Actress Angela Lansbury, whose 75-year career encompassed triumphs on the big screen, in musical theater and on television, died at her Los Angeles home on Tuesday, her family announced in a statement obtained by Variety. She was 96 — five days shy of her 97th birthday.
Nominated for three Oscars, she won seven Tony Awards and holds the record for Emmy actress nods with 12 for her role on “Murder, She Wrote.”
As honored as she was in film and on stage, Lansbury achieved her greatest popularity on the small screen. In 1984 she stepped into a role originally offered to Jean Stapleton: the flinty crime-solving mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher on CBS’ “Murder, She Wrote.” The show became appointment TV for its fans on Sunday nights, and ran for 12 highly rated seasons. The actress captured four Golden Globe Awards for her turn. Between 1997 and 2003, she reprised the role in four telepics.
Discovered while...
Nominated for three Oscars, she won seven Tony Awards and holds the record for Emmy actress nods with 12 for her role on “Murder, She Wrote.”
As honored as she was in film and on stage, Lansbury achieved her greatest popularity on the small screen. In 1984 she stepped into a role originally offered to Jean Stapleton: the flinty crime-solving mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher on CBS’ “Murder, She Wrote.” The show became appointment TV for its fans on Sunday nights, and ran for 12 highly rated seasons. The actress captured four Golden Globe Awards for her turn. Between 1997 and 2003, she reprised the role in four telepics.
Discovered while...
- 10/11/2022
- by Chris Morris
- Variety Film + TV
One of the most anticipated honors to be handed out Sunday at the 75th annual Tony Awards is Angela Lansbury’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The big question is: Why did it take so long?
Now 96, the beloved Lansbury has won five competitive Tony and was nominated for two more. She’s also one of the leading interpreters of the work of composers Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman. Her Broadway career is best described with the lyric from Herman’s 1966 musical “Mame: “You came, you saw, your conquered and absolutely nothing is the same…we think you’re just sensational!”
In fact, she’s been sensational since making her film debut at 18 in 1944’s “Gaslight,” received her first of three Oscar nominations — she earned an Honorary Oscar in 2013 — and starred for 12 seasons as mystery writer Jessica Fletcher on ‘Murder, She Wrote.” And she brought her musical talents to movie and TV...
Now 96, the beloved Lansbury has won five competitive Tony and was nominated for two more. She’s also one of the leading interpreters of the work of composers Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman. Her Broadway career is best described with the lyric from Herman’s 1966 musical “Mame: “You came, you saw, your conquered and absolutely nothing is the same…we think you’re just sensational!”
In fact, she’s been sensational since making her film debut at 18 in 1944’s “Gaslight,” received her first of three Oscar nominations — she earned an Honorary Oscar in 2013 — and starred for 12 seasons as mystery writer Jessica Fletcher on ‘Murder, She Wrote.” And she brought her musical talents to movie and TV...
- 6/10/2022
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
In this episode of CriterionCast Chronicles, Ryan is joined by David Blakeslee, and Scott Nye to discuss the Criterion Collection releases for August 2016.
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Episode Links Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (2015) Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words on iTunes Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words: A Full Picture of a Life – From the Current Ingrid Bergman, Filmmaker – From the Current A Taste of Honey A Taste of Honey (1961) A Taste of Honey on iTunes A Taste of Honey: Northern Accents – From the Current Morrissey’s Taste for Shelagh Delaney – From the Current 10 Things I Learned: A Taste of Honey – From the Current Woman in the Dunes Woman in the Dunes (1964) Woman in the Dunes on iTunes Watch Woman in the Dunes | Hulu Three Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara The Spectral Landscape of Teshigahara, Abe, and...
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Episode Links Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (2015) Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words on iTunes Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words: A Full Picture of a Life – From the Current Ingrid Bergman, Filmmaker – From the Current A Taste of Honey A Taste of Honey (1961) A Taste of Honey on iTunes A Taste of Honey: Northern Accents – From the Current Morrissey’s Taste for Shelagh Delaney – From the Current 10 Things I Learned: A Taste of Honey – From the Current Woman in the Dunes Woman in the Dunes (1964) Woman in the Dunes on iTunes Watch Woman in the Dunes | Hulu Three Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara The Spectral Landscape of Teshigahara, Abe, and...
- 9/18/2016
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Next week sees the release of Criterion’s stunning Blu-ray restoration of the film that launched a thousand Smiths lyrics (I nearly fell of the couch when I heard Paul Danquah say “I dreamt about you last night. I fell out of bed twice.”) Morrissey credits half his career as a writer to Shelagh Delaney, the nineteen-year-old Manchester playwright whose 1958 play and subsequent film were a worldwide sensation. The rare kitchen-sink classic that centers on a woman rather than an angry young man, the main reason for the film’s success—though it is excellent in so many ways—was the then-unknown Rita Tushingham. Chosen from among thousands of girls, her star-making performance blew all the remaining cobwebs off British film acting and skipped away with the Best Actress award at Cannes (where, as recounted in a lovely interview with the now 74-year-old Tushingham on the Blu-ray, she and co-star...
- 8/19/2016
- MUBI
Elfin Rita Tushingham makes a smash film debut as Shelagh Delaney's dispirited working class teen, on her own in Manchester and unprepared for the harsh truths of life. It's one of the best of the British New Wave. A Taste of Honey Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 829 1961 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 100 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 23, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan, Paul Danquah, Murray Melvin, Robert Stephens. Cinematography Walter Lassally Film Editor Anthony Gibbs Original Music John Addison Written by Tony Richardson and Shelagh Delaney adapted from her stage play Produced and directed by Tony Richardson
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The British New Wave got a real shot in the arm with 1961's A Taste of Honey. A stubbornly realistic drama about life in the lower working classes of Manchester, it was adapted from a near-revolutionary play by Shelagh Delaney, produced by Joan Littlewood. Here in...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The British New Wave got a real shot in the arm with 1961's A Taste of Honey. A stubbornly realistic drama about life in the lower working classes of Manchester, it was adapted from a near-revolutionary play by Shelagh Delaney, produced by Joan Littlewood. Here in...
- 8/15/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“Everything But The Kitchen Sink”
By Raymond Benson
In the late 1950s, a film movement emerged in Britain known as “Free Cinema.” Some of the U.K.’s most celebrated filmmakers of the 1960s and 70s were among its practitioners—Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Lorenza Mazzetti, and Tony Richardson. The directors made low budget, short documentaries about the working class with an almost deliberate “non commercial” sensibility. It was radical and exciting, and it was a precursor to the British New Wave that dovetailed with the French New Wave that was so influential on filmmakers everywhere.
Many of the pictures of the British New Wave, released between 1959 and 1964, focused on characters described as “angry young men,” and the films themselves were referred to by critics and theorists as “kitchen sink dramas.” This was because the movies were presented in a harsh, realistic fashion and were indeed about the gritty, working...
By Raymond Benson
In the late 1950s, a film movement emerged in Britain known as “Free Cinema.” Some of the U.K.’s most celebrated filmmakers of the 1960s and 70s were among its practitioners—Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Lorenza Mazzetti, and Tony Richardson. The directors made low budget, short documentaries about the working class with an almost deliberate “non commercial” sensibility. It was radical and exciting, and it was a precursor to the British New Wave that dovetailed with the French New Wave that was so influential on filmmakers everywhere.
Many of the pictures of the British New Wave, released between 1959 and 1964, focused on characters described as “angry young men,” and the films themselves were referred to by critics and theorists as “kitchen sink dramas.” This was because the movies were presented in a harsh, realistic fashion and were indeed about the gritty, working...
- 8/13/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Happy Birthday Angela Lansbury Lansbury - who returned to Broadway in this year's revival of The Best Man - has enjoyed an unprecedented career, first as a star of motion pictures, and then as an award-winning stage actor in New York and London. She appeared as Madame Armfeldt in the 2009 revival of A Little Night Music, and before that as Madame Arcati in the 2009 revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, for which she won her fifth Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. She performed in 2006 in Terrence McNally's Deuce, for which she was also nominated for a Tony Award. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 as Bert Lahr's wife in Hotel Paradiso. In 1960, she returned to Broadway as Joan Plowright's mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney. A year later, she starred in her first musical,...
- 10/16/2015
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
Part I. Anger, Suez and Archie Rice
“There they are,” George Devine told John Osborne, surveying The Entertainer‘s opening night audience. “All waiting for you…Same old pack of c***s, fashionable assholes. Just more of them than usual.” The Royal Court had arrived: no longer outcasts, they were London’s main attraction.
Look Back in Anger vindicated Devine’s model of a writer’s-based theater. Osborne’s success attracted a host of dramatists to Sloane Square. There’s Shelagh Delaney, whose A Taste of Honey featured a working-class girl pregnant from an interracial dalliance; Harold Pinter’s The Room, a bizarre “comedy of menace”; and John Arden’s Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance, which aimed a Gatling gun at its audience. Devine encouraged them, however bold or experimental. “You always knew he was on the writer’s side,” Osborne said.
Peter O’Toole called the Royal Court actors “an...
“There they are,” George Devine told John Osborne, surveying The Entertainer‘s opening night audience. “All waiting for you…Same old pack of c***s, fashionable assholes. Just more of them than usual.” The Royal Court had arrived: no longer outcasts, they were London’s main attraction.
Look Back in Anger vindicated Devine’s model of a writer’s-based theater. Osborne’s success attracted a host of dramatists to Sloane Square. There’s Shelagh Delaney, whose A Taste of Honey featured a working-class girl pregnant from an interracial dalliance; Harold Pinter’s The Room, a bizarre “comedy of menace”; and John Arden’s Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance, which aimed a Gatling gun at its audience. Devine encouraged them, however bold or experimental. “You always knew he was on the writer’s side,” Osborne said.
Peter O’Toole called the Royal Court actors “an...
- 3/13/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
I. The Landmine
In August 1955, George Devine, director of London’s Royal Court Theatre, ventured to meet a promising writer, living on a Thames houseboat. “I had to borrow a dinghy… wade out to it and row myself to my new playwright,” he recalled. Thus began a partnership between Devine, who sought to rescue the English stage from stale commercialism, and the 26 year old tyro, John Osborne. Together, they’d revolutionize modern theater.
Born in London but raised in Stoneleigh, Surrey, Osborne lost his father at age 12, resented his low-born mother and was expelled from school for striking a headmaster. While acting for Anthony Creighton’s repertory company, his mercurial temper and violent language appeared. In 1951 he wed actress Pamela Lane, only to divorce six years later. Osborne soon immortalized their marriage: their cramped apartment, with invasive friends and intruding in-laws, John and Pamela’s pet names and verbal abuse,...
In August 1955, George Devine, director of London’s Royal Court Theatre, ventured to meet a promising writer, living on a Thames houseboat. “I had to borrow a dinghy… wade out to it and row myself to my new playwright,” he recalled. Thus began a partnership between Devine, who sought to rescue the English stage from stale commercialism, and the 26 year old tyro, John Osborne. Together, they’d revolutionize modern theater.
Born in London but raised in Stoneleigh, Surrey, Osborne lost his father at age 12, resented his low-born mother and was expelled from school for striking a headmaster. While acting for Anthony Creighton’s repertory company, his mercurial temper and violent language appeared. In 1951 he wed actress Pamela Lane, only to divorce six years later. Osborne soon immortalized their marriage: their cramped apartment, with invasive friends and intruding in-laws, John and Pamela’s pet names and verbal abuse,...
- 3/7/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
Happy Birthday Angela Lansbury Lansbury - who returned to Broadway in this year's revival of The Best Man - has enjoyed an unprecedented career, first as a star of motion pictures, and then as an award-winning stage actor in New York and London. She appeared as Madame Armfeldt in the 2009 revival of A Little Night Music, and before that as Madame Arcati in the 2009 revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, for which she won her fifth Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. She performed in 2006 in Terrence McNally's Deuce, for which she was also nominated for a Tony Award. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 as Bert Lahr's wife in Hotel Paradiso. In 1960, she returned to Broadway as Joan Plowright's mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney. A year later, she starred in her first musical,...
- 10/16/2014
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
Kinnear wins awards for his debut play, The Herd, and his performance in Othello, while Almeida theatre comes out on top
Rory Kinnear has managed a rare double victory at this year's Critics' Circle theatre awards, winning one as an actor and another as most promising playwright (shared with Phoebe Waller-Bridge). The Almeida theatre came out on top, winning four awards including three for Chimerica, an epic cross-continental narrative that followed a photographer trying to track down the famous "Tank Man" of Tiananmen Square. Playwright Lucy Kirkwood, director Lyndsey Turner and designer Es Devlin all won awards for their work on the show, a co-production between Headlong and the Almeida.
"It's especially meaningful to have Lyndsey and Es recognised as well, because it was such a collaborative project," said Kirkwood, who downplayed rumours of a Broadway transfer for Chimerica, pointing out that the New York Times review of the show was not wholly positive.
Rory Kinnear has managed a rare double victory at this year's Critics' Circle theatre awards, winning one as an actor and another as most promising playwright (shared with Phoebe Waller-Bridge). The Almeida theatre came out on top, winning four awards including three for Chimerica, an epic cross-continental narrative that followed a photographer trying to track down the famous "Tank Man" of Tiananmen Square. Playwright Lucy Kirkwood, director Lyndsey Turner and designer Es Devlin all won awards for their work on the show, a co-production between Headlong and the Almeida.
"It's especially meaningful to have Lyndsey and Es recognised as well, because it was such a collaborative project," said Kirkwood, who downplayed rumours of a Broadway transfer for Chimerica, pointing out that the New York Times review of the show was not wholly positive.
- 1/29/2014
- by Matt Trueman
- The Guardian - Film News
After 40 years, the British-born actress who conquered Hollywood and starred in TV's Murder, She Wrote is back on the West End stage. As she approaches her 90s, she's in her theatrical prime
In the play Blithe Spirit, the wildly eccentric and chaotic clairvoyant Madame Arcati, Noël Coward's most colourful creation, announces that "time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked".
No aphorism has ever applied less than this does to the actress now about to don the headscarves and bangles to play Arcati in the West End at the age of 88. Dame Angela Lansbury, ennobled earlier this month, has defied the laws of nature by becoming more theatrically prolific as her years have advanced. In 2007, she was Tony award-nominated for her role in a new Terrence McNally play, Deuce, on Broadway; in 2010, she was nominated again for a revival of Sondheim's A Little Night Music; and then,...
In the play Blithe Spirit, the wildly eccentric and chaotic clairvoyant Madame Arcati, Noël Coward's most colourful creation, announces that "time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked".
No aphorism has ever applied less than this does to the actress now about to don the headscarves and bangles to play Arcati in the West End at the age of 88. Dame Angela Lansbury, ennobled earlier this month, has defied the laws of nature by becoming more theatrically prolific as her years have advanced. In 2007, she was Tony award-nominated for her role in a new Terrence McNally play, Deuce, on Broadway; in 2010, she was nominated again for a revival of Sondheim's A Little Night Music; and then,...
- 1/26/2014
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
They might not mean much to you now, but meet the men, women and children set to dominate the headlines in the coming cultural year
Graphic novels
A new Superman
2014 looks set to be a big year for comics, and a great year for Grant Morrison, with the long awaited Multiversity due to strike in the second half of the year. The nine-issue miniseries will feature seven stories set on parallel Earths in the DC multiverse, including Earth-23, a world where the majority of the heroes are black, including Superman who is also, secretly, President of the United States. Laura Sneddon
Film
Jack O'Connell
With his trapezoid chin, O'Connell could easily make a tween pinup, but for a tinge of unpredictability – which he gets to exercise to full effect in Starred Up, a prison drama that could be this generation's Scum. Already tabloid-friendly following his relationship with Tulisa, O'Connell is...
Graphic novels
A new Superman
2014 looks set to be a big year for comics, and a great year for Grant Morrison, with the long awaited Multiversity due to strike in the second half of the year. The nine-issue miniseries will feature seven stories set on parallel Earths in the DC multiverse, including Earth-23, a world where the majority of the heroes are black, including Superman who is also, secretly, President of the United States. Laura Sneddon
Film
Jack O'Connell
With his trapezoid chin, O'Connell could easily make a tween pinup, but for a tinge of unpredictability – which he gets to exercise to full effect in Starred Up, a prison drama that could be this generation's Scum. Already tabloid-friendly following his relationship with Tulisa, O'Connell is...
- 1/1/2014
- by Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Stuart Heritage, Andrew Dickson, Judith Mackrell, Brian Logan, Tim Jonze, Michael Hann, John Fordham
- The Guardian - Film News
Powerful stage and screen actor often cast as an aristocrat, king or moustachioed villain
When the whisky flowed, according to the writer John Heilpern, the actor Nigel Davenport looked "as if he might knock you through the wall for sport". However, words such as "imposing" and "heavyweight", both often applied to his performances on stage and screen across more than 40 years, do not do sufficient justice to his lightness of touch and comic energy.
Davenport, who has died aged 85, was a founder member of the English Stage Company (Esc) at the Royal Court – in the first season, he was in every production except Look Back in Anger – and a distinguished president of Equity, the actors' union; he played leads in Restoration comedy and absurdist drama as well as King Lear.
In a recent rerun of the BBC's Keeping Up Appearances, he loomed as a lubricious old navy commodore coming on...
When the whisky flowed, according to the writer John Heilpern, the actor Nigel Davenport looked "as if he might knock you through the wall for sport". However, words such as "imposing" and "heavyweight", both often applied to his performances on stage and screen across more than 40 years, do not do sufficient justice to his lightness of touch and comic energy.
Davenport, who has died aged 85, was a founder member of the English Stage Company (Esc) at the Royal Court – in the first season, he was in every production except Look Back in Anger – and a distinguished president of Equity, the actors' union; he played leads in Restoration comedy and absurdist drama as well as King Lear.
In a recent rerun of the BBC's Keeping Up Appearances, he loomed as a lubricious old navy commodore coming on...
- 10/30/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
This first feature by San Francisco-based director Colin Trevorrow is very much a whimsical product of both the Sundance Institute's brand of independent cinema and the rambling, low-budget movie genre known as mumblecore. The latter features characters who live in the interstices of society and are as talkative as they are inactive, and the term was coined in the earlier years of this century by Eric Masunaga, a sound editor who works in this area. One of the leading roles in Safety Not Guaranteed is played by the writer-director Mark Duplass, who with his brother, Jay, pioneered mumblecore, most notably in their picture The Puffy Chair, the shaggy dog tale of a search around the American south for an old lounge chair to be given as a birthday present to their father. They went on to make Jeff Who Lives at Home, which featured the familiar faces of Jason Segel,...
- 12/30/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The Sheffield revival of A Taste of Honey should help us better remember an unfairly neglected playwright – but here's plenty of footage to be going on with
As a major of revival of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey opens in Sheffield, it's time to remember the debt owed to the playwright, who died last year, by many writers – even the songwriter Morrissey.
Reading this on mobile? Watch the video here
A major dictionary of theatre on my bookcase, dating from the mid-1990s, doesn't even mention the Salford-born Delaney, who can seen here in Ken Russell's 1960 Monitor film on the writer and her town.
The lack of recognition from the theatre world is probably partly because, after 1960, she largely turned her attention to screenplays, eventually writing the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, in which Miranda Richardson played Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in England.
As a major of revival of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey opens in Sheffield, it's time to remember the debt owed to the playwright, who died last year, by many writers – even the songwriter Morrissey.
Reading this on mobile? Watch the video here
A major dictionary of theatre on my bookcase, dating from the mid-1990s, doesn't even mention the Salford-born Delaney, who can seen here in Ken Russell's 1960 Monitor film on the writer and her town.
The lack of recognition from the theatre world is probably partly because, after 1960, she largely turned her attention to screenplays, eventually writing the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, in which Miranda Richardson played Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in England.
- 10/24/2012
- by Lyn Gardner
- The Guardian - Film News
Happy Birthday Angela Lansbury Lansbury - who returned to Broadway in this year's revival of The Best Man - has enjoyed an unprecedented career, first as a star of motion pictures, and then as an award-winning stage actor in New York and London. She appeared as Madame Armfeldt in the 2009 revival of A Little Night Music, and before that as Madame Arcati in the 2009 revival of Nol Coward's Blithe Spirit, for which she won her fifth Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. She performed in 2006 in Terrence McNally's Deuce, for which she was also nominated for a Tony Award. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 as Bert Lahr's wife in Hotel Paradiso. In 1960, she returned to Broadway as Joan Plowright's mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney. A year later, she starred in her first musical,...
- 10/16/2012
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
A classic 1960s working-class drama translates beautifully into a comedy of contemporary British Asian family life
All in Good Time is a touching, likable comedy of life in Lancashire's Hindu community. Though this aspect is little publicised, it's closely based on Bill Naughton's 1965 play of the same title.
Born in Ireland and raised in Bolton, Naughton emerged as a novelist and playwright in the late 50s in the wave of northern working-class writers like Shelagh Delaney, Keith Waterhouse, Alan Sillitoe, David Storey and Stan Barstow. But having been born in 1910 and worked for years as a coal-bagger, cotton-loom operator and lorry driver, Naughton belonged to an earlier generation and was altogether less chippy, aggressive, and self-consciously political about his background.
He enjoyed considerable success in the theatre and had three of his plays filmed, though his most enduringly popular work, the film version of Alfie, completely misrepresented Naughton's radio play,...
All in Good Time is a touching, likable comedy of life in Lancashire's Hindu community. Though this aspect is little publicised, it's closely based on Bill Naughton's 1965 play of the same title.
Born in Ireland and raised in Bolton, Naughton emerged as a novelist and playwright in the late 50s in the wave of northern working-class writers like Shelagh Delaney, Keith Waterhouse, Alan Sillitoe, David Storey and Stan Barstow. But having been born in 1910 and worked for years as a coal-bagger, cotton-loom operator and lorry driver, Naughton belonged to an earlier generation and was altogether less chippy, aggressive, and self-consciously political about his background.
He enjoyed considerable success in the theatre and had three of his plays filmed, though his most enduringly popular work, the film version of Alfie, completely misrepresented Naughton's radio play,...
- 5/12/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Well known especially on the gay and lesbian festival circuit for his short movies, Bavo Defurne covers familiar ground affectingly with this story of a few years in the life of the shy, good-looking Pim, a lad in his mid-teens living on the bleakly beautiful Belgian coast near Ostend. He's neglected by his single mother, the blowsy, feckless Yvette, who's more interested in her accordion and fancy men than in her son. As a result, he's drawn into the family of a sympathetic neighbour and falls in love with her son Gino, three years his senior, who convinces himself their liaison is a passing phase. An understated film, strong on mood, a bit reminiscent of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey.
DramaWorld cinemaPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions...
DramaWorld cinemaPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions...
- 4/7/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Inevitably for someone whose creative life stretched more than half a century, Ken Russell's long career had its peaks and troughs
Inevitably for someone whose creative life stretched more than half a century, Ken Russell's long career had its peaks and troughs. But Russell's work for the BBC – in particular for Huw Wheldon's Monitor programme – from 1959 to 1970 was a whole mountain range, a before and after of the arts on television. The Russell who developed from the short early films about the likes of John Betjeman and Shelagh Delaney to the full-length and increasingly cinematic programmes on Delius and Richard Strauss was a director who was stretching his medium to the limit. But his BBC work had a heady mix of individuality, creativity and – until the Strauss film – a passionate seriousness that has never been surpassed in arts television. Russell's film on Elgar was not just a...
Inevitably for someone whose creative life stretched more than half a century, Ken Russell's long career had its peaks and troughs. But Russell's work for the BBC – in particular for Huw Wheldon's Monitor programme – from 1959 to 1970 was a whole mountain range, a before and after of the arts on television. The Russell who developed from the short early films about the likes of John Betjeman and Shelagh Delaney to the full-length and increasingly cinematic programmes on Delius and Richard Strauss was a director who was stretching his medium to the limit. But his BBC work had a heady mix of individuality, creativity and – until the Strauss film – a passionate seriousness that has never been surpassed in arts television. Russell's film on Elgar was not just a...
- 11/29/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
London — Ken Russell, an iconoclastic British director whose daring films blended music, sex and violence in a potent brew seemingly drawn straight from his subconscious, has died at age 84.
Russell died in a hospital on Sunday following a series of strokes, his son Alex Verney-Elliott said Monday.
"My father died peacefully," Verney-Elliott said. "He died with a smile on his face."
Russell was a fiercely original director whose vision occasionally brought mainstream success, but often tested the patience of audiences and critics. He had one of his biggest hits in 1969 with "Women in Love," based on the book by D.H. Lawrence, which earned Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, and a "Best Actress" Oscar for the star, Glenda Jackson.
It included one of the decade's most famous scenes – a nude wrestling bout between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed.
Reed said at the time that the...
Russell died in a hospital on Sunday following a series of strokes, his son Alex Verney-Elliott said Monday.
"My father died peacefully," Verney-Elliott said. "He died with a smile on his face."
Russell was a fiercely original director whose vision occasionally brought mainstream success, but often tested the patience of audiences and critics. He had one of his biggest hits in 1969 with "Women in Love," based on the book by D.H. Lawrence, which earned Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, and a "Best Actress" Oscar for the star, Glenda Jackson.
It included one of the decade's most famous scenes – a nude wrestling bout between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed.
Reed said at the time that the...
- 11/28/2011
- by AP
- Huffington Post
Ken Russell, the British director whose daring and sometimes outrageous films often tested the patience of audiences and critics, has died at age 84.
Russell died in a hospital on Sunday following a series of strokes, his son Alex Verney-Elliott said Monday.
One of Russell’s biggest successes came in 1969 with Women in Love, based on the book by D.H. Lawrence, which earned Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, and an Oscar for the star, Glenda Jackson.
Music played a central role in many of Russell’s films including The Music Lovers in 1970, and Lisztomania and Tommy in 1975.
“My father died peacefully,” Verney-Elliott said. “He had had a series of strokes. He died with a smile on his face.”...
Russell died in a hospital on Sunday following a series of strokes, his son Alex Verney-Elliott said Monday.
One of Russell’s biggest successes came in 1969 with Women in Love, based on the book by D.H. Lawrence, which earned Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, and an Oscar for the star, Glenda Jackson.
Music played a central role in many of Russell’s films including The Music Lovers in 1970, and Lisztomania and Tommy in 1975.
“My father died peacefully,” Verney-Elliott said. “He had had a series of strokes. He died with a smile on his face.”...
- 11/28/2011
- by Associated Press
- EW - Inside Movies
Buyer beware: the sleeve shown here indicates Zero Mostel and Vanessa Redgrave are in the film. They are not.
By Lee Pfeiffer
The White Bus (aka Red, White and Zero) is an experimental film by future acclaimed director Lindsay Anderson. Running a scant 46 minutes, the movie was intended to be one third of a feature film that consisted of other offbeat stories by different directors. For various reasons, the other segments were never completed, thus leaving Anderson's work an orphan. MGM has released The White Bus as one of its burn-to-order DVD titles. The merits of the film are debatable. It's visually striking. Filmed primarily in B&W with occasional short sequences in color, the movie is a fairly incomprehensible critique of British society. Like Bryan Forbes' The Whisperers, the movie was largely photographed in and around Manchester and the city fairs equally bad in Anderson's work. The plot,...
By Lee Pfeiffer
The White Bus (aka Red, White and Zero) is an experimental film by future acclaimed director Lindsay Anderson. Running a scant 46 minutes, the movie was intended to be one third of a feature film that consisted of other offbeat stories by different directors. For various reasons, the other segments were never completed, thus leaving Anderson's work an orphan. MGM has released The White Bus as one of its burn-to-order DVD titles. The merits of the film are debatable. It's visually striking. Filmed primarily in B&W with occasional short sequences in color, the movie is a fairly incomprehensible critique of British society. Like Bryan Forbes' The Whisperers, the movie was largely photographed in and around Manchester and the city fairs equally bad in Anderson's work. The plot,...
- 11/27/2011
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
The theater community lost an icon on Sunday, Nov. 20, when Shelagh Delaney, who wrote the acclaimed play "A Taste of Honey" when she was a teenager, died at age 71. She had been battling cancer.
"A Taste of Honey," which was made into a film in 1961, was a provocative play when it opened at the Royal Stratford East in London in 1959. The story of a young woman who becomes pregnant by a black sailor and her gay friend who becomes the baby's surrogate father, the play would be Delaney's only great success.
Delaney was also known for being a muse for Morrissey and The Smiths. She was featured on their "Louder Than Bombs" album cover in 1987, and their song "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" was based on "A Taste of Honey." It includes a line from the play: "The dream has gone but the baby is real." Other quotes from...
"A Taste of Honey," which was made into a film in 1961, was a provocative play when it opened at the Royal Stratford East in London in 1959. The story of a young woman who becomes pregnant by a black sailor and her gay friend who becomes the baby's surrogate father, the play would be Delaney's only great success.
Delaney was also known for being a muse for Morrissey and The Smiths. She was featured on their "Louder Than Bombs" album cover in 1987, and their song "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" was based on "A Taste of Honey." It includes a line from the play: "The dream has gone but the baby is real." Other quotes from...
- 11/22/2011
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Pop2it
Feisty playwright best known for her ground-breaking debut, A Taste of Honey
Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.
Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.
Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.
Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.
- 11/22/2011
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
Writer, 71, who made her name with A Taste of Honey had cancer, agent says
The playwright Shelagh Delaney, best known for her 1958 play A Taste of Honey, has died at the age of 71.
Delaney's agent, Jane Villiers, said on Monday that the writer had died of cancer at her daughter's home in eastern England on Sunday night.
Delaney was 19 when A Taste of Honey premiered. The story of a pregnant young woman's supportive relationship with a gay artist verged on scandalous at the time, but the play had successful runs in London and New York.
A Taste of Honey was made into a film in 1961, and Delaney and the film's director, Tony Richardson, shared Bafta and Writers' Guild awards for best screenplay.
TheatreShelagh Delaney
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More...
The playwright Shelagh Delaney, best known for her 1958 play A Taste of Honey, has died at the age of 71.
Delaney's agent, Jane Villiers, said on Monday that the writer had died of cancer at her daughter's home in eastern England on Sunday night.
Delaney was 19 when A Taste of Honey premiered. The story of a pregnant young woman's supportive relationship with a gay artist verged on scandalous at the time, but the play had successful runs in London and New York.
A Taste of Honey was made into a film in 1961, and Delaney and the film's director, Tony Richardson, shared Bafta and Writers' Guild awards for best screenplay.
TheatreShelagh Delaney
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More...
- 11/22/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
The British playwright and screenwriter who inspired songs by the Beatles and The Smiths has died.
Shelagh Delaney was 71.
The writer's image appears on The Smiths Louder Than Bombs compilation and frontman Morrissey has often paid tribute to her in the lyrics and titles of his songs - The Smiths' song This Night Has Opened My Eyes reimagines Delaney's first play, A Taste Of Honey, which became a cult film starring Rita Tushingham.
The Beatles were such big fans of Delaney and A Taste Of Honey they recorded their own version of the theme for the 1961 film.
Shelagh Delaney was 71.
The writer's image appears on The Smiths Louder Than Bombs compilation and frontman Morrissey has often paid tribute to her in the lyrics and titles of his songs - The Smiths' song This Night Has Opened My Eyes reimagines Delaney's first play, A Taste Of Honey, which became a cult film starring Rita Tushingham.
The Beatles were such big fans of Delaney and A Taste Of Honey they recorded their own version of the theme for the 1961 film.
- 11/22/2011
- WENN
"Playwright Shelagh Delaney, best known for her 1958 play A Taste of Honey, has died of cancer," reports Robert Barr for the AP. "The writer was just 19 when A Taste of Honey premiered. The downbeat tale of a young woman's pregnancy following a one-night stand with a black sailor, and her supportive relationship with a gay artist, verged on scandalous at the time, but the play had successful runs in London and New York…. Delaney's immediate inspiration was her dislike of Terence Rattigan's play, Variations on a Theme. Believing she could do better, she wrote A Taste of Honey in two weeks, reworking material from a novel she was writing. Delaney and the film's director, Tony Richardson, shared BAFTA and Writer's Guild awards for best screenplay for the 1961 film adaptation, which starred Rita Tushingham."
"Delaney's play sits in between John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) and Joe Orton's...
"Delaney's play sits in between John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) and Joe Orton's...
- 11/21/2011
- MUBI
Salford-born playwright Shelagh Delaney has died at the age of 71. The writer died of cancer at her eastern England home on Sunday night, agent Jane Villiers confirmed to The AP. Delaney was best known for her controversial 1958 debut play A Taste of Honey. It was made into a film three years later and Delaney and the director Tony Richardson were awarded a BAFTA and Writer's Guild awards for best screenplay in (more)...
- 11/21/2011
- by By Mayer Nissim
- Digital Spy
Salford-born playwright Shelagh Delaney has died at the age of 72. The writer died of cancer at her eastern England home on Sunday night, agent Jane Villiers confirmed to The AP. Delaney was best known for her controversial 1958 debut play A Taste of Honey. It was made into a film three years later and Delaney and the director Tony Richardson were awarded a BAFTA and Writer's Guild awards for best screenplay in (more)...
- 11/21/2011
- by By Mayer Nissim
- Digital Spy
Channel kitchen-sink drama A Taste of Honey as you stroll down the Manchester ship canal or gaze wistfully from Barton Road Swing Bridge
Nothing says "Who needs Koh Samui?" quite like a few days' isolation in a poky bedsit on the outskirts of town, right? Which is why you've wisely plumped to spend your holiday abiding by the rules of the gritty British kitchen-sink drama. And why not? As Joy says at the beginning of Ken Loach's Poor Cow: "The world was our oyster … and we chose Ruislip."
Now, the good news is that you don't have to go to Ruislip. However, the bad news is that you do have to go somewhere that's not exactly known for sun, sand and surf. The east Midlands (Look Back in Anger, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning), Yorkshire (Billy Liar, This Sporting Life) and Lancashire (A Kind of Loving, A Taste of Honey...
Nothing says "Who needs Koh Samui?" quite like a few days' isolation in a poky bedsit on the outskirts of town, right? Which is why you've wisely plumped to spend your holiday abiding by the rules of the gritty British kitchen-sink drama. And why not? As Joy says at the beginning of Ken Loach's Poor Cow: "The world was our oyster … and we chose Ruislip."
Now, the good news is that you don't have to go to Ruislip. However, the bad news is that you do have to go somewhere that's not exactly known for sun, sand and surf. The east Midlands (Look Back in Anger, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning), Yorkshire (Billy Liar, This Sporting Life) and Lancashire (A Kind of Loving, A Taste of Honey...
- 10/8/2010
- by Tim Jonze
- The Guardian - Film News
The 60s began in Billy Liar's Bradford – but that cultural insurgency now seems a long time ago
In a week with those Camdenites the Milibands stealing away with the Labour leadership race, Andy Burnham's plaint about "metropolitan elites" seems particularly poignant. But then poignancy is the northern tone these days. Mancunians, I found recently, still adduce the Happy Mondays when pressed to say what is distinctive about their home. That the works of this fairly ropey outfit should be taken as a cultural landmark shows what a bleak half century it's been for the north.
I grew up thinking there was a real cachet in being northern. It's 50 years since Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the 1960 film of Alan Sillitoe's novel, with Albert Finney as a hedonistic machinist in Nottingham. Any youngsters watching him don his suit on the eponymous night must have wished they too were from Pendleton near Salford,...
In a week with those Camdenites the Milibands stealing away with the Labour leadership race, Andy Burnham's plaint about "metropolitan elites" seems particularly poignant. But then poignancy is the northern tone these days. Mancunians, I found recently, still adduce the Happy Mondays when pressed to say what is distinctive about their home. That the works of this fairly ropey outfit should be taken as a cultural landmark shows what a bleak half century it's been for the north.
I grew up thinking there was a real cachet in being northern. It's 50 years since Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the 1960 film of Alan Sillitoe's novel, with Albert Finney as a hedonistic machinist in Nottingham. Any youngsters watching him don his suit on the eponymous night must have wished they too were from Pendleton near Salford,...
- 9/13/2010
- by Andrew Martin
- The Guardian - Film News
Billy Liar, a story of smalltown frustration, captivated a generation, pre-empted the 60s – and even inspired Oasis. As the stage play returns, Laura Barton asks Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie why it endures
'I don't think about Billy Liar very often." Tom Courtenay's voice hovers on the line. We have been discussing his upcoming holiday to the north-east coast, splashing about in the warm shallows of the present-day; at this detour into the past, he pauses, and retreats a little. "If I read it now, it would make me laugh," he concludes lightly, distantly. "But I honestly don't know why it's lasted. Who can say why some things are successful?"
It is now 50 years since Keith Waterhouse's novel transferred to the stage, casting in its title role first Albert Finney and later, Courtenay. Published in 1959, Billy Liar has, over those five decades, enjoyed a rich and varied existence,...
'I don't think about Billy Liar very often." Tom Courtenay's voice hovers on the line. We have been discussing his upcoming holiday to the north-east coast, splashing about in the warm shallows of the present-day; at this detour into the past, he pauses, and retreats a little. "If I read it now, it would make me laugh," he concludes lightly, distantly. "But I honestly don't know why it's lasted. Who can say why some things are successful?"
It is now 50 years since Keith Waterhouse's novel transferred to the stage, casting in its title role first Albert Finney and later, Courtenay. Published in 1959, Billy Liar has, over those five decades, enjoyed a rich and varied existence,...
- 9/2/2010
- by Laura Barton
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor best known for his role in The Sweeney
For decades a versatile figure in regional theatre, both behind and in front of the footlights, the actor Garfield Morgan, who has died aged 78, achieved national recognition as Frank Haskins in the mould-breaking action series The Sweeney (Thames, 1975-78), having spent years playing police officers on screen. He brought narrow eyes and a habitually rueful expression to the role of Haskins, who was continually beset by ulcers and colds and whose somewhat puritanical nature distanced him from his charges, played by John Thaw and Dennis Waterman.
Born and raised in Birmingham, Morgan was initially apprenticed to a dental mechanic. His professional debut was in July 1953, in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, as part of the Arena Theatre Company, for the city's sixth summer theatre festival. Also in the company was the future director Clifford Williams.
The following month, Morgan was a founder member of the Marlowe Players,...
For decades a versatile figure in regional theatre, both behind and in front of the footlights, the actor Garfield Morgan, who has died aged 78, achieved national recognition as Frank Haskins in the mould-breaking action series The Sweeney (Thames, 1975-78), having spent years playing police officers on screen. He brought narrow eyes and a habitually rueful expression to the role of Haskins, who was continually beset by ulcers and colds and whose somewhat puritanical nature distanced him from his charges, played by John Thaw and Dennis Waterman.
Born and raised in Birmingham, Morgan was initially apprenticed to a dental mechanic. His professional debut was in July 1953, in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, as part of the Arena Theatre Company, for the city's sixth summer theatre festival. Also in the company was the future director Clifford Williams.
The following month, Morgan was a founder member of the Marlowe Players,...
- 2/16/2010
- by Gavin Gaughan
- The Guardian - Film News
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