Category: people

“In the course of a film career lasting 40 years, he made more than 30 pictures, among which were sharp social comedies such as The System (1963) and The Jokers (1966). But he derived his wealth and lasting reputation from later Hollywood hokum – notably the frenzied and graphically violent Death Wish series.” Late in life, he became a notorious restaurant critic for London’s Sunday Times.

Says the actor, who plays Allen Ginsberg in the new film Kill Your Darlings, “For me, there’s something very strange about that because we see straight sex scenes all the time. We’ve seen gay sex scenes before. I don’t know why a gay sex scene should be any more shocking than a straight sex scene. Or both of them are equally un-shocking.”

“Vanessa-Mae, 34, has been training in Zermatt, Switzerland, for the past three years. She has the aim of competing in at least five internationally recognised events to qualify for the giant slalom and possibly the slalom at the Sochi Winter Olympics in February 2014.”

A new biography claims that Britten and Peter Pears, who was probably the carrier, were never told because of the disease’s stigma.

“Chew, who appeared in Homicide: Life on the Street and The Corner, as well as The Wire, also taught and mentored child and young adult actors at Baltimore’s Arena Players, a troupe he stayed with as his television career blossomed in David Simon’s HBO series.”

The selection committee for the prize cited the actress/playwright/author/educator for creating “what is in some ways a new art form” – documentary theater, with scripts assembled verbatim from interviews – “to address today’s major social issues.”

“According to legend, a young kid named Ned Ludd had smashed up a couple of [knitting machines] some time in the late 18th century. The Luddites of the early 19th century took up Ludd’s name and cause. They began smashing up factories and, occasionally, killing people.”

“[He] became an instantly recognizable supporting player for more than half a century on stage, television and film. With a balding pate and articulate style, he was often cast in well-educated or avuncular roles” – most famously the wealthy white New Yorker who adopts two Harlem kids in the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes.

“I’ve always trusted that what I think is funny they will laugh at, what I think is moving will move them, what feels … interesting, they will find interesting. I don’t find anything interesting about a gun. A gun is there to threaten or kill. … A gun is rarely used in film in a way that feels like … life.”

“He first came to notice in 1948 when he sang in Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Christmas Carols under the composer’s direction” and went on to become one of RVW’s most frequent collaborators.