Passages

[Tribe]

Mary Travers...this is beyond sad...one of my first memories is listening to my mom sing PP&M songs while preparing dinner back in the very early Sixties in pre-wasteland Cleveland. Yeah, their music could be corn ball at times, and the polished harmonies were far from the raw, authenticity which many folkies sought during the Great Folk Scare...but they convey to me a lost innocence these days. Very sad.

[Matt]

The great Henry Gibson, who I didn't even know was on "Laugh-In," let alone "best known" for it. I just knew him from Altman's films.

[colinr0380]

And The 'Burbs of course, attempting to strangle Tom Hanks on an out of control hospital gurney (and who hasn't wanted the chance to do that at one time or another, usually mid-way through a screening of Cast Away, The Terminal or The Da Vinci Code)

[Sloper]

And Innerspace. Not the best film so far mentioned but he had a pretty fun part. I remember him training his dog: 'Never beg! Never beg!'

[cdnchris]

Wasn't that Kevin McCarthy?

[Sloper]

Shit you're right. Henry Gibson was the boss at the store, wasn't he?

It's been a long time since I saw it. Sorry Henry. And Kevin...

[dad1153]

Henry Gibson was the boss [in "Innerspace"] at the store, wasn't he?

Correct: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0015580/

[Fiery Angel]

Composer Leon Kirchner

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Arnold Laven

Arnold Laven, a director and producer of movies and TV shows who represented one-third of the prolific Levy-Gardner-Laven production team, died Sept. 13 at Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87.

During World War II, Laven -- who got his start as an assistant to Jack Warner at Warner Bros. -- served in the First Motion Picture Unit stationed at Fort (Hal) Roach (Studios) in Culver City making training films alongside the likes of Ronald Reagan, Clark Gable and William Holden.

There, he met Jules V. Levy and Arthur Gardner. After the war and stints as script supervisors and assistant directors, the three formed Levy-Gardner-Laven Prods. in 1951. It would become one of the longest-running partnerships in Hollywood history.

Their first feature, the Laven-directed "Without Warning" (1952), about a murderous gardener in Los Angeles, was made on a shoestring for $70,000 and launched the trio's journey. During the next three decades, Levy-Gardner-Laven would produce four television series and more than 20 features.

Laven's TV directing credits (both for and outside his production company) included episodes of such popular shows as "The Big Valley," "The Rifleman," "Mannix," "Ironside," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Rockford Files," "Fantasy Island," "Eight Is Enough," "ChiPs," "Hill Street Blues" and "The A-Team."

He directed such films as "Down Three Dark Streets" (1954), starring Edward G. Robinson; "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" (1957), toplined by Walter Matthau; "The Rack" (1956), starring Paul Newman; "Anna Lucasta" (1959), with Sammy Davis Jr. and Eartha Kitt; "Geronimo" (1962), starring Chuck Connors; and "Sam Whiskey" (1969) starring Burt Reynolds.

In 1957, Laven and his partners were developing a Western for Dick Powell's "Zane Grey Theater" and collaborating with a new screenwriter, Sam Peckinpah. The series, about a settler particularly adept at shooting a rifle, needed something to separate it from the many Westerns then on the air and in development.

Laven looked to his own relationship with his son Larry and told Peckinpah to foster a father-son relationship. The show, "The Rifleman," starring Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford, became one of the most successful of the 1960s.

Levy-Gardner-Laven also produced TV shows "The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor" and "The Big Valley," with Barbara Stanwyck.

Most recently, Laven helped with the launch of "The Rifleman" on Hulu to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary.

Levy died in 2003. Gardner, 99, still comes to work every day at Levy-Gardner-Laven offices in Beverly Hills, according to his son, Steven Gardner.

In addition to his son Larry, Laven's survivors include Wally, his wife of more than 58 years; daughter Barbara; and sister Rennie Skepner.

[HarryLong]

Unmentioned are the several horror/sci-fi films the trio produced in the late 1950s - among them THE RETURN OF DRACULA and THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD

[colinr0380]

Old news, but I thought this was a nice tribute to Yasuharu Hasebe from the Cinebeats blog.

[Perkins Cobb]

Robert Ginty, "the Paper Chase guy."

[feckless boy]

Crayon Shin-chan creator Yoshito Usui died a couple of days ago in, what seems to be, a freak hiking accident.

[fiddlesticks]

Alicia de Larrocha

[Fiery Angel]

Alicia de Larrocha

Sad news. Her Granados and Albeniz performances were peerless.

[Saturnome]

Quebec film director Pierre Falardeau

[Solaris]

Susan Atkins

[Fiery Angel]

William Safire

[CSM126]

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

[Polybius]

William Safire

Imagine his surprise when he realizes that his elevator companion is Sexy Sadie and they're heading downward.

[ezmbmh]

William Safire

Imagine his surprise when he realizes that his elevator companion is Sexy Sadie and they're heading downward.

Politics aside--and that's a big detour, granted--he knew English. I'm always quoting his prohibition on linked prepositions, "unless," he said, "you're in the valley of the shadow of death."

[Polybius]

I wish he had stuck with that. I always found those columns worth my time. Similarly, JJ Kilpatrick used to write a mildly amusing language column (the one on all the malaprop versions of "voila!" that he had encounted sticks in my mind.)

If they had stayed there and not made long careers out of apologizing for Jim Crow (Kilpatrick) and aiding and abetting Nixon, during and after his Presidency, as well as continually, repeatedly and gracelessly lying about the Clintons every single day Bill was in office, they wouldn't be playing shuffleboard with Charlemagne, now.

[colinr0380]

Not exactly highbrow news but Victor Israel died on the 19th of September. He had small roles in tons of films that were shot in Spain (a pirate in Juan Antonio Bardem's version of Mysterious Island which featured Omar Sharif as Captain Nemo; a minor role in Kill!, one of the two films Romain Gary made; and most recently a part in Goya's Ghosts by Milos Forman) - for me, his part as the whistling train conductor who sets the monster free on the Horror Express comes most readily to mind, though he was also memorable in a small part as the zombified priest at a jungle mission in Bruno Mattei's goofy Dawn of the Dead rip off, Hell of the Living Dead, proving that it is difficult to do a convincing zombie walk in pursuit of a victim while dressed in a full length cassock!

Here's his imdb page.

[skuhn8]

Stephen Gately of Boyzone passes in Majorca.
IMDB if you want to know why he's listed here.

[jsteffe]

The Georgian/Russian filmmaker Mikheil Kalatozishvili has passed away at the age of 51; the cause of death is listed as infarction. There's a video news piece about it, but unfortunately it's in Russian. His documentary about his grandfather Mikhail Kalatozov is in the 3-disc I am Cuba box set from Milestone.

His last feature film was Wild Field (Dikoe pole) from 2008. There's a Russian DVD available for that film, but it lacks English subtitles.

It's a real shame that he passed away so young. I met him a couple years ago at the Tbilisi International Film Festival, and he seemed like a genuinely warm and down-to-earth person. You could tell he was a loving father, too.