Fox. He starred in such Westerns as The Yellow Tomahawk (Lesley Selander, 1954), A Bullet is Waiting (John Farrow, 1954) and The Spoilers (Jesse Hibbs, 1955) with Ann Baxter. Calhoun's conviction history became public when his mugshot appeared on the May 1955 cover of Confidential magazine. According to one source, his agent, Henry Willson, disclosed information about Calhoun's years in prison to Confidential in exchange for the tabloid not printing an exposé about the secret homosexual life of Rock Hudson, another Willson client. According to another source, blackmailers threatened to make his prison record public, so instead, Calhoun revealed it himself. However, the disclosure had no negative effect on Calhoun's career and only served to solidify his 'bad boy' image. He starred in such Westerns as Raw Edge (John Sherwood, 1956), The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957) and Ride Out of Revenge (1958). In 1957, Rory and his partner Victor Orsatti started a film production company called 'Rorvic'. He helped produce films like the Film Noir Flight to Hong Kong (Joseph M. Newman, 1956), and the Westerns The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), Domino Kid (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), and Apache Territory (Ray Nazzaro, 1958). In 1959, he made his television debut in The Texan (1959-1960). Around this time, Rory also started scriptwriting. He also appeared in an episode of the CBS show December Bride (1959). The episode was called 'Rory Calhoun the Texan'.
In the early 1960s, he starred in the stock car racing film Thunder in Carolina (Paul Helmick, 1960), and the Peplum Il Colosso di Rodi/The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), co-written and directed by Sergio Leone. The film was Leone's first work as a credited director, in a genre where he already had worked before (as the replacement director for The Last Days of Pompeii and as a secondary director for both Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis). The film was originally meant to star John Derek. However, he clashed with Sergio Leone and was replaced by Rory Calhoun. Calhoun travelled to Spain to make the film, then to Great Britain for The Treasure of Monte Cristo (Monty Berman, Robert S. Baker, 1961) in Britain, and then to Italy for L'avventura di un italiano in Cina/Marco Polo (Piero Pierotti, 1962) with Yoko Tani. He returned to the U.S. to make several films for producer A.C. Lyles, such as the war film The Young and the Brave (Francis D. Lyon, 1963) and the Western Apache Rising (R.G. Springsteen, 1965), with Corinne Calvet. He returned to Europe to make the French Eurospy film Our Men in Bagdad (Paolo Bianchini, 1966) with Roger Hanin, and the Spanish adventure film The Emerald of Artatama (José María Elorrieta, 1969). During the 1960s, he also guest-starred in several popular TV shows like Death Valley Days (1963), Bonanza (1964), Gunsmoke (1965), I Spy (1966), Gilligan's Island (1967) and Custer (1969). In the 1970s he could be seen in TV shows such as The Doris Day Show (1972), Police Story (1973), Starsky and Hutch (1975) and Fantasy Land (1978). In 1982, he appeared for five years as Judge Judson Tyler on the US soap opera Capitol and remained on the show until it ended in 1987. In the cinema, he starred in cult films like the Science-Fiction horror film Night of the Lepus (William F. Claxton, 1972) with Janet Leigh, the comedy horror film Motel Hell (Kevin Connor, 1980), the exploitation horror film Angel (Robert Vincent O'Neill, 1984), and the Science-Fiction action film Hell Comes to Frogtown (Donald G. Jackson, R. J. Kizer, 1989). He produced himself Fists of Steel (Jerry Schafer, 1991). His last film as an actor was Pure Country (Christopher Cain, 1992) in which the still handsome Calhoun played the character of 'Earnest Tucker' - a family patriarch and farmer. His last screen appearance was in the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1993). Rory Calhoun was married three times, once to his first wife and twice to his second wife. His first wife was Lita Baron (1948-1970), with whom he had three daughters, Cindy (1957), Tami (1958) and Lorri (1961). At the time of the divorce, Baron accused him of committing adultery with more than 70 women, including Betty Grable. Reportedly, Calhoun responded, "Heck, she didn't even include half of them". His second wife was journalist Sue Rhodes (1971-1979; 1982-1999) with whom he had one daughter, Rory Patricia (1971). He also had a daughter with actress Vitina Marcus, Athena Marcus Calhoun, who became "The World's Most Beautiful Showgirl" and was awarded "The Key to the City of Las Vegas" in 1987. Guy Madison was one of his closest friends. The two men often went on fishing and hunting trips. Guy and his (second) wife Sheila Connolly named him godfather to their firstborn Bridget. Rory Calhoun passed away in 1999 at the age of 76 after a ten-day hospitalisation at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. He died due to complications from emphysema and diabetes. Calhoun has two stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures, and one for television.
Sources: Bill Takacs (IMDb), Celeb-true, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Vintage postcard.
Tall and handsome Rory Calhoun (1922-1999) was an American film and TV actor who also worked as a screenwriter, producer and author. He appeared in more than 80 films and more than a thousand episodes of various TV shows. His films include How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), River of No Return (1954), and The Spoilers (1955).
Rory Calhoun was born Francis Timothy McCown in 1922 in Los Angeles, California. His father was James 'Floyd' McCown, a professional gambler, and his mother was Elizabeth Cuthbert. When he was nine months old his father died. After his mother remarried he occasionally used the last name of his stepfather, Durgin. His young criminal career was rather extensive. A high school dropout, he stole a revolver at age 13, which landed him in the California Youth Authority's Preston School of Industry reformatory at Ione, CA. He escaped while in the adjustment centre (jail within the jail). He left home at 17 to escape beatings from his stepfather and began hot-wiring cars. After robbing several jewellery stores, he stole a car and drove it across state lines. This offence sent him to the federal penitentiary in Springfield, MO, for three years. When he finished his sentence he was incarcerated in San Quentin State Penitentiary in California on other charges and remained there until he was paroled just before his 21st birthday. Before becoming an actor he worked as a boxer, a lumberjack, a truck driver and a cowpuncher. His life changed when a Hollywood agent, Sue Carol, auditioned him at 20th Century Fox. He was noticed by Alan Ladd, Sue's husband when Rory was riding a horse in a Los Angeles park. Impressed with Calhoun's physique, Ladd introduced him to Sue. Rory got a bit role in Something for the Boys (Lewis Seiler, 1944), with Carmen Miranda. He got his first credited role as Frank McCown in the Laurel and Hardy comedy, The Bullfighters (Malcolm St. Clair, 1945). He was signed to a contract by Henry Wilson, an agent known for a stable of young and attractive actors with unusual names like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter. He initially christened him "Troy Donahue", then changed it to "Rory Calhoun". Wilson used the Troy Donahue name later on another up-and-coming actor. Wilson was an employee of David O. Selznick and he signed Calhoun in Selznick's company. His first public appearance was as Lana Turner's escort to the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), a Selznick production. The glamorous blonde and her handsome companion attracted the paparazzi, and photos appeared in newspapers and fan magazines. In 1945, he was sent again to prison for beating a detective. Calhoun did not appear in a film for a year before being lent to producer Sol Lesser for the thriller The Red House (Delmer Daves, 1947) with Edward G. Robinson. In the same year, he worked in two more films, Adventure Island (Sam Newfield, 1947) and That Hagen Girl (Peter Godfrey, 1947) starring Shirley Temple. He graduated to starring in Westerns such as Sand (Louis King, 1949). He first appeared in a negative role in Return of Frontiersman (Richard L. Bare, 1950), starring Gordon MacRae and Julie London.
In August 1950, Rory Calhoun signed a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Some of his first films for Fox were such Westerns as A Ticket to Tomahawk (Richard Sale, 1950), Rogue River (John Rawlins, 1951). With Susan Hayward, he co-starred in the musical With a Song in My Heart (Walter Lang, 1952) and with Gene Tierney in the Western Way of a Gaucho (Jacques Tourneur, 1952). He co-starred with Marilyn Monroe in the comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953) as Betty Grable's love interest and the Western River of No Return (Otto Preminger, Jean Negulesco, 1954), starring Robert Mitchum. Both films were big hits. Calhoun then left Fox. He starred in such Westerns as The Yellow Tomahawk (Lesley Selander, 1954), A Bullet is Waiting (John Farrow, 1954) and The Spoilers (Jesse Hibbs, 1955) with Ann Baxter. Calhoun's conviction history became public when his mugshot appeared on the May 1955 cover of Confidential magazine. According to one source, his agent, Henry Willson, disclosed information about Calhoun's years in prison to Confidential in exchange for the tabloid not printing an exposé about the secret homosexual life of Rock Hudson, another Willson client. According to another source, blackmailers threatened to make his prison record public, so instead, Calhoun revealed it himself. However, the disclosure had no negative effect on Calhoun's career and only served to solidify his 'bad boy' image. He starred in such Westerns as Raw Edge (John Sherwood, 1956), The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957) and Ride Out of Revenge (1958). In 1957, Rory and his partner Victor Orsatti started a film production company called 'Rorvic'. He helped produce films like the Film Noir Flight to Hong Kong (Joseph M. Newman, 1956), and the Westerns The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), Domino Kid (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), and Apache Territory (Ray Nazzaro, 1958). In 1959, he made his television debut in The Texan (1959-1960). Around this time, Rory also started scriptwriting. He also appeared in an episode of the CBS show December Bride (1959). The episode was called 'Rory Calhoun the Texan'.
In the early 1960s, he starred in the stock car racing film Thunder in Carolina (Paul Helmick, 1960), and the Peplum Il Colosso di Rodi/The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), co-written and directed by Sergio Leone. The film was Leone's first work as a credited director, in a genre where he already had worked before (as the replacement director for The Last Days of Pompeii and as a secondary director for both Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis). The film was originally meant to star John Derek. However, he clashed with Sergio Leone and was replaced by Rory Calhoun. Calhoun travelled to Spain to make the film, then to Great Britain for The Treasure of Monte Cristo (Monty Berman, Robert S. Baker, 1961) in Britain, and then to Italy for L'avventura di un italiano in Cina/Marco Polo (Piero Pierotti, 1962) with Yoko Tani. He returned to the U.S. to make several films for producer A.C. Lyles, such as the war film The Young and the Brave (Francis D. Lyon, 1963) and the Western Apache Rising (R.G. Springsteen, 1965), with Corinne Calvet. He returned to Europe to make the French Eurospy film Our Men in Bagdad (Paolo Bianchini, 1966) with Roger Hanin, and the Spanish adventure film The Emerald of Artatama (José María Elorrieta, 1969). During the 1960s, he also guest-starred in several popular TV shows like Death Valley Days (1963), Bonanza (1964), Gunsmoke (1965), I Spy (1966), Gilligan's Island (1967) and Custer (1969). In the 1970s he could be seen in TV shows such as The Doris Day Show (1972), Police Story (1973), Starsky and Hutch (1975) and Fantasy Land (1978). In 1982, he appeared for five years as Judge Judson Tyler on the US soap opera Capitol and remained on the show until it ended in 1987. In the cinema, he starred in cult films like the Science-Fiction horror film Night of the Lepus (William F. Claxton, 1972) with Janet Leigh, the comedy horror film Motel Hell (Kevin Connor, 1980), the exploitation horror film Angel (Robert Vincent O'Neill, 1984), and the Science-Fiction action film Hell Comes to Frogtown (Donald G. Jackson, R. J. Kizer, 1989). He produced himself Fists of Steel (Jerry Schafer, 1991). His last film as an actor was Pure Country (Christopher Cain, 1992) in which the still handsome Calhoun played the character of 'Earnest Tucker' - a family patriarch and farmer. His last screen appearance was in the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1993). Rory Calhoun was married three times, once to his first wife and twice to his second wife. His first wife was Lita Baron (1948-1970), with whom he had three daughters, Cindy (1957), Tami (1958) and Lorri (1961). At the time of the divorce, Baron accused him of committing adultery with more than 70 women, including Betty Grable. Reportedly, Calhoun responded, "Heck, she didn't even include half of them". His second wife was journalist Sue Rhodes (1971-1979; 1982-1999) with whom he had one daughter, Rory Patricia (1971). He also had a daughter with actress Vitina Marcus, Athena Marcus Calhoun, who became "The World's Most Beautiful Showgirl" and was awarded "The Key to the City of Las Vegas" in 1987. Guy Madison was one of his closest friends. The two men often went on fishing and hunting trips. Guy and his (second) wife Sheila Connolly named him godfather to their firstborn Bridget. Rory Calhoun passed away in 1999 at the age of 76 after a ten-day hospitalisation at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. He died due to complications from emphysema and diabetes. Calhoun has two stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures, and one for television.
Sources: Bill Takacs (IMDb), Celeb-true, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Nowadays, responsiveness is a must for any website. I have to make sure that my website will look perfect in tablets, desktops, laptops or smart phones. A serious multitasking skill is necessary to write the correct scripts to ensure responsiveness.
© 2014 Josh Darmawan BCIT New Media
French poster postcard by Sonis, no. C. 1679. Image: Europacorp / TFI Films Production / Appoulai Prod. Poster for Angel-A (Luc Besson, 2005).
Luc Besson (1959) is a French film director, writer and producer associated with the 'Cinéma du Look' film movement. Eight of his 50 films are among the 100 most successful French films in the world. He made a name for himself with his first films, Le Dernier Combat (1983) and Subway (1985). He then triumphed at the French box office with Le Grand Bleu/The Big Blue (1988), which sold more than 9 million tickets and gave him an international reputation. Then followed a string of successful films: Nikita (1990), Léon (1994), Le Cinquième Élément/The Fifth Element (1997), for which he won a César for Best Director, and Jeanne d'Arc/The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999). After several failures, he returned to international success with Lucy (2014), which became the biggest successful French film worldwide. Among his other major commercial successes are three film series: Taxi (1998–2007), Taken (2008-2014), and Le Transporteur/The Transporter (2002–2008).
Luc Paul Maurice Besson was born in Paris in 1959. He was the son of two Club Méditerranée scuba diving instructors in Greece and former Yugoslavia. Luc planned to become a marine biologist. The family returned to France when he was 10. His parents divorced, and both remarried. At age 17, Besson had a diving accident that left him unable to dive and finished his dream of becoming a marine biologist. He decided to go for a film career. Besson soon made his first short film and wrote the first versions of what would grow into his films Le Grand Bleu/The Big Blue (1988) and the Sci-Fi epic Le Cinquième Élément/The Fifth Element (1997). From 1976 to 1982, Besson did various jobs in the film industry and was an assistant to directors including Claude Faraldo and Patrick Grandperret. He directed three short films, a commissioned documentary, and several commercials. In the early 1980s, Besson met Éric Serra and asked him to compose the score for his first short film, L'Avant dernier. He subsequently had Serra compose for other films. For three years, he worked in Hollywood. Then Besson debuted with Le Dernier Combat/The Last Battle (1983), a post-apocalyptic drama with similarities to Mad Max, co-written with Pierre Jolivet. Inspired by Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962), Besson filmed it in CinemaScope and black and white and without dialogue. It features Jean Reno's first prominent role. Reno later appeared in several films by Besson, including Subway (1985), Le Grand Bleu/The Big Blue (1988), La Femme Nikita (1990), and Léon (1994). Le Dernier Combat won an award at the Avoriaz International Fantastic Film Festival in 1983. That same year, Besson directed Isabelle Adjani's video clip, Pull Marine. He signed a contract with Gaumont and two years later directed Subway (1985), starring Isabelle Adjani and Christophe Lambert. The film imposed a cartoon-like world of music videos and when it was presented at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, where it was shown out of competition, some of the public hissed at the film's advertising-like style. However, the film won three Césars and was a huge box office hit. Then Besson had his breakthrough in France with Le grand bleu/The Big Blue (1988). Critics counted him among the French movement ‘Cinema du Look’, with a strong focus on art direction. Le Grand Bleu/The Big Blue and his later film Le Cinquième Élément/The Fifth Element (1997), are seen as examples of this movement and as Hollywood productions from France. Besson fought against the rules and beliefs imposed by French film producers and distributors. |He wanted to show that French cinema was capable of more than what he considered pseudo-intellectual films. Through his films, he wanted to show how the French film industry could compete against Hollywood, by making films that cut across French and American cultures. The producer co-financed the films, shot his films in English and left control with the director. Eventually, he got his own production company: Les Films De Dauphins, he designed a lightweight camera and developed the use of the Louma crane.
In 1980, near the beginning of his career, he founded his own production company, Les Films du Loup, which later, in 1990 was renamed Les Films du Dauphin. It was followed by a second company in 1992, called Leeloo Productions. With his thriller Nikita/La Femme Nikita (1990) starring Anne Parillaud, he made again a hyper-violent, stylised and visually present film about a society in decline. His sixth film was the action-thriller Léon/Léon: The Professional (1994) starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman and Natalie Portman in her film debut. The plot centres on a professional hitman who reluctantly takes in a twelve-year-old girl after her family is murdered by a corrupt agent. Besson gave the film an emotional undertone and added conscience and hope to the violence. The exterior shots were filmed in New York and most of the interior shots were in France. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics and brought him international recognition. In 1997, he moved to Los Angeles with his wife, actress Maïwenn, and their daughter Shanna, to work with Gaumont on what was to become the biggest commercial success for a French film in the United States, Le Cinquième Élément/The Fifth Element (1997), starring Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, and Milla Jovovich. The success was later surpassed by his production Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008). The film's sets and creatures were designed by Moebius and Jean-Claude Mézières, and the costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier. The film won him the César for Best Director in 1998, and Milla Jovovich soon became his new wife. In 1998, Besson supervised the action comedy Taxi directed by Gérard Pirès. Besson's first production as a non-director, the film was a success. Meanwhile, Jeanne d'Arc/The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), his new version of Joan of Arc, attracted three million cinema-goers. Jeanne d'Arc was played by Milla Jovovich, from whom he divorced the year the film was released. At the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, he was appointed President of the Jury.
In the 2000s, Luc Besson seemed to give up directing and to become a full-time producer. He and longtime collaborator Pierre-Ange Le Pogam changed the name of the film company from Leeloo Productions to EuropaCorp, They wanted to develop a new trend in mainstream cinema based on successful films such as the Taxi series (1998–2007), the Transporter series (2002–2008), and the Jet Li films Kiss of the Dragon (Chris Nahon, 2001) and Unleashed/Danny the Dog (Louis Letterier, 2005). Their English-language films Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008), Taken 2 (Olivier Megaton, 2012), and Taken 3 (Olivier Megaton, 2014), all starring Liam Neeson, were major successes, with Taken 2 becoming the largest-grossing export French film. At the same time, he was overseeing the adaptation of the Arthur series of children's novels that he cowrote with Céline Garcia. Now at the head of a highly profitable studio, he nonetheless continued to direct films. The experimental black-and-white film Angel-A (2005), starring Jamel Debbouze and Rie Rasmussen, received mixed reviews from critics and failed to match the success of its predecessors with audiences. The Children’s film Arthur and the Minimoys (2006) was his 10th film. The live-action/animated fantasy film drew a French audience of six million and was exported worldwide. He decided to shoot the two sequels himself at the same time. But Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard (2009), and Arthur 3: War of Two Worlds (2010), only attracted half the audience of the first. Lucy (2014), starring Scarlett became the biggest success for a French feature film, with $459 million. At the same time, Besson enjoyed success by producing the Taken saga between 2008 and 2015 starring Liam Neeson. His blockbuster Valérian et la Cité des mille planets/Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2016) was adapted from the comic book series ‘Valérian et Laureline’ by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières. The film had the biggest budget in the history of French cinema, but the investment proved impossible to make a return on. The failure was repeated with his next film, Anna (2019). At the same time, Taxi 5 (Frank Gastambide, 2019), also disappointed. These three failures left EuropaCorp almost bankrupt. Besson had to sell it to a creditor and close the free, no-credentials scriptwriting and directing school he had founded in 2012. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, which interrupted a large part of film production, and the accusation of rape by Dutch-Belgian actress Sand Van Roy, who appeared in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the filmmaker did not shoot for three years but announced that he had written 17 screenplays. In 2023, Besson was definitively cleared of all charges of rape, following a ruling by the Court of Cassation, the highest judicial court in France. Besson directed the film DogMan (2023), starring Caleb Landry Jones, which was released to positive reviews. However, box-office results were disappointing. His next film was the romantic comedy Weekend in Taipei, for which he co-wrote the screenplay. In 2024, while his film June and John was still in post-production, he began shooting Dracula: A Love Tale, an adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. For the occasion, he reunited with the lead actor of DogMan, Caleb Landry Jones Luc Besson has been married four times. In 1986, he wed actress Anne Parillaud who starred in his film Nikita/La Femme Nikita (1990).. They had a daughter, Juliette, born in 1987, but divorced in 1991. Besson's second wife was actress and director Maïwenn, whom he started dating when he was 31 and she 15. They married in late 1992 when Maïwenn, then 16, was pregnant with their daughter Shanna, born in 1993. Maïwenn later claimed that their relationship was the inspiration for Besson's film Léon (1994), in which the plot concerned the emotional relationship between a grown man and a 12-year-old girl. Their marriage ended in 1997, when, while filming The Fifth Element (1997), Besson got into a relationship with actress Milla Jovovich. In 1997, Besson, aged 38, married 21-year-old Jovovich. They divorced in 1999. In 2004, Besson married film producer Virginie Silla, with whom he had three children.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
We came across the text from our Eye interview - so here it is:
Profile / DixonBaxi
By John L. Walters
Power of two
keywords
Animation
Art direction
Design business
Identity
Television
Typography
Clients who hire the company behind Five’s new identity always work directly with the main men
Simon Dixon and Aporva Baxi quit their old jobs on the same day in 2001, determined to start their new studio, DixonBaxi, with a clean slate. ‘We decided we wouldn’t work with our old clients, and we wouldn’t show any work we had done,’ says Baxi. ‘We wrote two lists,’ says Dixon. ‘One list of things we would do . . .’ ‘Simple things like being honest, no bullshit,’ interrupts Baxi. ‘And one list of things we wouldn’t do, like music design and working for agencies,’ continues Dixon. ‘But we didn’t quite know what we would be doing.’
What they do now – with flair, humour and considerable success – is design, art direction and branding, notably in television. After seven years as DixonBaxi, with some distinctive and memorable projects for Formula 1, the Sci Fi Channel, Last.fm and MTV under their belts, they have just completed their biggest job to date, the rebranding of Five, the UK’s newest terrestrial television channel, which launched in 1997.
The Five commission has taken them beyond the usual boundaries of art direction, forcing them to leave the comfort zone of cult or niche channels for a more mainstream, tabloid approach that would engage Five’s ‘telly-loving’ public.
‘Five’s brief said that everything was up for grabs,’ says Baxi, explaining that the duo had to look at the identity and how everything looks, plus all the ‘underpinnings’ – the tone of voice and the way that is articulated. In some senses, their role was closer to management consultancy and branding than graphics, as they sought a refreshed identity for the channel, working to an ‘aggressive timeline’ that obliged them to shelve other projects and turn down new clients for half a year. As well as working within Five – with its 300-plus employees from shop to boardroom level – they commissioned many different independent design, film and animation studios, including Mate Steinforth and David Cairns.
DixonBaxi’s work has had the trajectory of many similar design duos: a few small jobs for like-minded clients in the first few years as the workflow slowly grew in size, scope and value. What is remarkable, however, is that it has remained the same size: two people. The principals preside over the generous space of their East London studio in splendid isolation: two desks, a few chairs and lots of wall space for current posters, positioning statements and try-outs, plus a few mementos of past projects.
No interns, junior designers, account managers or admin staff interrupt the view from behind their matching 30-inch monitors. The duo made a deliberate decision to play down their prehistory as part of Attik, whose turbo-charged, computer-driven graphics seemed to be everywhere at the close of the previous decade. Baxi, who studied graphic design at Middlesex University, joined Attik in 1995 after stints at Michael Peters and Saatchi & Saatchi. Dixon studied at York College, and founded Orange Design with Chris Ashworth and Gary Brown before joining Attik in 1993. Baxi and Dixon worked together in London before Dixon went off to initiate Attik’s New York operation
in 1995. Baxi set up the company’s San Francisco office three years later, before joining Dixon in NY in 1999, where they spearheaded campaigns for brands such as Sony, Ford, Levi’s and Swiss Re.
Seven years ago, they hardly dared imagine how the new practice might develop. But their ‘manifesto’ would guide the fledgling company into a new way of working, with guideline statements that reminded them to ‘Look underneath, but craft the surface’, to ‘Work with the client directly’ and to have the ‘confidence to say “no”’. They decided to eschew the sectors taken care of by 100 other London practices, such as music packaging, book covers and elaborate websites. Their first two projects quickly defined the direction they would follow: identity work for a financial services company and for MTV.
Despite their ‘no music’ rule, DixonBaxi’s logo and information design for the Last.fm website helped the fledgling social networking outfit (founded in 2002 by Martin Stiksel, Felix Miller and Richard Jones) transform the way music is disseminated, part of an ongoing change that is forcing the industry to rethink the relationship between music and imagery.
Last.fm was a ‘little’ client, financially, but the system that DixonBaxi designed adapted seamlessly as the network took off: ‘In some senses it wasn’t small at all,’ says Dixon, ‘because all the elements we put in place expanded as it grew to 20 million people.’
Their work for Formula 1 is actually their most visible work; DixonBaxi’s on-screen branding and information delivery system reaches 40 or 50 million viewers around the world for each race: it is a huge sub-brand within sports television. The team won a three-way pitch for the job, beating two broadcast design companies with a background in sports programme graphics.
‘When we did Formula 1,’ says Dixon, ‘if we hadn’t made use of our graphic design skills it wouldn’t have been as good as it is now.’ He sees a direct link between the Swiss orthodoxy he learned as a student and the discipline required for a job like this, where the client required an information system that was rigorous and robust. ‘It’s actually a three-dimensional grid,’ he says. ‘Because you have to add time to it. Without the technology aspect of it, the design part of it wouldn’t have been as good. The design is quite simple, it’s all about watching the race. If I switch on to ITV twenty minutes in, I just need to know who’s winning and who’s second and what’s happened.’
Both designers are adept at slipping between big picture and detail: they talk the brand talk while walking the graphic walk: ‘The thing I like about graphic design is that it’s a craft-based discipline,’ says Dixon. ‘The best graphic designers have this deep-seated need to make things almost perfect. Whether that’s Farrow or Build or North (whoever your favourite is) they have this way of looking at the world which is really high quality and well considered. If you can take that mindset to a different discipline, it’s really exciting.’
Their work for MTV and the Sci Fi channel also puts the emphasis on the viewers – who are typically quite different to the people who run the channels. To prepare a presentation for the MTV2, they first drove around London, seeking out the places where the typical audience would hang out. They took photographs, collected detritus – trainers, flyers, etc. – and constructed a ten-foot wide junk collage that became a giant ‘mood board’ for the channel. ‘This resulted in almost “anti-channel” design,’ explains Dixon. The MTV identity, tapping into what they term ‘the disenfranchised, boy-in-bedroom, music-with-attitude’ tone of the channel, was based on the way their audience spoke, in obtuse, snarky statements and text-style language.
A later variation on this identity sought to be more ‘gritty’, with backgrounds and overlays made from photographs of pavement, planks of wood and found material from skips. ‘The colour palette and visuals were designed to be strong,’ says Dixon, but the language was stronger, because it was based on how their audiences spoke, and updated with actual emails sent to the MTV2 website from its viewers: the audience could actually see their words on the screen.
An identity for MTV UK took another unexpected turn, using photographs of scenarios that are odd, bleak or downright peculiar, a ‘Martin Parr’ worldview for alienated teenagers. Dixon and Baxi wrote and directed more than 60 live action idents featuring animals (stuffed and live) in addition to bizarre characters such as ‘Smell Guy’ and ‘Dougie’ the taxidermist. By contrast, their work for TMF (The Music Factory) was fundamentally graphic, with coloured blobs and typewritten captions – a much-needed ‘lick of paint’ for the highest-rated (if not the coolest) Freeview music channel.
The Sci Fi channel required a different tone of voice, or rather set of voices. With a brief to take the broadcaster from ‘geekdom’ and make it into ‘the fearless brand it should be’, DixonBaxi designed and art-directed a set of 48 picture cards whose reverse texts would also give the channel’s staff some very broad brand guidelines (somewhat reminiscent of Schmidt and Eno’s Oblique Strategies, see Eye no. 24 vol. 6). The images include aliens, the cast of Star Trek imagined as rock band, some other-worldly countryside manifestations and a mysterious pyramid.
NO APOLOGIES FOR THE F-WORD
Writing, systems and typography lie at the heart of DixonBaxi’s thought processes. Dixon studied Swiss typography with Jim Deans at York College, where he later worked as a college designer. ‘It was very beneficial to be taught traditional typography,’ he says, ‘it brings a sense of craft to the discipline. We were lucky because at York we could work in hot metal letterpress, there was a big Berthold typesetting machine and photo labs, and they had Macs.’
The Five job obliged them to produce a slew of words (often with the help of the writing agency 26) to ‘explain the channel to itself’. They printed out all the elements of their initial work on to A2 cards, which they put in a big white box and presented formally to Five. ‘The presentation is a story. Before you even get to some of the key core components, you’ve already seen them,’ says Baxi, ‘The typefaces and the colours are already integrated into the presentation as a whole.’
They wanted to challenge the ‘brand idolatry’ of TV channels – what Baxi calls ‘the monolithic let’s-find-the-logotype-in-the-environment kind of thing’ that Channel 4 does so well. ‘Television is unusual,’ Dixon explains, ‘because in very few other places in branding do you linger on it for a long period of time before you do anything else. The only reason it happens on TV is that continuity – the voiceover which tells you what’s happening and where you’re going – needs something to accompany it. So the voice picks up, starts talking about the TV programme, the logo appears and 25 seconds worth of material happens. That’s the convention. ‘Our feeling was that the identity should just filter in and out of the whole channel and pop up when you need it, not have large chunks of it sat there for periods of time. People are watching TV, they don’t want to be looking at logos!’
They had to present their designs to Five’s bosses (six times in the first week), rapidly working their way up the management chain, to the CEO (who had never before in the eleven years of the company had to deal directly with ‘suppliers’), then the board, who asked ‘quite tough questions’. The final hurdle was a presentation to Gerhard Zeiler, the chief executive of RTL, the media group that owns Five. ‘He thought the “F” was a bit apologetic, and asked us to write “Fuck” on the board,’ says Dixon. The designers responded by saying that they were aiming to befriend Five’s viewers rather than swear at them. After some refinements to the apologetic ‘F’, they found an option he was happy with. Dixon says their aim was to produce a logo mark, not a typeface, and one that would look good in monochrome. ‘There’s something nice about these old logos by guys like Saul Bass. Even when you see them in black and white, printed badly, in all these logo books, they still look good!’
The identity was also tested in focus groups, with Grey London, the company responsible for advertising the new-look Five. ‘We fine-tuned the colours and the language a little bit, based on the focus groups. The writing was a bit verbose, and you could almost hear scriptwriting in it.’ But he adds: ‘You have to take research with a pinch of salt. You set up a situation where people know it’s research, so they act in a way that isn’t normal.’
In fact Five already had a very clear idea of who is watching the channel – it checks the ratings every day – so the research did not derail the process.
The demands of Clarity, the computerised system that manages all Five’s on-air design assets and content, meant that the designers had to go straight from the broad-brush, creative aspects of the brief to typographical detail. For this, using the typeface Gloriola, they laid down a set of rules and guidelines for Five’s content managers. ‘You have to be very, very robust about the design components,’ says Dixon, ‘because if you don’t make the right decision now, when you get to the middle of the testing a small tweak here could have big effects there.’
Once this was under way, DixonBaxi had to address the need for interstitials (short clips between programmes), bumpers (the items that separate programme content from the adverts) and what they call ‘brand bursts’, embarking on a quest to find and commission potential collaborators around the world.
After looking at more than 100 submissions from companies and individuals, they picked directors that they thought appropriate, and sent them an open-ended brief, all about values and spirit. ‘Suddenly, we had this huge volume of ideas. Some directors came back with one idea, others with thirteen or fourteen,’ says Baxi. Companies commissioned so far include Grant Gilbert, Mate Steinforth, Aardman, Robert Seidel and Chris Cairns, whose witty clips turn everyday items like store trolleys into musical instruments. In each burst, the logo appears briefly, with an animated, coloured halo. ‘We didn’t want the logo throughout, or have an ident that arrives at the logo, or finds it in the space. We try and create a seamless experience, with one piece of content blending into another, then another.’
Dixon and Baxi have reached an enviable stage in their careers, working with large clients on extensive projects without the hassles of running a big company. They enjoy their ‘below the radar’ status: they don’t send out press releases, or enter awards. The only ‘promotion’ they do is to give lectures, such as the one they gave at Design Yatra in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last November.
‘Using collaborators has completely freed up the way we work,’ says Dixon. ‘There’s no preciousness . . . we don’t care how it gets made as long as it delivers what we want it to deliver.’ They effectively ‘edit’ their clients, and are single-minded about the work they take on. ‘We operate better on the larger projects.’ Dixon says: ‘We work very well with certain kinds of companies – people who need somebody to reposition them, redirect them, motivate them. They have access to two very senior creative directors, all the time, who never pass down. All our work is direct to clients who make a difference in the business.’
Dixon compares their methods to those of a bigger company, where the principals ‘would do two or three meetings and disappear’, maybe coming back for the odd presentation, and the client ‘would speak to account managers and junior designers and other people who do the work.’ By contrast, he says, ‘People who work with us, work with us, literally! It streamlines the process, because we make decisions as we go – everything we do is a live experience.’
Shanmugam Shankar, commonly known as Shankar, is an Indian film director and producer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. Recognized for directing high budget films, he is also a pioneer of vigilante movies in Tamil.[1] He made his directional debut in Gentleman (1993) produced by K. T. Kunjumon. for which he was awarded the Filmfare Best Director Award and the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Director. He is the highest paid film-maker in India among his contemporaries.[2]
Two of his films, Indian (1996) and Jeans (1998) were submitted by India for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2007, he was awarded an Honorary doctorate by M. G. R. University.Early life[edit]
Shankar was born on 17 August 1963 in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu to Muthulakshmi and Shanmugam. He had completed a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Central Polytechnic Chennai, before entering film industry.[3] He was roped into film industry by S. A. Chandrasekhar for scriptwriting, who accidentally saw the drama stage shows made by Shankar and his team.[citation needed]
career
shankar began his career as an assistant to film directors like S. A. Chandrasekhar and Pavithran.[3] His first break in Hindi films was as an assistant director to S. A. Chandrasekhar in Jai Shiv Shankar produced by Rajesh Khanna. In 1993, he made his directional debut through Gentleman. Starring Arjun Sarja in the lead role, the film was made with a higher budget in Tamil cinema during that time, won positive response and became a blockbuster.[4] A. R. Rahman, the film's composer continued to work with Shankar in his following 6 directorial ventures.
His second film Kadhalan, a romantic-action film was released in the following year, had Prabhu Deva in the lead role. Kadhalan too earned positive response and subsequently went on to become a magnificent venture at the box office. In 1996, he collaborated with Kamal Haasan for Indian. The film was both critically acclaimed as well as a commercial success. The film was selected as the country's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Following the success of Indian, Shankar began to work on Jeans, which released in 1998 and became the most expensive film in Indian cinema at that time with a budget of INR 200 million. Upon release, it became one of the highest grossing Tamil films of the 1990s. He made his production debut through Mudhalvan (1999), was launched with Rajinikanth playing the lead. After the actor cited schedule conflicts, Arjun Sarja joined the project. Mudhalvan brought immense box office success to Shankar on his debut as a producer. At the same time, Shankar started to work on his next film which was supposed to be a science fiction film titled Robot, but the project could not move forward due to an immensely large budget. Instead, he opted to remake Mudhalvan in Hindi as Nayak, thus making his Bollywood debut.
His musical entertainer film Boys was released in 2003, which received mixed response from the critics and audience, prompting it to do only average business. His psychological thriller Anniyan, featuring Vikram in three distinct characters (Ambi, Remo & Anniyan) was released in 2005 with Harris Jayaraj as the composer for his film. Anniyan turned out to become the second highest grossing Tamil film of 2005. Shortly after the release of Anniyan, it was reported that Shankar had teamed up with Rajinikanth and AVM Productions for a film. He renewed his association with A. R. Rahman with the film. Sivaji was made at a budget of INR 600 million,[5] the most expensive Indian film at that time. After two years of filming, the film released in 2007 with much fanfare and hype across the globe. Ultimately it went on to become the highest grossing Tamil film of that time.[6]
Following Sivaji, Shankar revisited the possibility of beginning his shelved science fiction venture. After initial discussions Shahrukh Khan and their subsequent differences of opinion regarding the script, he later decided to make the project in Tamil with Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai. The film was produced by South Indian media proprietor, Kalanithi Maran, was renamed as Enthiran and was made on a budget of INR 1.32 billion, the most expensive Indian film. Some reports also make it the highest grossing Indian film, although this cannot be independently verified.[7][8] After initial reports indicating that Shankar's next film is entitled to be with Siddharth, Shankar started to work on Nanban, the Tamil remake of the 2009 Hindi film 3 Idiots starring Vijay, Jeeva and Srikanth. The film opened to highly positive reviews in January 2012 and emerged yet another financial success.[9] After Nanban, it was wrongly reported that Shankar's next film would be called Therdal.[10][11] On 21 June 2012, Shankar announced the name and crew for his next film named I.[12] Vikram, after the successful Anniyan (2005), again joins with Shankar while Amy Jackson is the female lead. The movie is expected to be produced and released on a mega scale by 2014.
Production still from a Spin Creative (www.spincreativegroup.com) shoot for the Sea-Tac Airport "Going Green" :60 second spot. Spin Creative shot during the week of July 23, 2012 in various locations at the airport and in the Seattle-area. The spot features a family arriving at the airport to enjoy a vacation. The heart of the spot features 3D "match move" 3D type composited into eye-catching shots. Each piece of 3D type calls out the "Green" efforts underway at the airport. Spin Creative developed the creative concept and script as well as provided full production support and services for the spot.
Production Company: Spin Creative, LLC
Creative Director, Script Writer, Director: Matthew Billings (Spin Creative, LLC)
Which, disapponingly, was built out of brick. Which makes me think it was named after statesman Henry Clay. However, that's probably not the case.
I like the script writing.
Bay Street at 73rd Avenue, St. Pete Beach.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 567. Photo: David O. Selznick.
Tall and handsome Rory Calhoun (1922-1999) was an American film and TV actor who also worked as a screenwriter, producer and author. He appeared in more than 80 films and more than a thousand episodes of various TV shows. His films include How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), River of No Return (1954), and The Spoilers (1955).
Rory Calhoun was born Francis Timothy McCown in 1922 in Los Angeles, California. His father was James 'Floyd' McCown, a professional gambler, and his mother was Elizabeth Cuthbert. When he was nine months old his father died. After his mother remarried he occasionally used the last name of his stepfather, Durgin. His young criminal career was rather extensive. A high school dropout, he stole a revolver at age 13, which landed him in the California Youth Authority's Preston School of Industry reformatory at Ione, CA. He escaped while in the adjustment centre (jail within the jail). He left home at 17 to escape beatings from his stepfather and began hot-wiring cars. After robbing several jewellery stores, he stole a car and drove it across state lines. This offence sent him to the federal penitentiary in Springfield, MO, for three years. When he finished his sentence he was incarcerated in San Quentin State Penitentiary in California on other charges and remained there until he was paroled just before his 21st birthday. Before becoming an actor he worked as a boxer, a lumberjack, a truck driver and a cowpuncher. His life changed when a Hollywood agent, Sue Carol, auditioned him at 20th Century Fox. He was noticed by Alan Ladd, Sue's husband when Rory was riding a horse in a Los Angeles park. Impressed with Calhoun's physique, Ladd introduced him to Sue. Rory got a bit role in Something for the Boys (Lewis Seiler, 1944), with Carmen Miranda. He got his first credited role as Frank McCown in the Laurel and Hardy comedy, The Bullfighters (Malcolm St. Clair, 1945). He was signed to a contract by Henry Wilson, an agent known for a stable of young and attractive actors with unusual names like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter. He initially christened him "Troy Donahue", then changed it to "Rory Calhoun". Wilson used the Troy Donahue name later on another up-and-coming actor. Wilson was an employee of David O. Selznick and he signed Calhoun in Selznick's company. His first public appearance was as Lana Turner's escort to the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), a Selznick production. The glamorous blonde and her handsome companion attracted the paparazzi, and photos appeared in newspapers and fan magazines. In 1945, he was sent again to prison for beating a detective. Calhoun did not appear in a film for a year before being lent to producer Sol Lesser for the thriller The Red House (Delmer Daves, 1947) with Edward G. Robinson. In the same year, he worked in two more films, Adventure Island (Sam Newfield, 1947) and That Hagen Girl (Peter Godfrey, 1947) starring Shirley Temple. He graduated to starring in Westerns such as Sand (Louis King, 1949). He first appeared in a negative role in Return of Frontiersman (Richard L. Bare, 1950), starring Gordon MacRae and Julie London.
In August 1950, Rory Calhoun signed a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Some of his first films for Fox were such Westerns as A Ticket to Tomahawk (Richard Sale, 1950), Rogue River (John Rawlins, 1951). With Susan Hayward, he co-starred in the musical With a Song in My Heart (Walter Lang, 1952) and with Gene Tierney in the Western Way of a Gaucho (Jacques Tourneur, 1952). He co-starred with Marilyn Monroe in the comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953) as Betty Grable's love interest and the Western River of No Return (Otto Preminger, Jean Negulesco, 1954), starring Robert Mitchum. Both films were big hits. Calhoun then left Fox. He starred in such Westerns as The Yellow Tomahawk (Lesley Selander, 1954), A Bullet is Waiting (John Farrow, 1954) and The Spoilers (Jesse Hibbs, 1955) with Ann Baxter. Calhoun's conviction history became public when his mugshot appeared on the May 1955 cover of Confidential magazine. According to one source, his agent, Henry Willson, disclosed information about Calhoun's years in prison to Confidential in exchange for the tabloid not printing an exposé about the secret homosexual life of Rock Hudson, another Willson client. According to another source, blackmailers threatened to make his prison record public, so instead, Calhoun revealed it himself. However, the disclosure had no negative effect on Calhoun's career and only served to solidify his 'bad boy' image. He starred in such Westerns as Raw Edge (John Sherwood, 1956), The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957) and Ride Out of Revenge (1958). In 1957, Rory and his partner Victor Orsatti started a film production company called 'Rorvic'. He helped produce films like the Film Noir Flight to Hong Kong (Joseph M. Newman, 1956), and the Westerns The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), Domino Kid (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), and Apache Territory (Ray Nazzaro, 1958). In 1959, he made his television debut in The Texan (1959-1960). Around this time, Rory also started scriptwriting. He also appeared in an episode of the CBS show December Bride (1959). The episode was called 'Rory Calhoun the Texan'.
In the early 1960s, he starred in the stock car racing film Thunder in Carolina (Paul Helmick, 1960), and the Peplum Il Colosso di Rodi/The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), co-written and directed by Sergio Leone. The film was Leone's first work as a credited director, in a genre where he already had worked before (as the replacement director for The Last Days of Pompeii and as a secondary director for both Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis). The film was originally meant to star John Derek. However, he clashed with Sergio Leone and was replaced by Rory Calhoun. Calhoun travelled to Spain to make the film, then to Great Britain for The Treasure of Monte Cristo (Monty Berman, Robert S. Baker, 1961) in Britain, and then to Italy for L'avventura di un italiano in Cina/Marco Polo (Piero Pierotti, 1962) with Yoko Tani. He returned to the U.S. to make several films for producer A.C. Lyles, such as the war film The Young and the Brave (Francis D. Lyon, 1963) and the Western Apache Rising (R.G. Springsteen, 1965), with Corinne Calvet. He returned to Europe to make the French Eurospy film Our Men in Bagdad (Paolo Bianchini, 1966) with Roger Hanin, and the Spanish adventure film The Emerald of Artatama (José María Elorrieta, 1969). During the 1960s, he also guest-starred in several popular TV shows like Death Valley Days (1963), Bonanza (1964), Gunsmoke (1965), I Spy (1966), Gilligan's Island (1967) and Custer (1969). In the 1970s he could be seen in TV shows such as The Doris Day Show (1972), Police Story (1973), Starsky and Hutch (1975) and Fantasy Land (1978). In 1982, he appeared for five years as Judge Judson Tyler on the US soap opera Capitol and remained on the show until it ended in 1987. In the cinema, he starred in cult films like the Science-Fiction horror film Night of the Lepus (William F. Claxton, 1972) with Janet Leigh, the comedy horror film Motel Hell (Kevin Connor, 1980), the exploitation horror film Angel (Robert Vincent O'Neill, 1984), and the Science-Fiction action film Hell Comes to Frogtown (Donald G. Jackson, R. J. Kizer, 1989). He produced himself Fists of Steel (Jerry Schafer, 1991). His last film as an actor was Pure Country (Christopher Cain, 1992) in which the still handsome Calhoun played the character of 'Earnest Tucker' - a family patriarch and farmer. His last screen appearance was in the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1993). Rory Calhoun was married three times, once to his first wife and twice to his second wife. His first wife was Lita Baron (1948-1970), with whom he had three daughters, Cindy (1957), Tami (1958) and Lorri (1961). At the time of the divorce, Baron accused him of committing adultery with more than 70 women, including Betty Grable. Reportedly, Calhoun responded, "Heck, she didn't even include half of them". His second wife was journalist Sue Rhodes (1971-1979; 1982-1999) with whom he had one daughter, Rory Patricia (1971). He also had a daughter with actress Vitina Marcus, Athena Marcus Calhoun, who became "The World's Most Beautiful Showgirl" and was awarded "The Key to the City of Las Vegas" in 1987. Guy Madison was one of his closest friends. The two men often went on fishing and hunting trips. Guy and his (second) wife Sheila Connolly named him godfather to their firstborn Bridget. Rory Calhoun passed away in 1999 at the age of 76 after a ten-day hospitalisation at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. He died due to complications from emphysema and diabetes. Calhoun has two stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures, and one for television.
Sources: Bill Takacs (IMDb), Celeb-true, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano. Photo: Universal International.
Tall and handsome Rory Calhoun (1922-1999) was an American film and TV actor who also worked as a screenwriter, producer and author. He appeared in more than 80 films and more than a thousand episodes of various TV shows. His films include How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), River of No Return (1954), and The Spoilers (1955).
Rory Calhoun was born Francis Timothy McCown in 1922 in Los Angeles, California. His father was James 'Floyd' McCown, a professional gambler, and his mother was Elizabeth Cuthbert. When he was nine months old his father died. After his mother remarried he occasionally used the last name of his stepfather, Durgin. His young criminal career was rather extensive. A high school dropout, he stole a revolver at age 13, which landed him in the California Youth Authority's Preston School of Industry reformatory at Ione, CA. He escaped while in the adjustment centre (jail within the jail). He left home at 17 to escape beatings from his stepfather and began hot-wiring cars. After robbing several jewellery stores, he stole a car and drove it across state lines. This offence sent him to the federal penitentiary in Springfield, MO, for three years. When he finished his sentence he was incarcerated in San Quentin State Penitentiary in California on other charges and remained there until he was paroled just before his 21st birthday. Before becoming an actor he worked as a boxer, a lumberjack, a truck driver and a cowpuncher. His life changed when a Hollywood agent, Sue Carol, auditioned him at 20th Century Fox. He was noticed by Alan Ladd, Sue's husband when Rory was riding a horse in a Los Angeles park. Impressed with Calhoun's physique, Ladd introduced him to Sue. Rory got a bit role in Something for the Boys (Lewis Seiler, 1944), with Carmen Miranda. He got his first credited role as Frank McCown in the Laurel and Hardy comedy, The Bullfighters (Malcolm St. Clair, 1945). He was signed to a contract by Henry Wilson, an agent known for a stable of young and attractive actors with unusual names like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter. He initially christened him "Troy Donahue", then changed it to "Rory Calhoun". Wilson used the Troy Donahue name later on another up-and-coming actor. Wilson was an employee of David O. Selznick and he signed Calhoun in Selznick's company. His first public appearance was as Lana Turner's escort to the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), a Selznick production. The glamorous blonde and her handsome companion attracted the paparazzi, and photos appeared in newspapers and fan magazines. In 1945, he was sent again to prison for beating a detective. Calhoun did not appear in a film for a year before being lent to producer Sol Lesser for the thriller The Red House (Delmer Daves, 1947) with Edward G. Robinson. In the same year, he worked in two more films, Adventure Island (Sam Newfield, 1947) and That Hagen Girl (Peter Godfrey, 1947) starring Shirley Temple. He graduated to starring in Westerns such as Sand (Louis King, 1949). He first appeared in a negative role in Return of Frontiersman (Richard L. Bare, 1950), starring Gordon MacRae and Julie London.
In August 1950, Rory Calhoun signed a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Some of his first films for Fox were such Westerns as A Ticket to Tomahawk (Richard Sale, 1950), and Rogue River (John Rawlins, 1951). With Susan Hayward, he co-starred in the musical With a Song in My Heart (Walter Lang, 1952) and with Gene Tierney in the Western Way of a Gaucho (Jacques Tourneur, 1952). He co-starred with Marilyn Monroe in the comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953) as Betty Grable's love interest and the Western River of No Return (Otto Preminger, Jean Negulesco, 1954), starring Robert Mitchum. Both films were big hits. Calhoun then left Fox. He starred in such Westerns as The Yellow Tomahawk (Lesley Selander, 1954), A Bullet is Waiting (John Farrow, 1954) and The Spoilers (Jesse Hibbs, 1955) with Ann Baxter. Calhoun's conviction history became public when his mugshot appeared on the May 1955 cover of Confidential magazine. According to one source, his agent, Henry Willson, disclosed information about Calhoun's years in prison to Confidential in exchange for the tabloid not printing an exposé about the secret homosexual life of Rock Hudson, another Willson client. According to another source, blackmailers threatened to make his prison record public, so instead, Calhoun revealed it himself. However, the disclosure had no negative effect on Calhoun's career and only served to solidify his 'bad boy' image. He starred in such Westerns as Raw Edge (John Sherwood, 1956), The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957) and Ride Out of Revenge (1958). In 1957, Rory and his partner Victor Orsatti started a film production company called 'Rorvic'. He helped produce films like the Film Noir Flight to Hong Kong (Joseph M. Newman, 1956), and the Westerns The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), Domino Kid (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), and Apache Territory (Ray Nazzaro, 1958). In 1959, he made his television debut in The Texan (1959-1960). Around this time, Rory also started scriptwriting. He also appeared in an episode of the CBS show December Bride (1959). The episode was called 'Rory Calhoun the Texan'.
In the early 1960s, he starred in the stock car racing film Thunder in Carolina (Paul Helmick, 1960), and the Peplum Il Colosso di Rodi/The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), co-written and directed by Sergio Leone. The film was Leone's first work as a credited director, in a genre where he already had worked before (as the replacement director for The Last Days of Pompeii and as a secondary director for both Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis). The film was originally meant to star John Derek. However, he clashed with Sergio Leone and was replaced by Rory Calhoun. Calhoun travelled to Spain to make the film, then to Great Britain for The Treasure of Monte Cristo (Monty Berman, Robert S. Baker, 1961) in Britain, and then to Italy for L'avventura di un italiano in Cina/Marco Polo (Piero Pierotti, 1962) with Yoko Tani. He returned to the U.S. to make several films for producer A.C. Lyles, such as the war film The Young and the Brave (Francis D. Lyon, 1963) and the Western Apache Rising (R.G. Springsteen, 1965), with Corinne Calvet. He returned to Europe to make the French Eurospy film Our Men in Bagdad (Paolo Bianchini, 1966) with Roger Hanin, and the Spanish adventure film The Emerald of Artatama (José María Elorrieta, 1969). During the 1960s, he also guest-starred in several popular TV shows like Death Valley Days (1963), Bonanza (1964), Gunsmoke (1965), I Spy (1966), Gilligan's Island (1967) and Custer (1969). In the 1970s he could be seen in TV shows such as The Doris Day Show (1972), Police Story (1973), Starsky and Hutch (1975) and Fantasy Land (1978). In 1982, he appeared for five years as Judge Judson Tyler on the US soap opera Capitol and remained on the show until it ended in 1987. In the cinema, he starred in cult films like the Science-Fiction horror film Night of the Lepus (William F. Claxton, 1972) with Janet Leigh, the comedy horror film Motel Hell (Kevin Connor, 1980), the exploitation horror film Angel (Robert Vincent O'Neill, 1984), and the Science-Fiction action film Hell Comes to Frogtown (Donald G. Jackson, R. J. Kizer, 1989). He produced himself Fists of Steel (Jerry Schafer, 1991). His last film as an actor was Pure Country (Christopher Cain, 1992) in which the still handsome Calhoun played the character of 'Earnest Tucker' - a family patriarch and farmer. His last screen appearance was in the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1993). Rory Calhoun was married three times, once to his first wife and twice to his second wife. His first wife was Lita Baron (1948-1970), with whom he had three daughters, Cindy (1957), Tami (1958) and Lorri (1961). At the time of the divorce, Baron accused him of committing adultery with more than 70 women, including Betty Grable. Reportedly, Calhoun responded, "Heck, she didn't even include half of them". His second wife was journalist Sue Rhodes (1971-1979; 1982-1999) with whom he had one daughter, Rory Patricia (1971). He also had a daughter with actress Vitina Marcus, Athena Marcus Calhoun, who became "The World's Most Beautiful Showgirl" and was awarded "The Key to the City of Las Vegas" in 1987. Guy Madison was one of his closest friends. The two men often went on fishing and hunting trips. Guy and his (second) wife Sheila Connolly named him godfather to their firstborn Bridget. Rory Calhoun passed away in 1999 at the age of 76 after a ten-day hospitalisation at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. He died due to complications from emphysema and diabetes. Calhoun has two stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures, and one for television.
Sources: Bill Takacs (IMDb), Celeb-true, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
American postcard by Vanguard Studio, Culver City, California, sent by mail in 1949.
Tall and handsome Rory Calhoun (1922-1999) was an American film and TV actor who also worked as a screenwriter, producer and author. He appeared in more than 80 films and more than a thousand episodes of various TV shows. His films include How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), River of No Return (1954), and The Spoilers (1955).
Rory Calhoun was born Francis Timothy McCown in 1922 in Los Angeles, California. His father was James 'Floyd' McCown, a professional gambler, and his mother was Elizabeth Cuthbert. When he was nine months old his father died. After his mother remarried he occasionally used the last name of his stepfather, Durgin. His young criminal career was rather extensive. A high school dropout, he stole a revolver at age 13, which landed him in the California Youth Authority's Preston School of Industry reformatory at Ione, CA. He escaped while in the adjustment centre (jail within the jail). He left home at 17 to escape beatings from his stepfather and began hot-wiring cars. After robbing several jewellery stores, he stole a car and drove it across state lines. This offence sent him to the federal penitentiary in Springfield, MO, for three years. When he finished his sentence he was incarcerated in San Quentin State Penitentiary in California on other charges and remained there until he was paroled just before his 21st birthday. Before becoming an actor he worked as a boxer, a lumberjack, a truck driver and a cowpuncher. His life changed when a Hollywood agent, Sue Carol, auditioned him at 20th Century Fox. He was noticed by Alan Ladd, Sue's husband when Rory was riding a horse in a Los Angeles park. Impressed with Calhoun's physique, Ladd introduced him to Sue. Rory got a bit role in Something for the Boys (Lewis Seiler, 1944), with Carmen Miranda. He got his first credited role as Frank McCown in the Laurel and Hardy comedy, The Bullfighters (Malcolm St. Clair, 1945). He was signed to a contract by Henry Wilson, an agent known for a stable of young and attractive actors with unusual names like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter. He initially christened him "Troy Donahue", then changed it to "Rory Calhoun". Wilson used the Troy Donahue name later on another up-and-coming actor. Wilson was an employee of David O. Selznick and he signed Calhoun in Selznick's company. His first public appearance was as Lana Turner's escort to the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), a Selznick production. The glamorous blonde and her handsome companion attracted the paparazzi, and photos appeared in newspapers and fan magazines. In 1945, he was sent again to prison for beating a detective. Calhoun did not appear in a film for a year before being lent to producer Sol Lesser for the thriller The Red House (Delmer Daves, 1947) with Edward G. Robinson. In the same year, he worked in two more films, Adventure Island (Sam Newfield, 1947) and That Hagen Girl (Peter Godfrey, 1947) starring Shirley Temple. He graduated to starring in Westerns such as Sand (Louis King, 1949). He first appeared in a negative role in Return of Frontiersman (Richard L. Bare, 1950), starring Gordon MacRae and Julie London.
In August 1950, Rory Calhoun signed a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Some of his first films for Fox were such Westerns as A Ticket to Tomahawk (Richard Sale, 1950), and Rogue River (John Rawlins, 1951). With Susan Hayward, he co-starred in the musical With a Song in My Heart (Walter Lang, 1952) and with Gene Tierney in the Western Way of a Gaucho (Jacques Tourneur, 1952). He co-starred with Marilyn Monroe in the comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953) as Betty Grable's love interest and the Western River of No Return (Otto Preminger, Jean Negulesco, 1954), starring Robert Mitchum. Both films were big hits. Calhoun then left Fox. He starred in such Westerns as The Yellow Tomahawk (Lesley Selander, 1954), A Bullet is Waiting (John Farrow, 1954) and The Spoilers (Jesse Hibbs, 1955) with Ann Baxter. Calhoun's conviction history became public when his mugshot appeared on the May 1955 cover of Confidential magazine. According to one source, his agent, Henry Willson, disclosed information about Calhoun's years in prison to Confidential in exchange for the tabloid not printing an exposé about the secret homosexual life of Rock Hudson, another Willson client. According to another source, blackmailers threatened to make his prison record public, so instead, Calhoun revealed it himself. However, the disclosure had no negative effect on Calhoun's career and only served to solidify his 'bad boy' image. He starred in such Westerns as Raw Edge (John Sherwood, 1956), The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957) and Ride Out of Revenge (1958). In 1957, Rory and his partner Victor Orsatti started a film production company called 'Rorvic'. He helped produce films like the Film Noir Flight to Hong Kong (Joseph M. Newman, 1956), and the Westerns The Hired Gun (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), Domino Kid (Ray Nazzaro, 1957), and Apache Territory (Ray Nazzaro, 1958). In 1959, he made his television debut in The Texan (1959-1960). Around this time, Rory also started scriptwriting. He also appeared in an episode of the CBS show December Bride (1959). The episode was called 'Rory Calhoun the Texan'.
In the early 1960s, he starred in the stock car racing film Thunder in Carolina (Paul Helmick, 1960), and the Peplum Il Colosso di Rodi/The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), co-written and directed by Sergio Leone. The film was Leone's first work as a credited director, in a genre where he already had worked before (as the replacement director for The Last Days of Pompeii and as a secondary director for both Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis). The film was originally meant to star John Derek. However, he clashed with Sergio Leone and was replaced by Rory Calhoun. Calhoun travelled to Spain to make the film, then to Great Britain for The Treasure of Monte Cristo (Monty Berman, Robert S. Baker, 1961) in Britain, and then to Italy for L'avventura di un italiano in Cina/Marco Polo (Piero Pierotti, 1962) with Yoko Tani. He returned to the U.S. to make several films for producer A.C. Lyles, such as the war film The Young and the Brave (Francis D. Lyon, 1963) and the Western Apache Rising (R.G. Springsteen, 1965), with Corinne Calvet. He returned to Europe to make the French Eurospy film Our Men in Bagdad (Paolo Bianchini, 1966) with Roger Hanin, and the Spanish adventure film The Emerald of Artatama (José María Elorrieta, 1969). During the 1960s, he also guest-starred in several popular TV shows like Death Valley Days (1963), Bonanza (1964), Gunsmoke (1965), I Spy (1966), Gilligan's Island (1967) and Custer (1969). In the 1970s he could be seen in TV shows such as The Doris Day Show (1972), Police Story (1973), Starsky and Hutch (1975) and Fantasy Land (1978). In 1982, he appeared for five years as Judge Judson Tyler on the US soap opera Capitol and remained on the show until it ended in 1987. In the cinema, he starred in cult films like the Science-Fiction horror film Night of the Lepus (William F. Claxton, 1972) with Janet Leigh, the comedy horror film Motel Hell (Kevin Connor, 1980), the exploitation horror film Angel (Robert Vincent O'Neill, 1984), and the Science-Fiction action film Hell Comes to Frogtown (Donald G. Jackson, R. J. Kizer, 1989). He produced himself Fists of Steel (Jerry Schafer, 1991). His last film as an actor was Pure Country (Christopher Cain, 1992) in which the still handsome Calhoun played the character of 'Earnest Tucker' - a family patriarch and farmer. His last screen appearance was in the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1993). Rory Calhoun was married three times, once to his first wife and twice to his second wife. His first wife was Lita Baron (1948-1970), with whom he had three daughters, Cindy (1957), Tami (1958) and Lorri (1961). At the time of the divorce, Baron accused him of committing adultery with more than 70 women, including Betty Grable. Reportedly, Calhoun responded, "Heck, she didn't even include half of them". His second wife was journalist Sue Rhodes (1971-1979; 1982-1999) with whom he had one daughter, Rory Patricia (1971). He also had a daughter with actress Vitina Marcus, Athena Marcus Calhoun, who became "The World's Most Beautiful Showgirl" and was awarded "The Key to the City of Las Vegas" in 1987. Guy Madison was one of his closest friends. The two men often went on fishing and hunting trips. Guy and his (second) wife Sheila Connolly named him godfather to their firstborn Bridget. Rory Calhoun passed away in 1999 at the age of 76 after a ten-day hospitalisation at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. He died due to complications from emphysema and diabetes. Calhoun has two stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures, and one for television.
Sources: Bill Takacs (IMDb), Celeb-true, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
On this day in history in 1955 – the first news broadcast in the UK with a female news reader is aired.
The launch of ITV brought with it a rush of energy and a newer, less stuffy way of approaching the audience than the BBC had tended to offer. ITN, the news production company for ITV, changed things, with three personalities chosen to front the news on screen, larger than life barrister and broadcaster Robin Day at 7pm, Olympic athlete Christopher Chataway at 10pm, and very innovatively for the time a woman, the 35-year-old Barbara Mandell, on the noon bulletin.
Allada Barbara Grenville-Wells was born on the 15th July 1920 in London. She grew up in South Africa after her family relocated to that country in 1924. Her father was the deputy editor of South Africa's Rand Daily Mail and Mandell followed him into journalism, working for the same newspaper. She later worked for the South African Broadcasting Company as a radio news editor, but subsequently returned to the United Kingdom in the early 1950s after a brief stay in the United States. After working for the BBC's Television Newsreel as a script editor she joined ITV upon its launch.
For the first time news bulletins were written and read by onscreen presenters, as opposed to the BBC's then preferred method of showing news footage with a voiceover. Mandell was selected from 150 candidates. Mandell was one of two female reporters to work for ITN in its early days (the other being Lynne Reid Banks), and helped to pioneer the use of so-called Vox pop reports in the United Kingdom, whereby one conducts interviews with ordinary members of the public in the street.
Although Mandell was the UK's first regular female television news presenter, her tenure lasted only a few months. By January 1956 ITV was experiencing financial difficulties, and the budget for its news strand was reduced, meaning the Midday News was dropped. However, Mandell continued to be seen on screen throughout the 1950s, usually fronting weekend news bulletins, and she was a regular reporter. Then later in her career she returned to scriptwriting, and ended her career as Chief Copyeditor of the weekday early evening News at 5.45 bulletin before retiring in 1980. Following her retirement she moved to Luxembourg with her partner where she wrote travel books. She later returned to England and died in Holsworthy, Devon in 1998.
Walter Gray was an Arbroathian who collected Arbroath sayings and expressions all his life, and in 1992 published many of them in a book, Parliamo Aberbrothock. Walter was cartoon editor of the Weekly News in Dundee, and a man from whom laughter was never far away. Ian 'Smokie' Gray, stalwart of the Beano scriptwriting staff, was his son. (Photograph - Colin Wight)