Gone With or Without fanfare

[clore]

Ed Lauter, the always working character actor who played the butler/chauffeur of Berenice Bejo’s character Peppy in the best-picture Oscar winner The Artist, died Wednesday. He was 74.

Lauter discovered in May that he had contracted mesothelioma, a terminal form of cancer most commonly caused by exposure to asbestos, publicist Edward Lozzi told The Hollywood Reporter.

Lauter recently played opposite Clint Eastwood in Trouble With the Curve (2012) and had recurring roles on Showtime drama Shameless as Dick Healey and on USA Network’s Pysch as Deputy Commissioner Ed Dystra. Earlier, he recurred on ER, playing Fire Captain Dannaker.

A native of Long Beach, N.Y., Lauter made his TV debut on a 1971 episode of Mannix and arrived on the big screen for the first time in the Western Dirty Little Billy (1972). One of those character actors whose name is unknown but is instantly recognizable, he is listed with an incredible 204 credits as an actor on IMDb.

In Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, Family Plot (1976), the balding, angular Lauter played Maloney, the dangerous, blue-collar man who knows too much about dapper jewel thief and kidnapper Arthur Adamson (William Devane). Hitchcock cast Lauter after seeing him play Captain Wilhelm Knauer, the leader of the guards who go up against Burt Reynolds’ convict football team, in the classic The Longest Yard (1974).

“Hitchcock came out of his screening room, walked back into the office and said, ‘He’s very good, isn’t he?’” Lauter recalled in a 2003 interview. “[His assistant Peggy Anderson], thinking that he meant Burt Reynolds, said, “Yes, he is.’

Hitchcock said, ‘What’s his name again?’ Now, Peggy’s lost; he doesn’t know who Burt Reynolds is? Then, Hitchcock said, ‘Ed something …’ and when Peggy told him, “Ed Lauter,’ he said, ‘Yes, we’ve got our Maloney.’ He had actually told Peggy that he wasn’t going to do the film unless he first cast Maloney, the antagonist. Isn’t that neat?”

His film résumé also includes The New Centurions (1972), The Last American Hero (1973), French Connection II (1975), King Kong (1976), Magic (1978), Cujo (1983), Lassiter (1984), Death Wish 3 (1985), The Rocketeer (1991), Trial by Jury (1994), Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Mulholland Falls (1995), Seabiscuit (2003), the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard, Seraphim Falls (2006) and The Number 23 (2007).

It only seemed as if he was in every TV crime drama in history, with parts in Cannon, Ironside, The Streets of San Francisco, Kojak, Baretta, Police Story, The Rockford Files, Charlie’s Angels, Hawaii Five-0, Simon & Simon, Magnum, P.I., The A-Team, Miami Vice, NYPD Blue, Cold Case and CSI.

Lauter made his Broadway debut in the original 1968 stage production of The Great White Hope starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander.

He has filmed roles in three films yet to hit theaters: The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Becker’s Farm and The Grave.

“He was a pal, not just a PR client,” recalled Lozzi. “His former standup comedy days would always entertain us behind the scenes with his most incredible impersonations. He called me as Clint Eastwood from the set of Trouble With the Curve last year. We really thought it was Eastwood.”

The Ed Lauter Foundation and a scholarship fund is being established to honor his work, and the scholarship will be awarded annually to aspiring young actors. The family asks that donations be made to the foundation.

In that 2003 interview, Lauter recalled: “Someone once said to me, ‘Eddie, you’re a ‘turn’ actor.’ What’s that? He said, ‘That’s when a story is going along and your character shows up and the story suddenly it takes a major turn.’ That’s kind of neat.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/p ... ies-649138

[Lzcutter]

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel

As the images unwind
Like the circles
That you find
In the windmills of your mind !


Singer Noel Harrison, son of actor Rex Harrison, who had a major hit record (as did Dusty Springfield) with the Oscar-winning song, Windmills of Your Mind, has died.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

British actor and musician Noel Harrison, who sang the Academy Award-winning ballad "The Windmills of Your Mind," has died at 79.

Harrison's wife, Lori Chapman, said Tuesday that he suffered a heart attack after a performance on Saturday in Devon, southwest England, and died in a hospital.

The son of actor Rex Harrison, Noel Harrison was a British champion skier and represented the country at the 1952 and 1956 Olympics before becoming a professional musician.

He moved to the United States during the 1960s' "British invasion" and had his greatest success with "The Windmills of Your Mind," which was the theme to 1968 heist movie The Thomas Crown Affair and won the best song Oscar.

Harrison wrote on his website that did not immediately realize the power of the song, by French composer Michel Legrand and American lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

"I went to the studio one afternoon and sang it and pretty much forgot about it," he wrote.

Harrison also appeared opposite Stefanie Powers in the 1966-67 TV series, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.

He lived in Canada for many years but returned to Britain in the 1990s. He was married three times, and is survived by his wife, several children and grandchildren.

[MissGoddess]

I had no idea he was the singer of that song. Quite a talented individual!

[Professional Tourist]

I saw Noel Harrison on stage back in the 80s, in his one-man tribute show to Jacques Brel. He was appearing at the French Institute's Florence Gould hall here in NYC. It was pretty good, but no one can sing Brel so well as Brel himself. I just did a search and apparently Harrison recorded the songs many years later, which is still available on CD -- Adieu, Jacques. Adieu, Noel.

[RedRiver]

I watched GIRL FROM UNCLE (and anything else with Stephanie Powers!). Harrison's character was named Mark Slade. You may know that name as one of the actors on THE HIGH CHAPARRAL. The real Mark Slade was a friend of one of the UNCLE writers. The guy said, "I like your name. Mind if we use it?" Or something like that. So lovely April Dancer's partner became Mark Slade!

[Rita Hayworth]

Ed Lauter had a long television history and one of the very few actors that I can truly understand on television. His legacy as a great character actor will not be forgotten.

Noel Harrison - I loved him in HIGH CHAPARRAL and the cult favorite - 1966-67 TV series, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E and he was great in that short-lived series. I knew him as a singer because he was one of my older brother favorites ... he was that talented.

[RedRiver]

Is that "Suzanne takes you down...to a place beside the river"? If so, that's a lovely little folk song! I didn't really know Harrison as a singer. He was The Guy From UNCLE to me!

[RedRiver]

I think it was Judy Collins I heard do that one.

[MikeBSG]

I just found out that film critic Stanley Kauffmann died on October 9th. He was 97 years old and had written reviews for "The New Republic" from 1958 to this year.

I didn't always agree with his views (he really didn't like Woody Allen's work for one thing), but he always seemed fair and open-minded.

I actually wrote to him once. He reviewed the Jim Carey movie "Liar, Liar" and mentioned the 1940 Bob Hope movie "Nothing But the Truth." I wrote him saying that I had seen and enjoyed the Hope movie, and he sent me a postcard saying we must be the only two people in America who remembered that film.

[Lzcutter]

Legendary stunt performer turned action director Hal Needham has passed away.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Hal Needham, a stuntman who dazzled Hollywood for years before directing his pal Burt Reynolds in such films as Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run, has died. He was 82.

Needham, who received a honorary Oscar in November at the Governors Awards, died Friday in Los Angeles after a short battle with cancer.

“RIP Hal Needham, legendary stuntman, stunt coordinator and director. Truly one of the greatest ever,” producer Gale Anne Hurd tweeted.

Reputed to be the highest-paid stuntman in the movies, Needham garnered his first directing job in 1976 with Smokey and the Bandit after he approached Reynolds (he often doubled for the actor) with a yarn about a good ol’ boy and his trucker friend who must transport a load of beer across state lines. Reynolds loved the idea, and the stuntman found himself in the director’s chair -- and a screenwriter to boot.

With ladies man Reynolds at his wisecracking best and propelled by hair-raising vehicular stunts, Smokey and the Bandit was a runaway box-office hit, raking in more than $126 million as the second-highest grossing movie of 1977. The action comedy also spawned two sequels and a series of telefilms.

Needham followed up with Hooper (1978), starring Reynolds with Sally Field. A story of a great Hollywood stuntman, it was stirred by Needham’s own adventures and featured 30 of Hollywood’s top stunt performers.

“I know one thing; I’ll never win an Academy Award. But I'll be a rich son of b****. And that's what it’s all about,” he once told the Los Angeles Times. He took out ads in the trades, highlighting his films' negative reviews but puncturing them with a shot of a wheelbarrow filled with money.

Needham though, did win an honorary Oscar. “I’ve never been presented anything this prestigious in my life,” he said after hearing he would be saluted at the Governors Awards.

Needham often ended his films by showing humorous outtakes during the credits. He eschewed “serious” film talk: “Directing, it’s a snap,” he once said.

As a stunt performer and coordinator, Needham worked on more than 30 films, including The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), How the West Was Won (1962), Our Man Flint (1966), Little Big Man (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Chinatown (1974).

For more of the obit, please go here:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/h ... ies-651039

[JackFavell]

Awww. he seemed like such a nice guy. Glad he got that honorary Oscar.

[Western Guy]

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/10/26/marci ... ies-at-70/

An actress I've always enjoyed. RIP.