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 – 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 – 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 – From ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ to ‘Ghostbusters’ to ‘Field of Dreams’ and now ‘Raymond & Ray’, there’s always a Ray in the movies and television. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Novelist Jackie Collins, who was born 85 years ago today, wrote about the problems women faced in Hollywood long before the ‘me too’ movement came along.
Younger sister of Joan Collins, she was known for sexy blockbusters such as The Stud’, ‘The Bitch’ snd ‘The World Is Full of Divorced Women’ and her tinseltown series including ‘Hollywood Wives’, ‘Hollywood Husbands’ and ‘Hollywood Divorces’. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – American singer Nancy Ames, who turns 85 today, once said she was my biggest fan. It began when I went to interview her for The Windsor Star in Canada and fell in love. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – In June of 1973, Queen Elizabeth II made a tour of Canada and The Windsor Star newspaper sent me to cover her visit at the nearest city where she would be seen, London , Ontario.
The Queen, along with the Duke of Edinburgh, was in the rain-soaked city for precisely 140 minutes to meet local dignitaries, receive a bouquet of flowers and a gift from the city, inspect an honour guard, sign the guest book, lunch with 500 local bigwigs, stroll through a roped-off section of Victoria Park (where the sun came out) and wave goodbye.
This was my story … 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 →