By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Ted Danson, who turns 75 today, has had an astonishingly successful career on television but there was a time when he wanted something else. After his sitcom ’Cheers’ became a massive hit in the early Eighties, his dream was to be a big-time movie star. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Mike Hodges, who has died aged 90, was one of the greatest British filmmakers but producers often didn’t know what to do with him. He made only nine feature films but they include four splendid crime pictures – ‘Get Carter’, ‘Pulp’, ‘Croupier’ and ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’ – and a rollicking space fantasy, ‘Flash Gordon’.
I first met Hodges in 2003 when American film producer Mike Kaplan, whom I’d gotten to know in Los Angeles, invited me to dinner at the Edinburgh International Film Festival with the director and principal cast of ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’ including Clive Owen, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Jamie Foreman. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Julie Taymor, who turns 70 today, is known best for creating ‘The Lion King’ among a long list of theatrical productionsi but her films are just as fascinating such as ‘Titus’, ‘Frida’, ‘The Tempest’,’ The Glorias’ and ‘Across the Universe’.
I have been fortunate to spend time with Taymor and her creative and life partner, composer Elliot Goldenthal, in London, Ghent and Krakow (pictured with me above). I spent an afternoon at Abbey Road watching the couple record the score for ‘Titus’ and I moderated a panel discussion with them at the Krakow Film Music Festival in 2012. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Charlie Rich, who was born on this day ninety years ago, was one of the biggest names in country music. His recordings of ‘Behind Closed Doors’ and ‘Most Beautiful Girl’ made him an international smash on country and mainstream charts. He won major awards, appeared in Clint Eastwood movies and headlined in Las Vegas.
I came to know him as my father-in-law when I married his eldest daughter, Renée. Charlie was a big man, handsome and imposing, whose impressive white locks had earned him the nickname the Silver Fox. Renée’s mother, Margaret Ann, was a gifted writer of songs such as ‘Life Has its Little Ups and Downs’. When Renée took me to Tennessee to meet them, they welcomed me into their spacious and elegant home called Foxwood on a few acres of gated land on West Cherry Circle in Memphis. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Stuart Margolin, who died today aged 82, was one of the great screen sidekicks working regularly with James Garner. Traditionally, in film and on TV, there have been two kinds of heroes – loners and those with sidekicks, There also have been two kinds of sidekick. Some sre there only to keep the hero from talking to himself. Others, the great ones, are there to drive the hero to distraction.
Stuart Margolin established himself as James Garner’s sidekick in the great tradition of exasperating sidekicks such as John Wayne’s Gabby Hayes in fifteen films. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – The first recording I ever bought was a 78rpm double-A side single of ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Tutti Frutti’ by Little Richard, who was born 90 years ago today. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – On a sunny California day in the early Eighties, I had a long, leisurely lunch with Linda Evans, who turns 80 today, at La Scala on Little Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills. I was interviewing her for a cover story in Canadian TV Guide about her starring role in the hit TV series ‘Dynasty’ but we got distracted, Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Now that he has been laid to rest, it’s time to offer some balance to the hysterical reaction to the death of Jerry Lee Lewis. Given that today an artist can be cancelled on the basis of rumours of misbehaviour, it was staggering to see a man’s reckless life not just forgiven but heralded because he had a couple of hit records fifty-five years ago. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Loretta Swit, who turns 85 today, is regarded fondly for playing ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan in ‘M*A*S*H’ on TV for eleven years but life on that show wasn’t always easy for her. It was a struggle for a woman to be heard in the midst of an otherwise all-male cast dominated by Alan Alda. Continue reading
Bob Dowling gave me the best job in the world
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – I shall always be grateful to Robert J.Dowling, the former publisher and editor-in-chief of The Hollywood Reporter who has died aged 83, because it was thanks to him that for several years I had a job that even legendary Hollywood studio chief Sherry Lansing envied.
As THR’s European Arts Critic based in London, I reviewed the finest theatre in the West End, the top music concerts and the best of British television plus movies in England and at international film festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Edinburgh, Galway and once in Rio de Janeiro. Continue reading →