Tag Archives: Ron Base

How Jerry Bruckheimer landed Tom Cruise for ‘Top Gun’

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Several actors claimed to have been first choice to play hot-shot pilot ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in ‘Top Gun’ but producer Jerry Bruckheimer told me Tom Cruise always had the part.

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When watching the Oscars used to be fun

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Maverick banshees all at once, Elvis sadness, women on water, Fabelmans on the western front. Tár but no thanks. There was a time when I really cared about movies and found the competition for Academy Awards … Continue reading

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Ed McBain tops my 2018 reading list

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Evan Hunter was an American writer who wrote several novels that were made into movies including Richard Brooks’s ‘Blackboard Jungle’ (above) starring Glenn Ford and featuring Sidney Poitier and Vic Morrow but known best for … Continue reading

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Elvis: The man who fell to earth and changed the world

By Ray Bennett Little more than 10 years after the end of World War II, Great Britain was a cold, grey place in 1956 when Elvis Presley, who would have been 80 today, dropped from the sky. He changed everything.

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TIFF 2014: A tale of three Equalizers

By Ray Bennett File under “it’s a small world”: I’m at my old pal Ron Base’s place in Milton for a Sunday brunch chatting with another guest, Hans Gerhardt, who ran the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto when it was … Continue reading

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TIFF: Sunshine, music and Liona Boyd at the CFC picnic

One of the treats at the Toronto International Film Festival is Norman Jewison’s annual picnic at the Canadian Film Centre and it was a pleasure there today to meet the London-born Canadian classical guitarist Liona Boyd. We have Notting Hill, … Continue reading

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A good man down: Brian Vallée dies

By Ray Bennett My good mate Brian Vallée died Saturday in a Toronto hospital after a fight with cancer. He was 70. That’s him in the centre of the photo with me and another great chum Ron Base on the … Continue reading

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Magic and mischief in Ron Base’s novel, ‘The Strange’

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Few writers know Hollywood better than my Canadian friend Ron Base. As a reporter, film critic, magazine writer, screenwriter and novelist, he has explored the magic of the movies in many ways. But Toronto-based Base … Continue reading

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Carl Morgan, a real newspaperman, dies at 77

By Ray Bennett LONDON – I was sad to get a phone call last night from Trevor Wilhelm, a reporter at Canada’s Windsor Star, who said Carl Morgan (pictured), former editor of that newspaper, had died. Carl was city editor … Continue reading

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