Deaths: July 25
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Bernadette Lafont was born at the Protestant Health Home of Nîmes in Gard, the only child of a pharmacist and a housewife from the Cévennes. Her mother always wanted a boy to name Bernard and, once she gave birth to a girl, she enjoyed to hold this against all the catholics she knew as the proof that their God either was blind or didn't exist. Often dressed as a boy and nicknamed Bernard, Bernadette nevertheless had a great relationship with her parents. Having spent part of her childhood in Saint-Geniès-de-Malgoirès, she returned to Nîmes where she took ballet lessons at the local Opera House. She proved to be a gifted student and she did three little tours and about twenty galas there. An extroverted girl with a fervent imagination, she used to spend her holidays at the Cévennes family mansion playing dress-up with her friend Annie, along whom she used to pretend to be an actress from an imaginary West End Club, working in Italian cinema: doing this started to win her a lot of male attention. She also began to develop a passion for film from an early age, adopting Brigitte Bardot and Marina Vlady as role models.
On the summer of 1955, the "Arènes" of Nîmes hosted a Festival of Dramatic Arts for the second time: 40 actors came from Paris while 50 regional aspiring thespians and 30 dancing students were recruited on the place. The main attraction was a production of "La Tragédie des Albigeois", a new play which featured music by Georges Delerue and starred, in the leading roles, the acclaimed stage veteran Jean Deschamps and a talented young actor called Jean-Louis Trintignant, who would go a long way from there. The play also offered bit parts to future directing genius Maurice Pialat, Trintignant's then wife Colette Dacheville (the future Stéphane Audran), and the skilled Gérard Blain, who, by then, had already appeared in a handful of movies, although usually in uncredited roles. Having seen Gérard on his way to a rehearsal at the "Arènes", Bernadette was immediately won over by his "bad boy" charm and decided to walk around the place (which had ironically been the spot of her parents' first encounter) to catch his attention: she did. Already separated from wife Estella Blain, Gérard immediately developed a great interest in Bernadette, stating that he was willing to bring her to Paris to introduce her to certain people at the Opera House and stating how glad he was that she didn't have any interest in pursuing an acting career, something he regarded, in a woman's case, as a road to perdition. After she finished her studies, Bernadette's parents gave her permission to marry Gérard and she did so in 1957.
Blain found his first relevant film role in Julien Duvivier's brilliant thriller Deadlier Than the Male (1956) and Bernadette spent a lot of time with him on the movie's set, something that made her fascination with cinema grow even bigger. The film opened to positive reviews and was also lauded (quite an oddity for a Duvivier feature) by the ruthless "Cahiers du Cinéma" critics, including the young François Truffaut, who called Blain "the French James Dean". Gérard decided to give the critic a phone call to thank him for the kind words and, after the two had a couple lunches together, Truffaut ended up making him a work offer. It's always been very hard for film critics to point at a specific work as the undisputed start of the French New Wave: for many people it's Agnès Varda's La Pointe Courte (1955) , but the director herself never wanted to be bestowed this honor and prefers to be considered a godmother to the movement. Others think that the roots of this new school of cinema can be found in the early shorts of Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard and Truffaut. The latter's The Mischief Makers (1957) is certainly one of the most significant of these ground-breaking works and happens to be the project for which Blain was recruited. Truffaut wanted to shoot the short in Nîmes and, with the exception of Gérard, he hired only non-professional actors: this included several local children and, of course, Bernadette. The mini-feature is centered around two lovers, Gérard (Blain) and Bernadette Jouve (Lafont), who are spied on by a group of children and are separated forever once he leaves for a mountain excursion from which he will never return. The character of Bernadette, a head-turner who becomes a great object of attention wherever she goes, was very much based on the real-life Lafont, just like her relationship with her beau Gérard (who has to leave Nîmes for three months, promising to marry her at his return) was very much reminiscent of her engagement to Blain. The two actors stayed at the house of Bernadette's parents for the entire shooting of the short. She chose to act in bare feet the whole time to make a homage to Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa (1954) and, at the same time, a favour to Blain, not exactly a man of exceptional height. When he had married Bernadette, Gérard had sworn to himself that his new wife would have never stolen the spotlight from him like Estella had previously done: unfortunately for his plans, he was soon going to be sorely disappointed. Truffaut managed to get the best out of the young actress through rather unorthodox methods at times (like threatening to slap her hadn't she cried convincingly), but they established a great chemistry in the end and he taught her not to look at someone like Bardot as a source of inspiration, since the big star didn't possess any gift Bernadette should have been jealous of. "Les Mistons" turned out to be a little gem which already contained all the best elements of the great director's cinema. During the shooting, Bernadette got to know many other key figures of the upcoming French New Wave, including Rivette, Paul Gégauff and Claude Chabrol. The latter had already asked her to appear in his debut feature film by the time Truffaut had proposed her to star in "Les Mistons": she had accepted both offers simultaneously and, once the shooting of the short movie was over, she immediately embarked on another adventure.
Chabrol's atmospheric Le Beau Serge (1958) is now officially considered the movie that kickstarted the French New Wave: it was shot in Sardent, where the director had spent many of his childhood years. The main cast was formed by Bernadette, Gérard and another young actor called Jean-Claude Brialy, who would soon become a cornerstone of French cinema in general and an assiduous presence in New Wave movies in particular. The movie takes place in a community of drunkards and is centered around the relationship between the rebellious Serge (Blain) and his better balanced friend François (Brialy). Bernadette got the juicy role of Serge's slutty sister-in-law and lover, Marie. This role of a very impudent and provocative woman of slightly vulgar charms allowed her to introduce the French audience to a new female image that was very much different from the ones usually found in the cinema of the period and worked as a prototype to the unforgettable gallery of "bad girl" types her cinematic work will forever be strictly associated to. The movie was very much praised along with the great performances of its actors. Bernadette was immediately featured on the cover of a recent edition of "The Cahiers du Cinéma" along with Brialy. Her rise in popularity had predictably an immediate negative impact on her relationship with Blain. The two male stars of "Le Beau Serge" were paired again in Chabrol's subsequent feature, the least interesting The Cousins (1959), but, this time, the leading female role was given to an absolutely unremarkable Juliette Mayniel. Bernadette started to grow more and more bored as Gérard was away from home to shoot the movie and even tried to contact him on the set asking for a divorce.
Bernadette teamed up again with Chabrol in the director's third released feature , Web of Passion (1959), which didn't work as well as a thriller rather than as an ironic spoof on the clichés of the genre and actor piece. The film's acting laurels go undoubtedly to Bernadette as a saucy waitress, Jean-Paul Belmondo as a cheeky young man with an alcohol problem and the glorious Madeleine Robinson (rightly awarded with a Volpi Cup at Venice Film Festival) as a troubled wife and mother. By the end of the year, Bernadette had eventually divorced from Blain and gotten into a relationship with a Hungarian sculptor she had known on her 20th birthday, Diourka Medveczky. 1960 was a turning point for her, as the work she did helped cementing her status as the female face of the New Wave. L'eau à la bouche (1960) was the first and most famous feature of Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, another critic of the Cahiers who wanted to follow the same path of his colleagues turned directors and decided to call Bernadette after seeing "Le Beau Serge". The superb The Good Time Girls (1960) was Chabrol's fourth movie and remains one of his masterworks. The film follows four girls (Bernadette, Stéphane Audran, Clotilde Joano and Lucile Saint-Simon) who are bored with their lives and waiting for a positive change to arrive, whether it's the coming of true love or the fulfillment of a dream. With many scenes set in the shop where the four characters work (a surreal place where time seems to have stopped), Chabrol was able to create something that seemed to come out of Sartre, managing to perfectly spread to the viewer the sense of loneliness and boredom weighing down the girls, seemingly trapped in the antechamber of hell. One of the film's strongest assets were three performances: tragic actress Joano gave a delicate and poetic portrayal of the ill-fated Jacqueline, Italian veteran Ave Ninchi added a lot of authority to her Madame Louise and, of course, Bernadette did the usual splendid job lending her energetic screen persona to Jane, the obvious haywire of the group, but, at the same time, a character more vulnerable and less gutsy than her usual creations. The movie allowed the actress to stretch her range and gave her a lot of good memories, such as pushing journalists on a swimming pool (which is at the heart of a key scene) along with Stéphane, somehow managing to galvanize the normally extremely shy girl. To appear in the movie, Bernadette had to decline the role of prostitute Clarisse (eventually played by Michèle Mercier) in Truffaut's masterpiece Shoot the Piano Player (1960), but it was a worthy sacrifice. The same year she gave birth to her first daughter with her now husband Diourka, the future actress Élisabeth Lafont, in the same health house where she was born. Bernadette's next collaboration with Chabrol was the remarkable Wise Guys (1961), where she got her most memorable role so far as Ambroisine, a girl who gets recruited by Jean-Claude Brialy's Ronald to create trouble in an old-fashioned environment with her modern, liberated persona, but eventually becomes impossible for him to control because of her mean-spirited nature. Her anarchic side was used to full potential for the first time, something that lead to one of the best portrayals of dark lady in a New Wave movie. But, like the other characters in the film weren't ready for a new type of woman such as Ambroisine, the movie-goers of the period seemed unwilling to fall for the charms of this revolutionary type of woman Bernadette was bringing to the screen and "Les godelureaux" was a box office flop, just like "Les Bonnes Femmes" had been. The latter, now regarded as one of Chabrol's best, was also a critical disaster, although Bernadette got positive reviews for her performance. Watched today, it's clear that both movies outclass several entries from the director's most celebrated noir cycle from the late 60's to the early 70's. But considering the tepid impact that her movies used to have with the big public, Bernadette was seen just as a half-star and icon of niche cinema exclusively and her agent used to have much trouble in finding her roles at the time. Producer Carlo Ponti once offered her to come to Italy to do some movies: now that his wife Sophia Loren was moving to Hollywood (not exactly to electrifying results), he thought there was a void in Italian cinema that needed to be filled by a feisty, curvaceous actress. This proposal lead to nothing. A project with Godard never saw the light of the day. Rivette never bothered to answer a letter by Bernadette where she had asked him to cast her in his debut feature film, Paris Belongs to Us (1961). She was offered her ticket to major stardom with Jacques Demy's Lola (1961), but she had to decline the title role in the movie because she was pregnant with her second child, David. The part eventually went to the limited Anouk Aimée, who gave the best acting she could ever be capable of, but it goes without saying that, had Bernadette played the part, she would have elevated the movie to entirely new levels.
The 60s, for most of the time, didn't prove to be a very happy decade for Bernadette as she got to face both a personal and professional crisis. Immediately after "Les Godelureaux", her talents were wasted in several obscure movies and shorts. In 1962 she appeared in And Satan Calls the Turns (1962), which boosted a high-profile cast, but was scripted by Roger Vadim, something that predictably sealed the movie's fate. Although officially directed by one-shot filmmaker Grisha Dabat, the film contained all the worst elements of Vadim's cinema and Bernadette was given such a thankless role that not even she could elevate it. One year later she was without an agent and took a break from acting, also to give birth to her third daughter, the future actress Pauline Lafont. The passion between her and Diourka had cooled down by now and the main reason they stayed together for a few years more was their common love for cinema: he was indeed planning to make his directorial debut. For the time being, they tried to make it work by opting for an open marriage where both enjoyed plenty of extra-conjugal affairs. Bernadette's friends Truffaut and Chabrol couldn't really come to her rescue either. The first sent her a letter which read: "You chose life. I chose cinema. I don' think our paths will ever cross again". The second was now engaged to Audran and was soon to enter a second phase of his career, one where he regularly did films whose central female characters weren't witty, animated provincial girls, but frozen, humourless bourgeoisie ladies that were tailor-made for Stéphane. In 1964, Bernadette had a rather unhappy "rentrée" with Male Hunt (1964) , a very disappointing comedy made by the talented Édouard Molinaro on an utterly unfunny script by Michel Audiard. Her role as a prostitute was hardly one minute long, but she had little money and a ton of debts at the time, so she had to accept everything she was offered. During the decade, she found work in a few more resonant projects such as Louis Malle's The Thief of Paris (1967), Costa-Gavras's The Sleeping Car Murder (1965) and Jean Aurel's Lamiel (1967), but she was given very indifferent roles in all of them. Once again, going after unusual projects by new, alternative auteurs was the decisive factor that helped her putting her career back on track. In Diourka's remarkable first work, the short Marie et le curé (1967), she shined as a provocative young woman who seduces a priest to nefarious consequences for both. Shortly after, she appeared in the silent movie Le révélateur (1968), which was directed by her love interest of the time, Philippe Garrel, and co-starred Laurent Terzieff, opposite whom she had always dearly desired to act. The film was shot in Spain and Bernadette helped funding it thanks to a loan from Chabrol. At around the same time, she also shot the "conjoined" shorts Prologue (1970) and Piège (1970), which were written and directed by Jacques Baratier and co-starred the great Bulle Ogier. Having seen Bulle in her most acclaimed film role in Rivette's titanic achievement Mad Love (1969), Bernadette had been astonished by the actress' monstrous amount of talent and was a bit scared by the thought of having to cross blades with her. As two thieves locked in a mysterious house by a vampiresque entity, the two actresses went on to gave a great lesson in metaphysical acting. Closer to an example of visual arts or Noh theatre than a cinematic work, Barratier's double short may feel too extreme even to some New Wave purists, but is nevertheless a fascinating watch and a must-see for the fans of the two ladies, equally impressive in the acting department and perfectly suited to create the needed physical contrast, with the taller brunette adding an earthy element and the petite blonde providing an ethereal quality. Bernadette and Bulle developed a beautiful friendship which lead to several other collaborations. In 1969, Diourka made his first feature film, Paul (1969). Jean-Pierre Léaud, a cult actor if there ever was one, had loved the Hungarian sculptor's previous shorts and sent him a letter asking to work with him, so that he would add another unique title to his genial filmography. He so earned the honour to play title character in Diourka's (only) film, as a little bourgeois who escapes from his family, joins a group of sages and meets temptation in Bernadette's form. None of these works really gave the actress a major popularity boost, however. Unlike fellow female standouts of the New Wave such as Ogier, Edith Scob, Delphine Seyrig, Jeanne Moreau and Emmanuelle Riva, Bernadette didn't have theatrical roots, but this didn't prevent her from appearing in stage productions of Turgenev's "A Month in the Country" and Picasso's surrealist play "Le désir attrapé par la queue" in this period. The official start of her career renaissance came, however, at the end of the decade with Nelly Kaplan's A Very Curious Girl (1969), a retelling of sorts of Michelet's "La Sorcière". Conceived as a monument to her talents, the transgressive movie stars Bernadette as Marie, a village girl who becomes a prostitute to settle a score with society (winning male and female hearts alike) and eventually gets revenge on all her men clients. The vendetta bit had been inspired by an off-screen feud between director Kaplan (an angry feminist) and actor Michael Constantin, who had refused to recite the line 'they were very happy and didn't have children" because he was a family man and opted for a more prudish "they were very happy and had children" instead. Bernadette's fearless performance had such a huge impact that, after the film's release, she got offers to star in porn features along with obscene proposals from the more misguided moviegoers. Once again, the public had proved not to have understood what kind of woman she represented, but auteur cinema was now going to welcome her back to a fuller extent.
The 70's were definitely a more successful decade for Bernadette. She was still seen as an alternative actress and was hardly ever offered traditional roles in conventional movies, but she didn't care about it, since she felt more at home in unique experiments such as La ville-bidon (1971), Valparaiso, Valparaiso (1971) or Sex-Power (1970). Moshé Mizrahi's feminist dramedy Sophie's Ways (1971) offered her one of her best parts as the rebellious wife of an excellent Michel Duchaussoy in one of his least charming roles. Jean Renoir himself was knocked out by her performance. In 1971, Bernadette finally got to work with Rivette for the first time in the director's epic Out 1 (1971), originally conceived as an 8 part mini-series to sell to French TV. The movie is centered around 12 main characters that work as pieces of an intricate puzzle and Bernadette was teamed up with several acting heavyweights such as Michael Lonsdale, Françoise Fabian, Juliet Berto and her former co-stars Léaud and Ogier. She played the role of Lonsdale's ex-girlfriend, a writer he tries to recruit for his mysterious dancing group. The actress, unlike other cast members, wasn't used to Rivette's working method, which involved little explanations and a lot of room for improvisation. Since it took her a lot of time to adapt to this style, she was reproached by the director, who harshly accused her of having chosen not to do anything, therefore hurting her feelings. Eventually these words helped Bernadette to find a way to incorporate her "handicap" into the character, imagining that Marie was experimenting writer's block like she had found herself unable to act. A scene where she and Léaud kept just staring at each other because they didn't know what to say was kept by Rivette because he liked the authentic feeling about it. Eventually French TV never bought "Out 1". Rivette also cut it down to 4 hours in the form of Out 1: Spectre (1972), but both versions were hardly released outside of festival circuits. One year later, Bernadette got to play her best remembered and most iconic role: Camille Bliss in Truffaut's underrated black comedy A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (1972). As a girl who's released from prison so that she can be analyzed by a student of criminology, the actress got to play a role that exemplified her career (being 'one of a kind') and felt like the summation and sublimation of all the naughty ladies she had played before: of coarse manners and vulgar laughter, indomitable, unstoppable, irreverent, incandescent and more of a destructive force that she had ever been in any of her previous movies, including "Marie et le Curé" , "La fiancée du pirate" and "Les godelureaux". Her performance won her the "Triomphe du Cinéma Français" and was stellarly received in the US, with "Newsweek" and the "New York Magazine" giving it such phenomenal praise that a French journalist wrote this comment: "Bernadette Lafont, historical monument to the U.S.A.". After bringing the female type she so often personified to its definitive cinematic form, Bernadette gradually started her image makeover. The first example was in Jean Eustache's supreme masterpiece The Mother and the Whore (1973), where she would have been the logical choice to play the title "whore" Veronika, but was actually given the touching role of the title "mother" Marie. Eustache, another former critic of the Cahiers had known her for about ten years and given her the script in 1971. After reading a couple pages she had been immediately won over and realized how much she desired to do it. The director's towering 4 hour achievement is centered around a love triangle formed of Eustache's screen alter-ego Alexandre (Léaud in his very best performance), slutty nurse Veronika (non-professional actress Françoise Lebrun, whose angelic appearance provided the perfect contrast with the nature of the character) and Bernadette's Marie, Alexandre's patient girlfriend who enjoys a very open relationship with him. Managing to convey an entire era in the characters' long, sublime dialogues, Eustache easily made one of the greatest and most significant movies of the French New Wave. Bernadette's portrayal of Marie showed a vibrant, affecting sensitivity that she had hardly done before, giving further demonstration of her talent and versatility. The film was shown in competition at the 1973 Cannes film festival, where it predictably got a mixed reception: some, including Jury President Ingrid Bergman, hated it, while others worshiped it as the future of cinema. In the end, Eustache was given the Grand Prize of the Jury. The same year, Bernadette also appeared in Nadine Trintignant's Défense de savoir (1973), which was no great shakes, but also starred two of the nation's top actors, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Michel Bouquet, both of which she greatly admired. She teamed up with the two again, respectively in The Probability Factor (1976) and Vincent mit l'âne dans un pré (et s'en vint dans l'autre) (1975). She was particularly entertaining in the second as an eccentric rich lady, proving that she could be also very convincing at playing very chic and sophisticated characters. The movie ends on a high note with the actress giving an unforgettable, sexy laugh. Daughters Élisabeth and Pauline were also given roles in the movie. The final great role Bernadette played in this period was in Rivette's misunderstood masterpiece Noroît (1976): Giulia, daughter of the Sun. Centred, like many of the director's works, on the dichotomy between light and shadow and day and night, the movie sees Geraldine Chaplin's Morag ending up on a mysterious island ruled by an Amazon-like society where males are either enslaved or, like in her brother's case, murdered. A great revenge tale not without its 'steampunk' element, the film is certainly highlighted by the transforming performance of Bernadette as a ruthless, modern day Pirate queen, cutting one of her female minions' throat with one of the most frighteningly icy expressions ever recorded by a camera and eventually facing Chaplin in a climatic knife duel on the ramparts. Unfortunately, Rivette's previous feature Duelle (1976) had been so unsuccessful that "Noroît " wasn't even released and, to this day, it remains the director's least popular work, which means that many people aren't familiar with Bernadette's sinister, against type performance, which ranks with her very best and is undoubtedly one of the great villainous turns in New Wave cinema. By 1978 there had been another change of muse in Chabrol's movies, as an astounding 24 years old Isabelle Huppert headlined the cast of one of his best works, Violette (1978), the first of a series of successful collaborations which included the director's number one masterpiece, La Cérémonie (1995). Bernadette was given a brief, but memorable cameo as Violette's cellmate. This 1969-1978 period easily represents the zenith of her career. After that, it was a bit difficult for her to deal with the changing times.
By the end of the 70's, most of the New Wave auteurs had moved on to more conventional projects and French cinema was entering a far less creative phase. Bernadette's desire to constantly challenge herself and look for different, ground-breaking projects often lead her to be part of totally unremarkable movies. Her nadir was probably represented by her two collaborations with Michel Caputo, arguably the worst French director to ever work with name actors (before he exclusively moved on to do porn under several aliases): Qu'il est joli garçon l'assassin de papa (1979) and Si ma gueule vous plaît... (1981), two supposed comic works that would make Michel Audiard's comedies look like Bringing Up Baby (1938) in comparison. But, although the modern viewer can hardly believe the existence of such detrimental works, they actually weren't unusual products of their time, but clear evidence of a scary change of taste on the public's part. Actresses like Bernadette, who used to mainly work for an audience of intellectuals, had to struggle hard to keep afloat after this change of tide and, in the early 80's, she had to lend her talents to a dozen of movies that weren't worth it. The Lee Marvin vehicle Dog Day (1984) was the second occasion she found herself working with a mega-star in an international production since her cameo opposite the legendary Kirk Douglas in Dick Clement's Swinging London abomination Catch Me a Spy (1971). Although she was given a bit more to do this time around, this title didn't add anything to her filmography either. Luckily, this wasn't the case of Claude Miller's L'effrontée (1985) a.k.a. "Impudent Girl". It's very ironic -and certainly not coincidental - that a movie going by this title and starring a 14 years old Charlotte Gainsbourg as a gutsy rebel would also feature Bernadette, who had, by all means, every maternity right on this type of character which had grown more and more diffused on the French screen thanks to her work. But the film had a much different flavour from the actress' vehicles from the 60's-70's: Gainsbourg's stubborn but ultimately good-hearted Charlotte is actually nothing like "Les Godelureaux"'s Ambroisine or "Une belle fille comme moi"'s Camille Bliss and Bernadette's Léone, the new love interest of Charlotte's father and mother of an asthmatic girl, is a very likable and moving character. Having moved on to more accessible projects, Bernadette naturally started to receive more award consideration as well, and her sweet, beautiful performance in Miller's movie was honored with a Best Supporting Actress César, one of the best and most inspired choices ever in the category. Her next project was Inspector Lavardin (1986), the second and best movie centered around Jean Poiret's unconventional police inspector and her first collaboration with Chabrol since "Violette". Wearing the most recurring name of the director's heroines, Hélène, she also dyed her hair blond for the first time on his wishes, so that she would have taken a step further in changing her screen persona. She liked the idea and would keep blond hair for the rest of her life. She worked with Chabrol for a seventh (and last) time only one year later in one of the director's most gothic-like works, the underrated Masks (1987), which stars the great Philippe Noiret as a villainous TV presenter worthy of the pen of Ann Radcliffe, Christian Legagneur, who keeps an innocent Anne Brochet imprisoned in his imposing manor and wishes to kill her to get his hands on her fortune. The juicy role of Legagneur's masseuse won Bernadette a second nomination for the Supporting Actress César.
In 1988, Bernadette's life was sadly affected by a horrible personal tragedy. In August, she was spending a holiday in the Cévennes family mansion, La Serre du Pomaret, along with son David, daughter Pauline and painter Pierre De Chevilly, her new life mate. On the 11th day of the month, Pauline left the house early in the morning to have a long walk to lose weight. By midday she hadn't come back yet. The family began to worry and David started to look for her. Bernadette was unfortunately committed to appear in a TV show in Nice and she left with her heart in her throat, hoping that, in the mean time, David or Pierre would have found Pauline. That wasn't to be. The family lived many weeks in a state of anguish, using the TV show "Avis de Recherche" to diffuse some photos of Pauline in the hope that someone could have shed some light on the mystery. There were several false reports from people who claimed to have seen her and Bernadette kept fooling herself for a long time, wanting to believe that the quest would have been greeted with success. Tragically, on the 21st November, Pauline's body was found in a ravine. Her death was officially called a hiking accident, although its circumstances are still mysterious to this day and some people considered the suicide theory. Bernadette dealt with her devastating grief by throwing herself into her job: always an extremely prolific actress, she got to work more and more and, as a result, she added a lot of unremarkable titles to her resume. She would still find a few good parts in the following decades.
Between 1990 and 2013, the actress added over 70 titles to her film and TV resume. Her talents were rather wasted in Raúl Ruiz's uneven Genealogies of a Crime (1997) and in Pascal Bonitzer's delightfully cynical Nothing About Robert (1999). She shined much more as an alcoholic mother in Personne ne m'aime (1994) (where she teamed up with Ogier and Léaud once more), a former teacher who almost ends up abducting her grandchildren in Les petites vacances (2006), an antique shop dealer who still has a great ascendancy over younger men in Bazar (2009) and a family matriarch in the comedy Prête-moi ta main (2006) opposite Alain Chabat and successor Gainsbourg. Her performance in this movie won her a third nomination for the Best Supporting Actress César. Her massive body of TV work from this period was highlighted by her performances in La très excellente et divertissante histoire de François Rabelais (2010) and La femme du boulanger (2010). She also did more stage work than ever in the 2000s. Starting from 2010, she was again employed for a few projects that had a bigger impact. First she borrowed her wonderful, husky voice to a treacherous nanny in the lovely animated feature A Cat in Paris (2010), which was Oscar-nominated. This nasty lady role felt like a homage to the characters that had made her famous. The following year, Bernadette and fellow New Wave legend Emmanuelle Riva were unfortunately the latest victims of Julie Delpy's game of playing director, as they were cast in the actress' catastrophic vanity project Skylab (2011). Delpy's latest directorial feature contained all the typical elements that she thinks are enough to make a movie: a seemingly endless family reunion, characters talking about hot hair around a table and a few off-colour gags here and there. The two glorious veterans, sadistically mortified by the granny look they had to sport, did the best they could with the material they were given, but it was just too little to begin with and, consequently, they can't possibly be considered a real redeeming factor of the terribly written, lacklusterly directed and otherwise insipidly acted film. In 2012, Bernadette got her best role in years as the title character in Jérôme Enrico's black comedy Paulette (2012). Enrico's pensioner version of Breaking Bad (2008) sees Bernadette's Paulette, a penniless, xenophobic widow, finding herself in a Walter White type of situation as she gets into drug dealing to make a living and begins to smuggle hashish right under the nose of her son-in-law, a coloured cop. The actress was immediately won over by the script, finding it modern and socially significant and decided to give a strong characterization to her character. Getting inspiration from Charles Chaplin's heroes and Giulietta Masina's performance in The Road (1954), she provided Paulette with a clown side which came complete with a funny walk and her leading turn proved absolutely irresistible. The film opened to positive reviews and got more visibility outside France than Bernadette's latest vehicles and many were foreseeing another career renaissance for her. Sadly, it wasn't to be.
In early July 2013, Bernadette was on her way to her family mansion in Saint-André-de-Valborgne (Gard) when she was the victim of a stroke. Forced to stay in Grau-du-Roi for a while, she had a second one on the 22nd and was quickly moved to the University Hospital centre of Nîmes, where she tragically died three days later. Her funeral took place at the Protestant temple of Saint-André-de-Valborgne on the 29th. Her passing was a cause of great grief for an enormous number of people, as she had gradually become a huge favourite of the French audience and a cornerstone of their cinema, and her colleagues had always adored her on both a professional and personal level. The admiration she had earned through the years had been repeatedly proved by several career tributes, including an Honorary César, the title of Officer of the French Legion of Honour and medals from the "National Order of Merit" and the "Order of Arts and Letters".
Bernadette's legacy could never be extinguished, but, in addition to everything she had already bequeathed to cinema, she graced the silver screen for a last time even after her death through her final completed movie, Sylvain Chomet's Attila Marcel (2013). The movie, recently showed at Toronto film festival and released in French theatres, was greeted with positive reviews where big kudos were reserved to Bernadette's portrayal of the eccentric adoptive aunt of Guillaume Gouix's protagonist. With the film's upcoming release in many more countries, plenty of others will have the bitter honour to see her eventually taking leave. Since the 25th October 2013, the Municipal Theatre of Nîmes has been renamed the Bernadette Lafont Theatre to honour the memory of the great actress. A once unforeseeable and absolutely logical reaching point for the barefoot girl biking in the city's streets in "Les Mistons".- He had an unusual background for an actor: his formal education began in a kindergarten founded by the wartime-era Japanese Imperial Army, and continued in a military academy which was Tokyo's answer to West Point. Upon graduating from Tokyo University (Japan's most prestigious), Hirata confounded many family expectations of him by pursuing a career in acting. His first roles in Tetsuwan namida ari (1953) and The Last Embrace (1953) brought him to the attention of director Ishirô Honda, who promptly cast Hirata first in his WW2 romance Farewell Rabaul Saraba Rabauru (1954) and then, later that year, in the role that would come to define Hirata's career: the tormented, one-eyed scientist Daisuke Serizawa, who alone has figured out a way to destroy the monster Gojira Godzilla (1954). That movie made stars out of all of the younger actors who were fortunate enough to star in it, though Hirata tended more towards second leads and character parts. He was often called the best-known of all actors to appear in Gojira movies (he would turn up in six of the sequels), but this was due as much to his popularity with directors as with his exposure through the monster movies. He was a favorite of directors Ishiro Honda, Jun Fukuda, Hiroshi Inagaki, and much beloved by virtually all the actors who knew him: honest and humorous, highly intellectual but never pretentious. He appeared in literally every kind of movie Toho Studios made, from the monster pictures to samurai dramas (including his one movie for Akira Kurosawa, Sanjuro (1962)) to war dramas to comedies. Still, he remained identified most directly in the public's mind with the original Gojira; his character Serizawa is among the best remembered and most admired in all Japanese films, both inside Japan and out. Hirata was chosen by Toho to announce the monster's return in Godzilla 1985 (1985), and was tapped for a major role; but he died tragically of lung cancer before he could begin shooting.
- Aldo Mayo was born on 11 December 1933 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was an actor, known for El hombre que volvió de la muerte (1969), Invasion (1969) and Ciclo Myriam de Urquijo (1969). He died on 25 July 2007 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of Broadway's most venerable, respected musical leading men, Alfred Drake created the male leads in "Oklahoma!" (1943), "Kiss Me Kate" (1949) and "Kismet" (1953). Sadly, he re-created none of these roles on screen. Very much a man of his beloved live theater, he never did go to Hollywood, except for the starring role in "Tars and Spars" (1946) for Columbia Pictures, a post-war comedy, and for a small role as the President of the Exchange in 1983's "Trading Places" (the one who says to Don Ameche "Mortimer, your brother's not well"). The 1964 production of "Hamlet" in which he played Claudius was filmed live in a Broadway theatre, was made in a new process of the time, (Electronovision) and distributed in movie theaters in the 60s and early 70s. It is available on DVD.
And so, apart from those films mentioned, as well as TV appearances both in starring roles and as a guest star in episodic series, his name and art can only live on in the memories of those who saw him work his particular brand of magic on stage during the golden years of the Broadway musical, his performances on Broadway cast albums giving only a partial idea of just how potent that magic was.- Barbara Sinatra was born on 16 October 1926 in Bosworth, Missouri, USA. She was married to Frank Sinatra, Zeppo Marx and Robert Harrison Oliver. She died on 25 July 2017 in Rancho Mirage, California, USA.Barbara Sinatra
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Billy Joe Walker Jr. was born in 1953 in Midland, Texas, USA. He is known for Rock-A-Doodle (1991). He died on 25 July 2017 in Kerrville, Texas, USA.- Carolyn Jones was born on 18 April 1941 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was an actress, known for Nightbreed (1990), The Dance of Death (1969) and Great Expectations (1989). She was married to Jeremy Mason. She died on 25 July 2018.
- Carter Mullally Jr. was born on 1 April 1924 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for The Twilight Zone (1959), Dallas (1978) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1957). He was married to Martha Jane Palmer. He died on 25 July 1992 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA.
- Canadian-born Cecilia Parker, daughter of a British army officer, moved with her family to Hollywood when she was a child. After graduation from high school she got a job as an extra. She did extra work for about a year before she was noticed by Fox executives, who signed her to a contract in 1931. Her career went along steadily if not spectacularly until 1937, when she was signed by MGM to play the older sister of Mickey Rooney in the "Andy Hardy" series. Although she had worked in everything from westerns to jungle serials, it's this part that people remember her for. She must have given MGM some trouble at one point, because in 1941 she was "loaned" (exiled is probably a better word) to ultra-low-rent studio PRC for one picture, a fate that usually befell actors who displeased the higher-ups at the studios. All was apparently forgiven, though, as she made five more pictures at MGM before she retired in 1942. She returned in 1958 for one final Andy Hardy film, but then went back to the real estate business she and her husband operated in Ventura, California, where she died in 1993.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Charlie Rich was born on 14 December 1932 in Colt, Arkansas, USA. He was an actor, known for Wild (2014), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and The Firm (1993). He was married to Margaret Ann Rich. He died on 25 July 1995 in Hammond, Louisiana, USA.- Clara Sereni was born on 28 August 1946 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was married to Stefano Rulli. She died on 25 July 2018 in Zürich, Switzerland.
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Curt M. Faudon was born on 10 May 1949 in Austria. He is a director and writer, known for Central Park (2005), Magic Graz (1972) and Bridging the Gap (2013).- Dennis Hoey was born on 30 March 1893 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943), Terror by Night (1946) and The Spider Woman (1943). He was married to Josephine Marta Ricca and Sarah Pearl Lyons (known as Cissie). He died on 25 July 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida, USA.
- Duilio Marzio was born on 27 November 1923 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was an actor, known for Las manos (2006), Tres pájaros (2001) and El amor nunca muere (1955). He died on 25 July 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Elisabeth Volkmann was born on 16 March 1936 in Essen, Germany. She was an actress, known for Kein Pardon (1993), Veronika Voss (1982) and Oh, diese Geister (1966). She was married to Eberhard Radisch and Walter Hass. She died on 25 July 2006 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Ellie Soutter was born on 25 July 2000 in Bromley, London, England, UK. She died on 25 July 2018 in Les Gets, Haute-Savoie, France.
- Born in Vienna. Studied at Max Reinhardt School. Early years as entertainer at Reiss Bar in Vienna. Often appeared at still-existing Raimund-Theater. Met wife, Liselotte, on stage in Brno (now Czech Republic). She escaped to London in 1938, he in 1939, where they married that year. Frequent appearances on German BBC during the war. Appeared often on British stage, including "Point of Departure" (with Dirk Bogarde, Mai Zetterling and Brenda de Banzie), "Settled out of Court" (with Nigel Patrick) and "The Threepenny Opera" (with Bill Owen, Georgia Brown, George A. Cooper, Lisa Lee), playing the part of Peachum. Frequent TV appearances, including episodes of The Saint (1962) and The Avengers (1961). Resumed German-speaking career in 1965, starring in "Das Feuerwerk" in Munich (from which the song "Oh My Papa" comes). Among other stage appearances in Germany: "Der Talisman" and "Der Entertainer". Was back in Vienna on the stage, appearing at the Theater an der Wien in musicals, including: "Das Apartment" ("Promises, Promises"), in which he played the doctor (a version of "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" was inserted for him to sing), "Billy" (a version of "Billy Liar"), and "Die Graefin von Naschmarkt", in which he starred alongside Marika Rökk. Tales from the Vienna Woods (1979) was his last film. It was directed by Maximilian Schell, and was included in the 1979 London Film Festival. He died durng final rehearsals for his second appearance at the Salzburg Festival, playing together with Schell as the Dicke Fetter (the fat cousin) in the traditional "Jederman" ("Everyman").
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Farouk Al-Fishawy was born in February 1952 in Cairo, Egypt. He was an actor and producer, known for The Seventh Heaven (2007), Istighatha Min Al-Alam Il-Akhr (1985) and Zombie Goes Zombie. He was married to Somaya El Alfy, Nouran and Soheir Ramzy. He died on 25 July 2019.- American character actor of stage, films, and television. A native of Idaho, Rainey was the son of a colorful character who was, among many other things, a champion of local dance contests. As a boy, Rainey was painfully shy, but found an outlet in school plays. He pursued stage work in regional companies, then went to New York to study with the legendary Michael Chekhov. He worked numerous "civilian" jobs while attempting to make a career as an actor, including work as a logger, a lineman, and a licensed carpenter. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, then went to California where he helped start the Ojai Valley Players and then acted in his first film in 1949. He became a familiar face in films and television shows of all sorts during the next five decades while maintaining a deep attachment to the theatre. In his ninetieth year, he played Giles Corey in "The Crucible" at Theatricum Botanicum, the Topanga, California theatre founded by his friend, the late Will Geer.
- Frank Clarke was born on 7 February 1934 in Beloit, Wisconsin, USA. He died on 25 July 2018 in Dallas, Texas, USA.
- Gerardo Gallardo was born on 25 September 1967. He was an actor, known for Vecinos (2005), Espiritus (1995) and Baila conmigo (1992). He died on 25 July 2017 in Mexico City, Mexico.
- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Giorgio Arlorio was born on 27 February 1929 in Torino, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for Il padre di famiglia (1967), Roma dodici novembre 1994 (1995) and Zorro (1975). He was married to Ludmila Arlorio Blat. He died on 25 July 2019 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Composer
- Music Department
- Producer
Glen Roven was born on 13 July 1958 in the USA. He was a composer and producer, known for Broadcast News (1987), The 40th Annual Tony Awards (1986) and Sinatra: 80 Years My Way (1995). He was married to Robin Addison. He died on 25 July 2018 in New York City, New York, USA.- Gretel Bergmann was born on 12 April 1914 in Laupheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She was married to Bruno Lambert. She died on 25 July 2017 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
György Szepesi was born on 5 February 1922 in Budapest, Hungary. He was an actor and writer, known for Civil a pályán (1952), Olympia Tatától Londonig (1949) and Füre lépni szabad (1960). He died on 25 July 2018 in Budapest, Hungary.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Camera and Electrical Department
Swiss-born actor Howard Vernon (né Mario Lippert) would make his infamous claim to fame as a stock lead player for the lowgrade, campy horror features of notorious director Jesús Franco, starring as Dr. Orloff, Dracula, and other terrorizers, most of them produced in Spain or France. Born in 1914 the son of a Swiss father and American mother, Howard received his dramatic training in both Berlin and Paris and was originally a stage and radio player (from 1945) before arriving in post-war French films. He articulated and personified a number of nefarious Nazis and sinister criminals in his five-decade career, although he could grab a sympathetic role from time such as in the French film The Silence of the Sea (1949), which remains one of his best. Occasionally a still photographer, he forged a long, non-creative association beginning in the early 1960s with cult director Jess Franco following his good showing for Fritz Lang in _Tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse, Die (1960)_ [The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse]. With his piercing gaze and gravely-voiced he entered into an enduring alliance with Franco, albeit in dreadful schlock. It began promisingly enough with the horror classic The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962) [The Awful Dr. Orloff] in which he portrayed the creepy title role with a slightly sympathetic countenance, but his appearances quickly degenerated into cheap exploitation, void of deserving artistic merit. He died in Paris shortly after his 82nd birthday.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Hywel Bennett was born on 8 April 1944 in Garnant, Carmarthenshire, Wales, UK. He was an actor, known for Neverwhere (1996), Percy (1971) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979). He was married to Sandra Layne Fulford and Cathy McGowan. He died on 25 July 2017 in Deal, Kent, England, UK.- Additional Crew
James Nederlander Sr. was born on 31 March 1922 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is known for The Will Rogers Follies (1991), The Children's Royal Variety Performance (1993) and Spotlight on Broadway (2013). He was married to Charlene Saunders and Barbara Smith. He died on 25 July 2016 in Southampton, New York, USA.- Jesper Juul was born on 18 April 1948 in Vordingborg, Sjælland, Denmark.
- Producer
- Actor
- Manager
John Ferriter was born on 15 April 1960 in California, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for Flytrap (2015), It Gets Better (2012) and For Peete's Sake (2016). He died on 25 July 2019.- Actor
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger, who was born in London, on February 16, 1926, was the eldest child in a solidly middle-class Jewish family. Berbard Schlesinger, his father, was a pediatrician, and his mother, Winifred, was a musician. He served in the Army in the Far East during World War II. While attending Balliol College at Oxford, Schlesinger was involved with the Undergraduate Dramatic Society and developed an interest in photography. While at Oxford, he made his first short film, "Black Legend," in 1948. He took his degree in 1950 after reading English literature and then went into television. From 1958 through 1961, he made documentaries for the British Broadcasting Corp.
His 1960 documentary, Terminus (1961), which was sponsored by British-Transport, won him a British Academy Award and the Gold Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He made the transition to feature films in 1962, with the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving (1962), which got him noticed on both sides of the Atlantic. His next film, the Northern comedy Billy Liar (1963), was a success and began his association with actress Julie Christie, who had a memorable turn in the film. Christie won the Best Actress Academy Award and international superstardom and Schlesinger his first Oscar nomination as Best Director with his next film, the watershed Darling (1965), which dissected Swinging London. Subsequently, Schlesinger and Christie collaborated on Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, in 1967. The movie was not a success with critics or at the box office at the time, though its stature has grown over time. His next film, Midnight Cowboy (1969), earned him a place in cinema history, as it was not only a huge box office hit but also widely acclaimed as a contemporary classic. It won the Oscar for Best Picture and garnered Schlesinger an Oscar for Best Director.
Schlesinger earned his third, and last, Oscar nomination for the highly acclaimed Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). He continued to operate at a high state of aesthetic and critical achievement with The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976) and Yanks (1979), but his 1981 comedy, Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), was one of the notable flops of its time, bringing in only $2 million on a $24-million budget when breakeven was calculated as three times negative cost. Although Schlesinger continued to work steadily as a director in movies and TV, he never again tasted the sweet fruits of success that he had for more than a decade, beginning in the mid-'60s.
Schlesinger's artistic fulfillment increasingly came from directing for the stage and, specifically, opera. He directed William Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1964, and after his movie career faded, he directed plays, musicals, and opera productions. After Laurence Olivier was eased out of the National Theatre in 1973, Schlesinger was named an associate director of the NT under Olivier's successor, Sir Peter Hall of the RSC.
Schlesinger suffered a stroke in December 2000. His life partner, Michael Childers, took him off life support, and he died the following day, July 24, 2003, in Palm Springs, Claifornia. He was 77 years old.- Jorma Kinnunen was born on 15 December 1941 in Finland. He died on 25 July 2019 in Äänekoski, Finland.
- The only child of Jozsef Barsi and Maria Benko, Judith Eva Barsi beat 10,000-to-1 odds when she was discovered at a San Fernando Valley skating rink at age 5 1/2 in 1983 and mistaken for a three-year-old. Her first commercial was for Donald Duck Orange Juice and she went on to appear in anywhere between fifty and a hundred commercials, several episodes of various T.V. series, and three major motion pictures. Her mother Maria was the main thrust of her career as a Hollywood starlet, but also took great pains to try to give her a normal, happy childhood; bringing her Hungarian meals like duck for her school lunch. But this happy childhood did not last long. Beginning in 1985, Jozsef would often be home drunk instead of working as a plumber, and he refused to let Maria work. As a result, the family briefly went on welfare until Judith's career took off in 1986 and 1987. By the time she entered fourth grade, she was pulling in an estimated $100,000 a year, which bought her family a nice four-bedroom house on a quiet street in West Hill. As her career soared, her father became an increasingly abusive recluse who constantly threatened to kill his wife and daughter. In stressful moods Judith bit her nails and plucked out her eyebrows and eyelashes and her cats' whiskers. C.P.S. was called in numerous times, but as Maria was reluctant to press charges and many of the reports/accounts were emotional and not physical abuse, the case was not pursued.
On Wednesday, July 27th, Eunice Daly, a next-door neighbor, heard a loud bang next door while watering her plants. The house had been set on fire, and later the Barsis' bodies were discovered shot dead. All of Judith's toys that were not destroyed by the fire were given to the local Goodwill, and her best friend continued to feed her cats for months afterward. - Actor
- Producer
León Ferrari was born on 3 September 1920 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was an actor and producer, known for El artista (2008), La primera fundación de Buenos Aires (1959) and Civilización (2012). He was married to Alicia Barros Castro. He died on 25 July 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Michael Cacoyannis was born on 11 June 1922 in Limassol, Cyprus. He was a director and writer, known for Zorba the Greek (1964), Electra (1962) and Eroika (1960). He died on 25 July 2011 in Athens, Greece.- Mike Shipley was born in Sydney, Australia. He is known for Def Leppard: Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad (1992) and Pensado's Place (2011). He died on 26 July 2013.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born as Eschal Loleet Grey Miller in 1918, Nan Grey was an actress who worked for Universal and other studios in the 1930s. She is probably best remembered for her work in the two Deanna Durbin movies, Three Smart Girls (1936) and Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939). Other than the Durbin vehicles, Grey was relegated to mostly "B" movies. She worked in an early John Wayne movie, The Sea Spoilers (1936), two early Gloria Jean movies, The Under-Pup (1939) and A Little Bit of Heaven (1940), as well as The Invisible Man Returns (1940), with Vincent Price, and The House of the Seven Gables (1940). Grey's last film was in 1941, although she continued to work on the radio soap opera, "Those We Love", until 1945 and in the theatre until 1950.
Grey's first marriage to jockey Jackie Westrope ended in divorce. Upon marrying singer Frankie Laine in 1950 (to whom she remained married for the rest of her life), she retired from acting, except for a guest appearance on the TV Western series, Rawhide (1959), with Laine (who sang the theme song for the series).
During the 1960s, Grey dabbled in inventing, and she developed a cosmetic mirror for nearsighted people. One of her customers was Princess Grace of Monaco (Grace Kelly).
Grey died in 1993, on her 75th birthday.- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
Osvaldo Pugliese was born on 2 December 1905 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina. He was an actor and composer, known for Okja (2017), Tangos, the Exile of Gardel (1985) and The Party (2017). He was married to Lydia Elman. He died on 25 July 1995 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina.- Composer
- Music Department
- Director
Patrick Williams is one of the most versatile composers in the music industry. Having composed well over 150 scores for theatrical features and television films, as well as records and concert works, Williams is a man of diverse talents. He has received twenty-one Emmy nominations, twelve Grammy nominations, been nominated for both the Academy Award and the Pulitzer Prize in music and has received four Emmys, two Grammys, and a CableACE Award. In addition, he is a recipient of the prestigious Richard Kirk Lifetime Achievement Award from B.M.I. Williams is also an accomplished recording artist and arranger with extensive credits. He was chosen by Frank Sinatra to act as Musical Director/Arranger for his final studio recordings, Duets and Duets II. Additionally, he has arranged for Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Gloria Estefan, Billy Joel, Brian Setzer and Barbra Streisand.- Additional Crew
- Writer
Pierre Péan was born on 5 March 1938 in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, France. He was a writer, known for Olympe de nos amours (1989), La résistance (2008) and Jean Moulin (2002). He died on 25 July 2019 in Argenteuil, Val-d'Oise, France.- Robert Andersen was born on 12 June 1913 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for It Could Happen to You (1937), Action in Arabia (1944) and The Adventures of a Rookie (1943). He died on 25 July 1998 in Pacific Palisades, California, USA.
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Scott Rubenstein was born on 28 September 1947 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), Hunter (1984) and MacGyver (1985). He was married to Devorah Cutler-Rubenstein and Devorah Cutler. He died on 25 July 2019 in West Hollywood, California, USA.- Sergio Marchionne was born on 17 June 1952 in Chieti, Abruzzo, Italy. He was married to Orlandina. He died on 25 July 2018 in Zurich, Switzerland.
- Music Department
After joining NBC in the 1950s, Cohen worked on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from Oct. 1, 1962 - when Groucho Marx introduced the new late-night host from Studio 6B at Rockefeller Center in New York - until Carson's final appearance from Burbank Studios on May 22, 1992. When The Tonight Show moved to California in 1972, Cohen came west as well and became choir director of St. Mel's Church in Woodland Hills for 20 years and produced jazz Masses and yearly concerts.
A two-time Grammy nominee, Cohen also appeared as guest conductor with the Los Angeles Pops, the Virginia Pops, the Pasadena Pops and the Brentwood Symphony; founded the 80-voice New Horizon Singers and the Pacific Pops Orchestra; and had his own band, The Swing Tones.- Toni Gerry was born on 24 June 1926 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. She was an actress, known for Lux Video Theatre (1950), Lust for Life (1956) and Hopalong Cassidy (1952). She was married to Harold Stiller and Alex Gerry. She died on 25 July 1991 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Director
- Additional Crew
- Music Department
Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set designer and costumer, adopting a Latinized version of his father's first name when he was hired as an art-director by Radio City Music Hall. The fall of 1935 saw his directorial debut for a Franz Schubert revue, At Home Abroad. The show was the first of three, in the best Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. spirit, before receiving Arthur Freed's offer to work at MGM. This was his second try at Hollywood -- a short unsuccessful contract at Paramount led nowhere. He stayed at MGM for the next 26 years. After working on numerous Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland vehicles, usually directed by Busby Berkeley, Arthur Freed gave him his first directorial assignment on Cabin in the Sky (1943), a risky screen project with an all-black cast. This was followed by the ambitious period piece Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) whose star Judy Garland he married in 1945. Employing first-class MGM technicians, Minnelli went on directing musicals -- The Band Wagon (1953) - as well as melodramas -- Some Came Running (1958) - and urban comedies like Designing Woman (1957), occasionally even working on two films simultaneously. Minnelli is one of the few directors for whom Technicolor seems to have been invented. Many of his films included in every one of his movies features a dream sequence.