Judy Balaban, the daughter of a longtime studio mogul who dated Montgomery Clift and Merv Griffin, married Tony Franciosa and served as one of Grace Kelly’s bridesmaids at her wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco, has died. She was 91.
Balaban died Thursday night in a hospital in Los Angeles, her friend, author and documentary filmmaker Cari Beauchamp, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Balaban was a champion for civil rights, serving on the board of directors for the ACLU of Southern California for decades.
In a 2010 piece for Vanity Fair that she and Beauchamp co-wrote, Balaban described using LSD (then legal) as a form of therapy in the early 1960s when her good friends Cary Grant and his third wife, Betsy Drake, were using it, too.
“What I had with Cary and Betsy was a kind of soul-baringness that the culture didn’t start to deal with until years later,” she says in the story.
Balaban died Thursday night in a hospital in Los Angeles, her friend, author and documentary filmmaker Cari Beauchamp, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Balaban was a champion for civil rights, serving on the board of directors for the ACLU of Southern California for decades.
In a 2010 piece for Vanity Fair that she and Beauchamp co-wrote, Balaban described using LSD (then legal) as a form of therapy in the early 1960s when her good friends Cary Grant and his third wife, Betsy Drake, were using it, too.
“What I had with Cary and Betsy was a kind of soul-baringness that the culture didn’t start to deal with until years later,” she says in the story.
- 10/20/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Whitman co-starred with John Wayne in the hit 1961 film "The Comancheros".
By Lee Pfeiffer
Stuart Whitman, the popular leading man of feature films and television, has passed away from natural causes at age 92. Whitman generally showed a tough guy persona in films, and although he usually played a hero, he could also occasionally impress as a villain, as well. Among his more memorable films was "The Mark", a 1961 production that earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination as a child molester who is trying desperately to redeem himself. Other key movies include "The Comancheros" in which he co-starred with John Wayne, "The Longest Day", "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines", "Rio Conchos", "Murder, Inc." and "Ten North Frederick". In 1965, Whitman scored as a killer in the desert adventure film "Sands of the Kalahari". From that point on, however, he was increasingly consigned to roles in "B" movies. However, he...
By Lee Pfeiffer
Stuart Whitman, the popular leading man of feature films and television, has passed away from natural causes at age 92. Whitman generally showed a tough guy persona in films, and although he usually played a hero, he could also occasionally impress as a villain, as well. Among his more memorable films was "The Mark", a 1961 production that earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination as a child molester who is trying desperately to redeem himself. Other key movies include "The Comancheros" in which he co-starred with John Wayne, "The Longest Day", "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines", "Rio Conchos", "Murder, Inc." and "Ten North Frederick". In 1965, Whitman scored as a killer in the desert adventure film "Sands of the Kalahari". From that point on, however, he was increasingly consigned to roles in "B" movies. However, he...
- 3/17/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Actor Stuart Whitman, an Oscar nominee for his role as a convicted child molester in the 1961 movie “The Mark,” died on Monday of natural causes surrounded by his family at his ranch house in Montecito, Calif., his son Justin told Variety. He was 92.
Whitman had more than 200 film and television credits. His movies include “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines,” “The Longest Day,” “The Comancheros,” “The Sound and the Fury,” “Johnny Trouble,” “Hound-Dog Man,” “The Story of Ruth,” “Murder, Inc.,” “Convicts 4,” “Shock Treatment,” “Rio Conchos” and “The Day and the Hour.” Whitman made his film debut in 1951 in “When Worlds Collide.”
He replaced Richard Burton in the role of Jim Fuller on “The Mark,” which earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He lost out to Maximilian Schell, who won for “Judgment at Nuremberg.” Whitman portrayed a child molester who gets out of prison and seeks the aid of a psychiatrist,...
Whitman had more than 200 film and television credits. His movies include “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines,” “The Longest Day,” “The Comancheros,” “The Sound and the Fury,” “Johnny Trouble,” “Hound-Dog Man,” “The Story of Ruth,” “Murder, Inc.,” “Convicts 4,” “Shock Treatment,” “Rio Conchos” and “The Day and the Hour.” Whitman made his film debut in 1951 in “When Worlds Collide.”
He replaced Richard Burton in the role of Jim Fuller on “The Mark,” which earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He lost out to Maximilian Schell, who won for “Judgment at Nuremberg.” Whitman portrayed a child molester who gets out of prison and seeks the aid of a psychiatrist,...
- 3/17/2020
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
Actor Joseph Campanella died on Wednesday, May 16. He was 93.
Campanella, who received a Tony Award nomination in 1962 for best supporting actor for his performance in "A Gift of Time" along with Emmy nominations for Days of our Lives and Mannix, died of natural causes, his daughter-in-law, Sandy Campanella, said.
Campanella received his first Emmy Award nomination for playing private eye Joe Mannix's boss on the first season of the 1967-75 CBS series Mannix. His character's name, Lew Wickersham, was a sly reference to then-McA head Lew Wasserman and Lankershim Boulevard, an entryway to Universal Studios.
However, Intertect, the heartless crime-fighting corporation that Wickersham headed, was written out after the first season as Mannix (Mike Connors) went out on his own, and Campanella's contract was not renewed.
The actor also appeared in the recurring role of Ed Cooper, the ex-husband and father on CBS' One Day at a Time,...
Campanella, who received a Tony Award nomination in 1962 for best supporting actor for his performance in "A Gift of Time" along with Emmy nominations for Days of our Lives and Mannix, died of natural causes, his daughter-in-law, Sandy Campanella, said.
Campanella received his first Emmy Award nomination for playing private eye Joe Mannix's boss on the first season of the 1967-75 CBS series Mannix. His character's name, Lew Wickersham, was a sly reference to then-McA head Lew Wasserman and Lankershim Boulevard, an entryway to Universal Studios.
However, Intertect, the heartless crime-fighting corporation that Wickersham headed, was written out after the first season as Mannix (Mike Connors) went out on his own, and Campanella's contract was not renewed.
The actor also appeared in the recurring role of Ed Cooper, the ex-husband and father on CBS' One Day at a Time,...
- 5/17/2018
- by Roger Newcomb
- We Love Soaps
Peter Falk, the Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning actor best known for his portrayal of the raincoat-wearing, cigar smoking TV detective Columbo, died Thursday evening at his home in Beverly Hills, CA; he was 83. Though an exact cause of death was not released by his family, it had been known that Falk was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Though he received two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor in 1960 and 1961 for Murder, Inc. and Pocketful of Miracles, and was an acclaimed stage actor, winning a Tony Award for 1972's The Prisoner of Second Avenue, he was known to millions as the irascible Lieutenant Columbo, one of television most beloved detectives, whose apparent absent-mindedness belied his cunning deductive skills and ease at outwitting even the most clever and devious of criminals. In all, he received four Emmy Awards and 10 nominations for the role, which he played from 1968 (in the TV film Prescription: Murder) to a special 2003 episode of the series.
Born in New York City in 1927, Falk underwent surgery at only the age of three to have his right eye removed because of a malignant tumor; for the rest of his life he would wear a glass eye, which became one of his most notable traits. Rejected by the armed forces because of his eyesight, he enlisted in the Merchant Marines during World War II, returning home to finish his college education, obtaining a master's degree in public administration and taking a job as an efficiency expert in Hartford, Connecticut in the early 1950s. It was there that he began his acting career, studying with the acclaimed actress and teacher Eva Le Gallienne. After moving to New York to pursue acting full time, he co-starred in the 1956 revival of The Iceman Cometh alongside Jason Robards, and was on Broadway within the same year, and started appearing on television as well. In the late '50s he took a number of small film roles, and was hailed by critics for his turn as a murderer in the 1960 gangster film Murder Inc., which proved to be his breakthrough role. An Oscar nomination followed, as did a role in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles the next year, which was the acclaimed director's last film and for which Falk received a second Oscar nod.
With back-to-back Academy Award nominations and his first Emmy Award (for a 1961 episode of The Dick Powell Theater), Falk worked steadily throughout the 1960s in both television and film, with small roles in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Robin and the 7 Hoods, and a starring role in the short-lived legal TV series The Trials of O'Brien. He first played the role of Lieutenant Columbo in the 1968 TV movie Prescription: Murder, which was originally written as a Broadway play and then reworked for television. The film set up a number of tropes for the upcoming TV series: the seeming ineptitude of detective Columbo and the intricate cat-and-mouse mysteries in which the killer, known to viewers, seemed to dance around the detective's bumbling investigations. Columbo became a TV series in 1971, with a young 25-year-old Steven Spielberg helming the very first episode. The series was an unqualified hit for NBC, and ran through 1977 in 90 or 120 minute movie-length segments that appeared every third week as part of the network's "Sunday Mystery Movie" series, with a wide variety of acclaimed guest stars. Even after it went off the air, it spawned the short-lived Mrs. Columbo (based on the detective's unseen wife), starring a young Kate Mulgrew.
While becoming one of the signature television stars of the 1970s, Falk also appeared on the big screen in two of close friend John Cassavetes' films, Husbands (1970) and the Oscar-nominated A Woman Under the Influence (1971). Falk also played a Sam Spade-style detective in the comedy Murder By Death, and also starred in The Brink's Job (1978), The Cheap Detective (also 1978), and The In-Laws (1979). After the Columbo series came to a close in 1977, Falk continued acting in film, appearing in two highly notable roles in 1987: the storybook-reading Grandfather in Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride, and an acclaimed turn as a slightly modified version of himself as a man who converses with angels in Wim Wender's Wings of Desire. He returned to the role of Columbo in 1989 when ABC began commission TV movies centered on the character that would appear twice a year. After his last Columbo turn in 2003, Falk appeared sporadically in film and TV, his last role in the 2009 indie comedy American Cowslip.
In December 2008, his daughter Catherine Falk had filed court documents stating her father suffered from Alzheimer's Disease and petitioned to be his guardian; he is survived by his two daughters and wife, Shera.
Though he received two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor in 1960 and 1961 for Murder, Inc. and Pocketful of Miracles, and was an acclaimed stage actor, winning a Tony Award for 1972's The Prisoner of Second Avenue, he was known to millions as the irascible Lieutenant Columbo, one of television most beloved detectives, whose apparent absent-mindedness belied his cunning deductive skills and ease at outwitting even the most clever and devious of criminals. In all, he received four Emmy Awards and 10 nominations for the role, which he played from 1968 (in the TV film Prescription: Murder) to a special 2003 episode of the series.
Born in New York City in 1927, Falk underwent surgery at only the age of three to have his right eye removed because of a malignant tumor; for the rest of his life he would wear a glass eye, which became one of his most notable traits. Rejected by the armed forces because of his eyesight, he enlisted in the Merchant Marines during World War II, returning home to finish his college education, obtaining a master's degree in public administration and taking a job as an efficiency expert in Hartford, Connecticut in the early 1950s. It was there that he began his acting career, studying with the acclaimed actress and teacher Eva Le Gallienne. After moving to New York to pursue acting full time, he co-starred in the 1956 revival of The Iceman Cometh alongside Jason Robards, and was on Broadway within the same year, and started appearing on television as well. In the late '50s he took a number of small film roles, and was hailed by critics for his turn as a murderer in the 1960 gangster film Murder Inc., which proved to be his breakthrough role. An Oscar nomination followed, as did a role in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles the next year, which was the acclaimed director's last film and for which Falk received a second Oscar nod.
With back-to-back Academy Award nominations and his first Emmy Award (for a 1961 episode of The Dick Powell Theater), Falk worked steadily throughout the 1960s in both television and film, with small roles in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Robin and the 7 Hoods, and a starring role in the short-lived legal TV series The Trials of O'Brien. He first played the role of Lieutenant Columbo in the 1968 TV movie Prescription: Murder, which was originally written as a Broadway play and then reworked for television. The film set up a number of tropes for the upcoming TV series: the seeming ineptitude of detective Columbo and the intricate cat-and-mouse mysteries in which the killer, known to viewers, seemed to dance around the detective's bumbling investigations. Columbo became a TV series in 1971, with a young 25-year-old Steven Spielberg helming the very first episode. The series was an unqualified hit for NBC, and ran through 1977 in 90 or 120 minute movie-length segments that appeared every third week as part of the network's "Sunday Mystery Movie" series, with a wide variety of acclaimed guest stars. Even after it went off the air, it spawned the short-lived Mrs. Columbo (based on the detective's unseen wife), starring a young Kate Mulgrew.
While becoming one of the signature television stars of the 1970s, Falk also appeared on the big screen in two of close friend John Cassavetes' films, Husbands (1970) and the Oscar-nominated A Woman Under the Influence (1971). Falk also played a Sam Spade-style detective in the comedy Murder By Death, and also starred in The Brink's Job (1978), The Cheap Detective (also 1978), and The In-Laws (1979). After the Columbo series came to a close in 1977, Falk continued acting in film, appearing in two highly notable roles in 1987: the storybook-reading Grandfather in Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride, and an acclaimed turn as a slightly modified version of himself as a man who converses with angels in Wim Wender's Wings of Desire. He returned to the role of Columbo in 1989 when ABC began commission TV movies centered on the character that would appear twice a year. After his last Columbo turn in 2003, Falk appeared sporadically in film and TV, his last role in the 2009 indie comedy American Cowslip.
In December 2008, his daughter Catherine Falk had filed court documents stating her father suffered from Alzheimer's Disease and petitioned to be his guardian; he is survived by his two daughters and wife, Shera.
- 6/24/2011
- IMDb News
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