Tag: In Memoriam (1-10 of 77)

May 7 2013 01:05 PM ET

Ray Harryhausen, special effects pioneer, dies at 92

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Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963) augured the explosion of effects-driven cinema over the last 30 years, died in London on May 7 at the age of 92, according to his Facebook page.

Born in Los Angeles in 1920, Harryhausen began his love affair with stop-motion animation early after watching the seminal effects movie King Kong (1933). He started making his own stop-motion films in his family’s garage while connecting with a burgeoning science-fiction fan community in L.A., including life-long friend Ray Bradbury, who would become one of the pre-eminent sci-fi authors of the 20th century. Harryhausen, meanwhile, won work under a succession of filmmaking pioneers, including visual effects guru George Pal on Pal’s popular Puppetoons shorts, director Frank Capra on the Army Motion Picture Unit during World War II, and finally Kong animator Willis O’Brien on the 1949 giant gorilla film Mighty Joe Young, which won an Oscar for its special effects. READ FULL STORY »

May 6 2013 04:31 PM ET

TV anchor, 'RoboCop' actor Mario Machado dead at 78

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Emmy-winning TV news anchor Mario Machado — who also played a newsman in television and movies for more than 30 years — died Saturday of complications from pneumonia, his daughter confirmed to The Los Angeles Times. He was 78.

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May 2 2013 08:57 AM ET

Deanna Durbin, child star from Hollywood's golden age, dies

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Deanna Durbin, a star whose songs and smile made her one of the biggest box office draws of Hollywood’s Golden Age with fans that included Winston Churchill, has died.

Durbin died on about April 20 in a village outside Paris where she had lived, out of public view, since 1949, family friend Bob Koster of Los Angeles told the Associated Press on Wednesday. Koster’s father, Henry Koster, directed six of Durbin’s films. Bob Koster did not know the cause of death.

At the height of her career, the Canadian-born Durbin, who made her first feature, Three Smart Girls, at age 13, was among the highest-paid actresses.

Her admirers included Churchill, who said she was his favorite star according to biographer William Manchester, and Anne Frank, who had Durbin’s photo pasted on the wall in the secret quarters where she and her family hid in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. READ FULL STORY »

Apr 12 2013 09:03 AM ET

Chicago celebs gather to honor Roger Ebert

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Hollywood came to Chicago on Thursday as actors, directors, film critics and studio presidents honored late movie reviewer Roger Ebert in his hometown.

All of those who shared memories at the Chicago Theatre cheered Ebert as a champion of movies and a critic who used his influence to help filmmakers find audiences. He died last week at age 70 after a years-long battle with cancer.

“He was always supportive of artists. He always gave you a fair shake,” said Chicago native John Cusack, who appeared with his sister and fellow actor, Joan Cusack.

Ebert worked at the Chicago Sun-Times for more than 40 years. The day before his April 4 death, he wrote in a post on his blog that he was taking a break from his schedule of almost-daily movie reviewing because the cancer had recurred.

“He was simply one of the finest men I ever met,” Chaz Ebert said of her late husband during Thursday night’s memorial. READ FULL STORY »

Apr 11 2013 12:01 PM ET

Mickey Rose, co-writer of 'Bananas' and 'Take the Money and Run,' dies

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A childhood friend of Woody Allen who co-wrote his movies Bananas and Take the Money and Run has died. Mickey Rose was 77.

His daughter, Jennifer, tells the Los Angeles Times that he died Sunday from cancer at his home in Beverly Hills.

Rose and Allen met in high school in Brooklyn and became friends. They shared a love of playing jazz and baseball.

Rose met his late wife, Judy, through a blind date arranged by Allen.

Rose became a TV comedy writer. He wrote for Johnny Carson and Sid Caesar and for shows including The Smothers Brothers, All in the Family, and The Odd Couple.

In a statement, Allen says Rose was one of the funniest humans he’s known — and a “wonderful first baseman.”

Apr 8 2013 09:59 PM ET

Meryl Streep: 'Margaret Thatcher was a pioneer'

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One of the tricky bargains that actors have to make when they choose to play a living person in a film, is that they’ll be forever inextricably linked to that figure. Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in the 2011 film The Iron Lady, and on news of her passing issued a heartfelt statement expressing her complicated admiration for the former Prime Minister.

Streep did not shy away from the fact that Thatcher was a divisive figure, noting her controversial policies. But the legendary actress also was unafraid to praise Thatcher’s “grit” and her important place in history. Streep wrote: “To have given women and girls around the world reason to supplant fantasies of being princesses with a different dream: the real-life option of leading their nation; this was groundbreaking and admirable.”

Read the statement in full below.

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Apr 5 2013 09:54 PM ET

Richard Roeper on his colleague and friend Roger Ebert: 'He was a true fan of the movies.'

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Legendary film critic Roger Ebert, who died Thursday at age 70, was known for his Chicago Sun-Times reviews he wrote solo, but many movie fans were introduced to him in his collaborative projects, when he and another critic supplied audiences with entertaining and thought-provoking discourse about film on his multiple TV shows. He brought his discussions about the movies to television with the late Chicago Tribune writer Gene Siskel at his side, first on Coming Soon to a Theater Near You and later on Siskel and Ebert and the Movies. Beginning in 2000, his movie talks featured fellow Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper.

When EW spoke to Roeper today, he said that though Ebert’s death was somewhat expected following his long battle with thyroid cancer, “it still came as a shock, and when the moment comes, it still comes far too soon, and I feel it first and foremost as a loss of my friend, a wonderful friend and family man.”

Roeper told EW it has been “remarkable” seeing the “outpouring of sympathy, the attention” on Ebert’s career in the past day since the Chicago Sun-Times first reported his death on Thursday. While notable filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese and even President Barack Obama released statements in memoriam of the celebrated film critic, Roeper has also heard from “15-year-olds who say they want to become movie critics or they want to become filmmakers in great part because they were such great fans of Roger’s work on television and his writing as well.”
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Apr 4 2013 09:14 PM ET

Werner Herzog on Roger Ebert, 'the good soldier of cinema' -- EXCLUSIVE

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During over four decades of writing film reviews, Roger Ebert, who died at age 70 on Thursday, had a continually keen eye for blossoming talent, picking out directors like Martin Scorsese as ones to watch from their very first films, and he found plenty of filmmakers worthy of “two thumbs up” throughout his career. But one filmmaker whose work he championed with particular enthusiasm over the years was Werner Herzog.

The German director’s work — exotic films that blend the surreal with the real, fiction with non-fiction — includes the acclaimed documentaries Grizzly Man and Little Dieter Needs to Fly and the features Aguirre: the Wrath of God and Rescue Dawn.

More than once, Ebert expressed admiration for Herzog’s determination to make films on his own terms without any consistent source of funding. The independent filmmaker has made over 50 films since he released his first short in 1962. In a 2007 letter to Herzog, Ebert wrote, “You and your work are unique and invaluable, and you ennoble the cinema when so many debase it.”

When EW spoke with Herzog on the phone Thursday, the Munich-born filmmaker recounted their mutual admiration for each other’s work and reciprocated Ebert’s praise with similar reflections on Ebert’s own steadfastness amid the changing cultural views of entertainment . READ FULL STORY »

Apr 4 2013 07:11 PM ET

Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Harvey Weinstein, Barack Obama reflect on the career and life of Roger Ebert

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Image Credit: Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage

Acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert has written many words of praise over the years for celebrated, prolific filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Harvey Weinstein. Now, following the news of Ebert’s death on Thursday, these three filmmakers have their own words of admiration for Ebert.

Spielberg — whom Ebert praised for his enduring “talent and flexibility” in an ever-changing industry — said in a statement that the Chicago Sun-Times critic “wrote with passion through a real knowledge of film and film history.” Read his full statement below, which also highlights the success of the multiple television programs Ebert hosted for 23 years (including At the Movies, which Ebert co-hosted with Gene Siskel, who is pictured above): READ FULL STORY »

Apr 4 2013 03:41 PM ET

Film critic Roger Ebert dies at 70

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Image Credit: Art Shay

Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic whose famous thumbs-up or thumbs-down verdict helped make him the most famous reviewer in America, died Thursday of complications from cancer, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, where he wrote for 46 years. He was 70.

Ebert had been battling thyroid cancer since 2002, but never gave up his aisle-seat post or his love of cinema, publishing more than 300 reviews last year alone despite his inability to speak without the help of a voice machine due to an operation that removed his lower jaw. On Wednesday, he announced that his cancer had returned and that he would be taking “a leave of presence”. Readers hoped that it was merely another temporary set-back and that Ebert would return to share his trusted opinions. Sadly, it was not to be.
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