'Henry V' Movie Actress Renée Asherson dead at 99: Laurence Olivier leading lady in acclaimed 1944 film (image: Renée Asherson and Laurence Olivier in 'Henry V') Renée Asherson, a British stage actress featured in London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters, but best known internationally as Laurence Olivier's leading lady in the 1944 film version of Henry V, died on October 30, 2014. Asherson was 99 years old. The exact cause of death hasn't been specified. She was born Dorothy Renée Ascherson (she would drop the "c" some time after becoming an actress) on May 19, 1915, in Kensington, London, to Jewish parents: businessman Charles Ascherson and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman -- both of whom narrowly escaped spending their honeymoon aboard the Titanic. (Ascherson cancelled the voyage after suffering an attack of appendicitis.) According to Michael Coveney's The Guardian obit for the actress, Renée Asherson was "scantly...
- 11/5/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Miscasting in films has always been a problem. A producer hires an actor thinking that he or she is perfect for a movie role only to find the opposite is true. Other times a star is hired for his box office draw but ruins an otherwise good movie because he looks completely out of place.
There have been many humdinger miscastings. You only have to laugh at John Wayne’s Genghis Khan (with Mongol moustache and gun-belt) in The Conqueror (1956), giggle at Marlon Brando’s woeful upper class twang as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and cringe at Dick Van Dyke’s misbegotten cockney accent in Mary Poppins (1964). But as hilarious as these miscastings are, producers at the time didn’t think the same way, until after the event. At least they add a bit of camp value to a mediocre or downright awful movie.
In rare cases,...
There have been many humdinger miscastings. You only have to laugh at John Wayne’s Genghis Khan (with Mongol moustache and gun-belt) in The Conqueror (1956), giggle at Marlon Brando’s woeful upper class twang as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and cringe at Dick Van Dyke’s misbegotten cockney accent in Mary Poppins (1964). But as hilarious as these miscastings are, producers at the time didn’t think the same way, until after the event. At least they add a bit of camp value to a mediocre or downright awful movie.
In rare cases,...
- 1/24/2014
- Shadowlocked
Twelve years ago, HBO put to screen a miniseries that was one part Television event, one part historical drama, which had the considerable backing of executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and the hype of being something of a spiritual successor to their highly acclaimed war film Saving Private Ryan. Through ten one hour long episodes, essentially using TV as a medium to explore a vast and epic journey through the Second World War that would simply be impossible to map on the big screen, and with Stephen E Ambrose’s critically acclaimed non-fiction book as source material and a huge cast representing a collective of real world heroes, one of the most ambitious storytelling exercises the small screen has ever mounted was brought to life. The result was much fanfare, both critically and among the masses, a recurring trope that continues to this day, and the fledgling start...
- 3/3/2013
- by Scott Patterson
- SoundOnSight
Despite acting rivalries, it's striking how few genuine feuds there have been in the tribe of British actors over the last 100 years
The news that Alec Guinness felt a personal distaste for Laurence Olivier, reported in this morning's papers, didn't exactly come as a bolt from the blue. I recall reading in one theatrical biography that Guinness was deeply offended when, while both men were playing at the Old Vic in 1937, Olivier made caustic enquiries as to what may or may not have happened when Guinness paid a weekend visit to Gielgud's country cottage. The two men, both as actors and as people, were as different as chalk and cheese: Guinness a fastidious miniaturist, Olivier a strange mix of the earthy and the exalted.
Olivier was a king among actors, and, like many Shakespearean monarchs, jealously guarded his throne. That's a polite way of saying that he wasn't always generous to potential rivals.
The news that Alec Guinness felt a personal distaste for Laurence Olivier, reported in this morning's papers, didn't exactly come as a bolt from the blue. I recall reading in one theatrical biography that Guinness was deeply offended when, while both men were playing at the Old Vic in 1937, Olivier made caustic enquiries as to what may or may not have happened when Guinness paid a weekend visit to Gielgud's country cottage. The two men, both as actors and as people, were as different as chalk and cheese: Guinness a fastidious miniaturist, Olivier a strange mix of the earthy and the exalted.
Olivier was a king among actors, and, like many Shakespearean monarchs, jealously guarded his throne. That's a polite way of saying that he wasn't always generous to potential rivals.
- 2/8/2013
- by Michael Billington
- The Guardian - Film News
What with all the television shows, film retrospectives and books, it almost as if Charles Dickens has come back to life
1812 will be much in evidence this year in celebration of Charles Dickens's birth. The BFI is putting on a Dickens-on-screen retrospective. There have been BBC adaptations of Great Expectations and Edwin Drood. And later in the year Claire Tomalin's blockbuster biography, will be out in paperback. In the dreary winter months of an ongoing recession, what better refuge than among Dickens's bone-familiar archetypes.
Everyone has been made to watch David Lean's Great Expectations at least once, but there are lesser known gems in the BFI line-up. The 1922 silent version of Oliver Twist; George Cukor's 1935 David Copperfield, with Wc Fields as Mr Micawber; and Alastair Sim, in what look like the teeth worn by Alec Guinness four years later in The Ladykillers, played Scrooge in 1951. Every...
1812 will be much in evidence this year in celebration of Charles Dickens's birth. The BFI is putting on a Dickens-on-screen retrospective. There have been BBC adaptations of Great Expectations and Edwin Drood. And later in the year Claire Tomalin's blockbuster biography, will be out in paperback. In the dreary winter months of an ongoing recession, what better refuge than among Dickens's bone-familiar archetypes.
Everyone has been made to watch David Lean's Great Expectations at least once, but there are lesser known gems in the BFI line-up. The 1922 silent version of Oliver Twist; George Cukor's 1935 David Copperfield, with Wc Fields as Mr Micawber; and Alastair Sim, in what look like the teeth worn by Alec Guinness four years later in The Ladykillers, played Scrooge in 1951. Every...
- 1/21/2012
- by Emma Brockes
- The Guardian - Film News
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