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In the early '90s, "The Lord of the Rings" was just that weird cartoon from Ralph Bakshi, the most famous Kate was "heroin chic" supermodel Kate Moss, and Kiwi director Peter Jackson was only really on the radar of gorehounds thanks to his splattery, low-budget horror comedies like "Bad Taste" and "Braindead." That all began to change with the arrival of "Heavenly Creatures" in 1994, a fantastical period drama about a sensational but mostly forgotten true-life crime.

Distributed internationally under the Miramax banner (with "In a World" voiceover master Don Lafontaine doing his thing on the trailer), "Heavenly Creatures" was the first Jackson film you might actually take your mum to watch at the cinema. It also introduced the world to two young unknown actresses, Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, playing a pair of schoolgirls whose retreat into an imaginary world leads to obsession, insanity, and murder.

"Heavenly Creatures" was...

Darius Rucker first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish. Since releasing his first country album in 2008, Rucker has earned a whole new legion of fans with four No. 1 albums on the Billboard Country chart, including Platinum-certified “Learn to Live” and “True Believers.” He’s had ten No. 1 singles on country radio.

The family man made a shocking confession about the Nsfw perks of being a famous singer. Keep reading for all the details.

Former Hootie & The Blowfish Frontman Sentenced For Drug Arrest

Darius Rucker was arrested in February 2024 on drug-related charges. The arrest stemmed from a traffic stop that occurred in February 2023, during which Rucker was found in possession of 14 purple pills, a Thc pen, and a small marijuana joint.

Credit: YouTube

He was taken into custody and charged with two counts of simple possession/casual exchange of a controlled...

Dot is taken to a psychiatric hospital by her mother-in-law Lorraine, who is desperate to get rid of her. Lorraine buys a bank with a lowball offer, showing her ruthlessness as a businesswoman. Dot meets FBI agents who have been looking for her, but is caught between them and those searching for her in the hospital.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Fargo season 5 (up to episode 5).

Fargo season 5 delivers its biggest plot developments to date in episode 5, “The Tiger,” thanks to Dot’s bombshell confession to Deputy Olmstead and yet another kidnapping. Following on from last week’s house fire, Dot’s ruthless mother-in-law Lorraine has her committed. From there, it only gets wilder and darker. This episode is one of the most twist-filled and mind-blowing installments in the season so far. From Dot’s struggle to escape from the psychiatric hospital to Gator’s new assignment from his cold-blooded dad,...

You can scarcely surf the great streaming ocean without happening on a serial killer documentary or series, a fact that probably says more about us than the entertainment industry. All options, however, are not created equal. For every few quick-and-dirty procedurals, you’ll find something with real style and personality — something like The Lady of Silence: The Mataviejitas Murders, a zesty doc that walks right up to the edge of dark comedy, peers over the cliff, and takes a cheeky plunge into something weird and wonderful. Director Maria José Cuevas...

Hyderabad, March 13 (Ians) On Oscars’ night, actor Ntr Jr has literally carried his heart on his sleeve.

The ‘Rrr’ star had recently said that he will carry his country India in his heart when he walks the Oscar red carpet.

He not only just did that but also symbolised the love for his country by what he wore on Monday morning at the red carpet of 95th Academy Awards. A black velvet custom-made bandhgala with gold metallic embroidery by Indian fashion designer Gaurav Gupta.

The delicate gold embroidery on the black velvet traditional bandhgala drew parallels to the national animal of India — The Tiger. It also is an ode to the iconic interval scene from ‘Rrr’. A befitting symbolic attire for ‘The Young Tiger’, a moniker popularly used for Ntr Jr.

The outfit was custom made for the Global Icon keeping his sentiments in mind. The bandhgala was paired with...

Rolling Stone‘s interview series King for a Day features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and singers who had the difficult job of fronting major rock bands after the departure of an iconic vocalist. Some of them stayed in their bands for years, while others lasted just a few months. In the end, however, they all found out that replacement singers can themselves be replaced. This edition features former Iron Maiden singer Blaze Bayley.

It would be easy to forgive Blaze Bayley for being at least slightly bitter...

The actor, who has died at the age of 67, was rightly best known for his staggering, swaggering turn in Scorsese’s mob classic – but other roles added further grit, humour and heart

I first noticed Ray Liotta in Something Wild, the 80s “yuppie nightmare” movie with Wall Street wimp Jeff Daniels getting way out of his depth with the seductively impulsive Audrey played by Melanie Griffith. He has a very uneasy moment with her violent-criminal ex-husband, played by Liotta who – without revealing his own history with Audrey — insidiously asks him how she is in bed and boorishly remarks: “She looks like she could fuck you right in half.” That line reveals how close he is to violence. And he did the scary Liotta laugh, eyes crinkling and the jaw opening up about eleven inches like some new breed of raptor.

But it was only four years later that Liotta became...

There’s no mania like Beatlemania, and Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back is both proof of that, and a direct consequence of it. A lot of the reviews said it was an overlong and unnecessary affair. Well, Disney+ let Jackson include swearing in the documentary, so, fuck them. He prefers his own 18-hour cut to this just-under-eight-hour documentary series, and he’s “right and will be proved right,” to paraphrase John Lennon.

Is it an important document? Yes. Does it give Beatlemaniacs everything they want? Of course not, nothing will.

For one thing, he doesn’t give us a full version of Paul McCartney’s “Teddy Boy,” which came close to making the playlist. We also don’t get the satisfaction of hearing entire versions of “The Long and Winding Road,” “Let It Be,” or any of the other final album songs not performed on the roof. We...

Versatile film, avant-garde classical, jazz and pop composer Ennio Morricone died in a Rome hospital after falling and breaking his leg, his lawyer Giorgio Assumma announced, according to Variety. He was 91.

Known as “the Maestro,” Morricone is best known as the composer of the scores and themes of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, and his Academy Award winning soundtrack for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. He also toured frequently, and expanded his sonic visions to reflect contemporary sounds. Besides his collaborations on the spaghetti Western films of Sergio Leone, Morricone composed for Bernardo Bertolucci, Dario Argento, Don Siegel, Brian De Palma, and John Carpenter. He composed for such diverse artists as Andrea Bocelli, Sting, k.d. lang, and Pet Shop Boys. Morricone never became fluent in English. When he won his 2007 honorary Oscar, his speech was translated by Clint Eastwood.

Morricone...

This article marks Part 5 of the Gold Derby series analyzing 84 years of Best Original Song at the Oscars. Join us as we look back at the timeless tunes recognized in this category, the results of each race and the overall rankings of the Academy Awards winners.

The 1950 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:

“Mona Lisa” from “Captain Carey, U.S.A.”

“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” from “Cinderella”

“Mule Train” from “Singing Guns”

“Be My Love” from “The Toast of New Orleans”

“Wilhelmina” from “Wabash Avenue”

Won and should’ve won: “Mona Lisa” from “Captain Carey, U.S.A. ”

Best Original Song in 1950 underwhelms a bit, with really only two particularly memorable nominees – one, the winning “Mona Lisa,” and second, the catchy-as-can-be “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.”

“Mona Lisa,” featured in the forgettable Alan Ladd war picture “Captain Carey, U.S.A.,” is performed sumptuously here by the always-marvelous Nat King Cole. His performance, coupled with the rich orchestrations,...

Updated: Following a couple of Julie London Westerns*, Turner Classic Movies will return to its July 2017 Star of the Month presentations. On July 27, Ronald Colman can be seen in five films from his later years: A Double Life, Random Harvest (1942), The Talk of the Town (1942), The Late George Apley (1947), and The Story of Mankind (1957). The first three titles are among the most important in Colman's long film career. George Cukor's A Double Life earned him his one and only Best Actor Oscar; Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest earned him his second Best Actor Oscar nomination; George Stevens' The Talk of the Town was shortlisted for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. All three feature Ronald Colman at his very best. The early 21st century motto of international trendsetters, from Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and Turkey's Recep Erdogan to Russia's Vladimir Putin and the United States' Donald Trump, seems to be, The world is reality TV and reality TV...

Ernst Lubitsch: The movies' lost 'Touch.' Ernst Lubitsch movies on TCM: Classics of a bygone era Ernst Lubitsch and William Cameron Menzies were Turner Classic Movies' “stars” on Jan. 28, '16. (This is a fully revised and expanded version of a post published on that day.) Lubitsch had the morning/afternoon, with seven films; Menzies had the evening/night, also with seven features. (TCM's Ernst Lubitsch schedule can be found further below.) The forgotten 'Touch' As a sign of the times, Ernst Lubitsch is hardly ever mentioned whenever “connoisseurs” (between quotes) discuss Hollywood movies of the studio era. But why? Well, probably because The Lubitsch Touch is considered passé at a time when the sledgehammer approach to filmmaking is deemed “fresh,” “innovative,” “cool,” and “daring” – as if a crass lack of subtlety in storytelling were anything new. Minus the multimillion-dollar budgets, the explicit violence and gore, and the overbearing smugness passing for hipness,...

Hal Roach looks on as technicians install Vitaphone equipment in his studio screening room, ca. 1928. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) 'A Century of Sound': Q&A with former UCLA Preservation Officer Robert Gitt about the evolution of film sound technology Long before multi-track Dolby stereo and digital sound technology, there were the Kinetophone and the Vitaphone systems – not to mention organ and piano players at movie houses. Much of that is discussed in A Century of Sound, which chronicles the evolution of film sound from the late 19th century to the mid-1970s. A Century of Sound has been split into two parts, with a third installment currently in the planning stages. They are: Vol. 1, “The Beginning, 1876-1932,” which came out on DVD in 2007. Vol. 2, “The Sound of Movies: 1933-1975,” which came out on Blu-ray in 2015. The third installment will bring the presentation into the 21st century.

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You sign up for a movie. You drop out. Then the lawsuit follows...

It happens all the time. The casting of movies is such a perilous art, that actors and actresses sign up for roles, and then they're chopped and changed. Rarely does it end up anywhere near a courtroom.

Yet sometimes it does. Here are nine varied instances where someone leaving a project led to legalities ensuing...

1. Kim Basinger - Boxing Helena

I may as well start with one of the most infamous cases of an actress dropping out of a film to which they'd apparently agreed.

Director Jennifer Lynch originally had Madonna pegged to take the lead in her debut feature, Boxing Helena. The story of a woman who has her limbs removed and is kept in a box (it's as charming as it sounds), the role was then offered to Kim Basinger when Madonna passed.

Last King of Scotland director Kevin MacDonald is set to direct an Elvis Presley biopic for Fox 2000 called Last Train to Memphis, which is being produced by Mick Jagger. 

The movie will be based on the 1995 Peter Guralnick biography, and the film "focuses on the years between Elvis's first, earth-shattering recordings and his meteoric rise to national prominence in 1956. These were years of revolutionary cultural turmoil, largely precipitated by Elvis's music. The screenplay recounts the story of his against-all-odds success due to his uncanny gift for self-invention, his unstoppable drive, and the new sound he created that changed the music world forever."

Jagger is also attached to produce the James Brown biopic that was recently announced, and Fox 2000 is the same production company that brought us the Johnny Cash film, Walk the Line. So this Elvis Presley movie is going to be the real deal, and they got a solidly...

Ann Blyth movies: TCM schedule on August 16, 2013 (photo: ‘Our Very Own’ stars Ann Blyth and Farley Granger) See previous post: "Ann Blyth Today: Light Singing and Heavy Drama on TCM." 3:00 Am One Minute To Zero (1952). Director: Tay Garnett. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ann Blyth, William Talman. Bw-106 mins. 5:00 Am All The Brothers Were Valiant (1953). Director: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth. C-95 mins. 6:45 Am The King’S Thief (1955). Director: Robert Z. Leonard. Cast: Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven. C-79 mins. Letterbox Format. 8:15 Am Rose Marie (1954). Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas. C-104 mins. Letterbox Format. 10:00 Am The Great Caruso (1951). Director: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Mario Lanza, Ann Blyth, Dorothy Kirsten, Jarmila Novotna, Richard Hageman, Carl Benton Reid, Eduard Franz, Ludwig Donath, Alan Napier, Pál Jávor, Carl Milletaire, Shepard Menken, Vincent Renno, Nestor Paiva, Peter Price, Mario Siletti, Angela Clarke,...

Ann Blyth today: Light songs and heavy drama on TCM Ann Blyth, a 1940s Universal leading lady best remembered for her Oscar-nominated performance as Joan Crawford’s cute-but-sociopathic teenage daughter in Warner Bros.’ Mildred Pierce, is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star on Friday, August 16, 2013. Note: Today, Ann Blyth, one of the earliest surviving Oscar nominees in the acting categories, turns 85 years old. (See: “Ann Blyth Movies: TCM Schedule.”) (Photo: Ann Blyth ca. 1955.) First, the good news: Ann Blyth is a likable, talented actress and singer, and it’s great that TCM is dedicating a whole day to her movies. The bad news: As mentioned above, Ann Blyth was mostly (1944-1952) a Universal star; TCM is presenting only one of Blyth’s Universal movies, Brute Force (1947), which has been shown before. In other words, not a chance of finally having the opportunity to catch Ann Blyth in B...

If not for a last minute change, legendary opera star Maria Callas would have been the female lead in The Guns of Navarone.

Opera superstar Maria Callas was set to make her movie debut in Carl Foreman’s iconic war film The Guns Of Navarone, according to a new book, The Making Of The Guns Of Navarone launched this weekend at the Bradford Widescreen Film Festival (April 26-29) by Scottish film historian Brian Hannan.

The singer had scandalised the world by her affair with Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who would later marry Jackie Kennedy, widow of assassinated president John F Kennedy. Callas was first choice for the role of the older female Greek partisan. Producer Carl Foreman promised ‘mucho love scenes’ with star Gregory Peck.

Commented Hannan, ‘At the time, Maria Callas was the most famous woman in the world, a fiery mixture of Princess Diana and Madonna, the...

Legendary Spanish-born international film and music icon has died Sara Montiel, also known as either Sarita Montiel or, at times, Saritisima, was one of the Spanish-speaking world's biggest stars. She died on Monday, April 8, apparently of "natural causes" at her house in Madrid's district of Salamanca. She was 85 years old. Earlier today, a cortege driving through the streets of Madrid was attended (and applauded) by thousands of mourning fans. Montiel was born on March 10, 1928; according to online sources, her birth name was María Antonia Alejandra Vicenta Elpidia Isadora Abad Fernández; her father was a small farmer and her mother was beauty products salesperson. She left behind her poverty-stricken childhood, spending her days in the streets of her small village while dreaming of Spanish film star Imperio Argentina, after moving to Madrid in her mid-teens. Diction and singing lessons followed. Eventually, she started appearing in films, landing two roles in 1944 releases:...

Hammett, Chandler, Cain: the modern mystery thriller starts with them. They are the godfathers of that sensibility that would come to be called noir which would, in time, overflow the printed page and onto the stage, the big screen, and eventually even to television. Identified primarily with mysteries, the concept of flawed human beings ethically tripping and stumbling in a moral No Man’s Land, equidistant between Right and Wrong, Good and Bad would bleed across genre lines. There would be noir Westerns (Blood on the Moon, 1948), noir war movies (Attack!, 1956), noir horror (The Body Snatcher, 1945), even noir melodramas like Cain’s own Mildred Pierce, adapted for the screen in 1945.

But they all started with what Hammett, Chandler, and Cain did on the page, and each provided an evolutionary step which took what had once been usually dismissed as a flyweight genre dedicated to colorful private investigators and clever puzzles,...

Well, the dog days of summer are fast approaching, and what better way to duck out of the heat than by spending a cool day inside, AC-blasting, with your Blu-ray player and an endless supply of chilled adult beverages. June sees the release of an Alfred Hitchcock classic (beautifully restored), a trio of Lina Wertmüller gems, a nearly lost Michael Curtiz effort, a movie about the sex lives of ghosts, and a plane crash survival tale sold on the, er, ample merits of its female lead.

“The 39 Steps” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)

Why You Should Care: Because “The 39 Steps,” a crackling (86 minutes!) spy thriller from Alfred Hitchcock, is one of the most beloved British movies of all time, coming in at fourth place in the British Film Institute’s poll of top British films, and more recently, named the 21st greatest British film of all time by movie magazine Total Film. The film,...

By Slavica Monczka, Courtesy of Seductively French (www.SeductivelyFrench.com)

One look at operatic tenor Mario Frangoulis and it will be made perfectly clear to you why he has been referred to as the Sex and the Symphony of concert halls. However, there is so much more to Frangoulis than what meets the eye. First and foremost is his divine voice that has brought him to international stardom. With all this global fame, Frangoulis has also been a whole-hearted contributor to various charities around the world. Handsome, gifted, and compassionate, Frangoulis shares with me some of his passions and experiences. So if you haven’t fallen in love with him at first site (like myself), learn more from my interview with him.

“I loved to loose myself in neighboring areas, climbing trees and spending a lot of time on the rooftops, where I could ‘see the world’ and sing about it,...

Linda Christian, international actress and Tyrone Power's second wife, died Friday (July 22) in Palm Springs, California. Christian, who was 87, had been suffering from colon cancer. Linda Christian was born Blanca Rosa Henrietta Stella Welter Vorhauer on November 13, 1923, in Tampico, Mexico, to a Dutch oil executive and his German-Mexican wife. As a young girl, she traveled the world with her parents, according to reports eventually becoming fluent in seven languages. Discovered by Errol Flynn while in Acapulco, Christian moved to Los Angeles where she began her film career in bit parts in Hollywood movies of the mid-1940s. Labeled "The Anatomic Bomb" by Life magazine, Christian eventually progressed to supporting roles in a handful of productions, among them Robert Florey's Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948) and Richard Fleischer's The Happy Time (1952). Leading roles, however, eluded her, while a reported seven-year MGM contract led nowhere. Though the first Bond girl...

“We have decided how sad it is for others that they cannot appreciate our genius.” In 1954, a murder is committed by two girls who have formed a deadly friendship. The movie opens with the pair running for help while Pauline’s mother lies on a garden path, her head smashed in. Juliet Hume and Pauline Parker became each other’s entire world almost from the time they met when Juliet moved to Christchurch, New Zealand. The two girls, both outsiders, are obsessed with singer Mario Lanza and attracted to the dangerous Third Man character played by Orson Wells. Hollywood is their Mecca. They retreat into a fantasy called the Fourth World fueled by their stories of the mythical kingdom Borovnia. In Borovnia they are royalty, living with the figures in their imaginations. In the Fourth World their favorite movie actors are worshiped as saints. The relationship intensifies when Juliet is sent to a hospital to recuperate from...

James "Jim" Bacon, the last of the colorful chroniclers of Hollywood’s Golden Era, died today of congestive heart failure in his sleep at his Northridge home. He was 96. In his many decades as a Hollywood journalist, columnist and author, Bacon traveled Vietnam battlefields with Bob Hope, sipped Jack Daniels with Frank Sinatra, hung out with John Wayne, and was a confidant of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, according to his official biography. Bacon was a reporter and Hollywood columnist for the Associated Press for 23 years, and a Hollywood columnist for Hearst’s now defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner for 18 years. He received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 6, 2007. His last Hollywood column appeared on June 6th in Beverly Hills 213 where he had written for 10 years. He was the author of three best-selling books, two chronicling his Hollywood years, Hollywood Is A Four Letter Town (1976), and...

Ann Blyth is pictured in the photo above with Academy director of special projects Randy Haberkamp during a chat following a screening of Michael Curtiz’s film noir classic Mildred Pierce. Starring Blyth, Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Jack Carson, Eve Arden, and Bruce Bennett, Mildred Pierce was shown as the part of the "Oscar Noir" series at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on Monday, June 14, 2010. Blyth starred or was featured in about three dozen movies from 1944 to 1957. She was cast opposite numerous major Hollywood stars, among them Charles Boyer in A Woman’s Vengeance (1947), Burt Lancaster in Brute Force (1947), Fredric March in Another Part of the Forest (1948), William Powell in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948), Claudette Colbert in Thunder on the Hill (1950), Mario Lanza in The Great [...]...

Dancer and actor known for his role in the American TV soap opera All My Children

There are legions of actors who are deeply grateful for the existence of long-running television soap operas. James Mitchell, who has died aged 89, was one of them. He enjoyed playing the wily patriarch Palmer Cortlandt in the popular Us daytime soap All My Children from 1979 to 2008. It came at the right time in his career. At 59, his dancing days were over and his film acting had failed to catch fire.

The majority of loyal fans of All My Children were probably not aware that the debonair, grey-haired Mitchell, still svelte and handsome, had been a leading dancer for many years, particularly associated with the celebrated choreographer Agnes de Mille. According to De Mille, Mitchell had "probably the strongest arms in the business, and the adagio style developed by him and his partners has become...

Singer and Hollywood star best known for her roles in MGM musicals of the 1940s and 50s

When coloratura soprano Kathryn Grayson, who has died aged 88, sang five songs, including an aria from La Traviata, in MGM's all-star patriotic parade, Thousands Cheer (1943), she began her 10-year reign as the prima donna of Hollywood. With her china-doll features, little turned-up nose and patrician manner, Grayson raised the tone of more than a dozen musicals. Although opera managers did not beat a path to her door, her clear, slightly shrill, small voice carried well on film in popular classics and operatic scenes.

Her classical training led her not to the opera house, but to the radio, in particular The Eddie Cantor Show, on which she was discovered by an MGM talent scout at the age of 18 in 1940. In the same year, she married the minor film actor John Shelton.

In her first film,...

Los Angeles - Soprano Kathryn Grayson, 88, who became a star by singing and acting in Hollywood musicals like Showboat and Kiss Me Kate, died at her home in Los Angeles, the Hollywood Reporter said Thursday, citing her personal secretary. A would-be opera singer who found herself in demand for film, Grayson enjoyed the peak of her career in the 1940s and '50s during the golden age of movie musicals, acting opposite such icons as Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Mario Lanza and Howard Keel. Later, she continued performing on the nightclub circuit and acting on television.

Kathryn Grayson, the lilting soprano who starred in the classic MGM musicals "Show Boat," "Kiss Me Kate" and "Anchors Aweigh," died Wednesday at her Los Angeles home. She turned 88 last week.Grayson's longtime companion and secretary, Sally Sherman, said Thursday that the actress died of natural causes.Grayson also was professionally linked with Howard Keel, with whom she co-starred in three movies. With him, Grayson sang and acted as the riverboat belle Magnolia in "Show Boat" (1951); as a Parisian dress shop owner in "Lovely to Look At" (1952) -- in which she sang Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" -- and as a high-strung actress in "Kiss Me Kate" (1953). Later in their careers, Grayson and Keel performed together in nightclubs -- she was a coloratura soprano, he was a baritone -- and toured in summer stock.Born as Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick on Feb. 9, 1922, in Winston-Salem, N.C., she...

Kathryn Grayson, the lilting soprano who starred in the classic MGM musicals "Show Boat," "Kiss Me Kate" and "Anchors Aweigh," died Wednesday at her Los Angeles home. She turned 88 last week.

Grayson's longtime companion and secretary, Sally Sherman, said Thursday that the actress died of natural causes.

Grayson also was professionally linked with Howard Keel, with whom she co-starred in three movies. With him, Grayson sang and acted as the riverboat belle Magnolia in "Show Boat" (1951); as a Parisian dress shop owner in "Lovely to Look At" (1952) -- in which she sang Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" -- and as a high-strung actress in "Kiss Me Kate" (1953).

Later in their careers, Grayson and Keel performed together in nightclubs -- she was a coloratura soprano, he was a baritone -- and toured in summer stock.

Born as Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick on Feb. 9, 1922, in Winston-Salem, N.C., she...

Back in 2002 my good friend Mario Lanza wrote a speculative novel for the web called All-Star Survivor: Hawaii. The thing was massive. When printed out it was longer than almost any Stephen King novel.  But it was just as addictive as the real show because his characters jumped off the page.  Mario went on to write three more, including one exploring of the Second Chance concept fans are still waiting for. ...

I am surely in a friend & food coma while you're reading this. Happily so! This Thanksgiving I'm grateful for all of you. You keep coming back daily to read the latest cinematic musings here at The Film Experience. Obsessing on the movies is really meant to be a team sport so I appreciate the fine company. They don't make movie theaters with one seat in them.

So thank you for being here daily from all over the world -- not just the States -- with an especially amorphous shout out to readers in Canada, the UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Mexico and The Philippines. You've always been supportive. And a big hug to my magical elves contributors who've really helped keep the blog going during a difficult year.

Normal programming resumes tomorrow but I must give thanks to the following sources of cinematic happiness at the moment: ambiguous endings,...

Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" is about one man from many perspectives. As a reporter travels the country in search of the meaning of Charles Foster Kane's last words, he hears stories about the man from wives, co-workers, friends, and guardians, all of whom see Kane's life differently. In the trailer, Welles describes the many dimensions of his character in the narration: "Kane is a hero, and a scoundrel, a no account and a swell guy. A great lover, a great American citizen and a dirty dog."

Certainly, Welles believed that one man could encompass all of these dissimilar traits. And in recent years, enough actors have portrayed enough variations of Welles himself to suggest that the acting/directing wunderkind, like Kane, was just as complex an individual. Some films have portrayed him as a hero, others as a scoundrel. Some, like Richard Linklater's new film "Me and Orson Welles,...

NahNotOutsideMyHouse! Productions Inc. in association with Shortened Attention Span Theater and Producer Al Messina is proud to announce the World Premiere Staged Reading of Charles Messina's new play A Room of My Own at the The Players Theatre Main Stage. A Room of My Own is a comedy set in the late 1970s and revolves around one wacky Italian-American family living in a small tenement apartment in Greenwich Village. Headed by a conniving, thieving matriarch, a gambling addicted patriarch, and an uncle with a secret that everyone knows, The Morelli Clan of Thompson Street is one outrageous bunch. Their struggles with debt, poverty and a Nun who they welcome into their lives is seen through the eyes of little 10 year old Carlo Morelli, a would-be writer, whose vocabulary consist mainly of four letter words. Playwright/Director Messina is best known for his work on the critically acclaimed, off-Broadway hits Mercury,...

British character actor famed for his roles in The Student Prince and The Egyptian

It was the sad fate of the actor Edmund Purdom, who has died aged 84, that the best known of his films, The Student Prince (1954), is remembered more for the star who wasn't in it. After the temperamental tenor Mario Lanza was fired from the film, the non-singing unknown Purdom replaced him. Luckily for MGM, Lanza had recorded the songs for the CinemaScope production before shooting began. Thus his voice is heard bellowing incongruously out of the slender frame of Purdom.

Purdom's reputation as a surrogate is underlined by the fact that he got his first chance of stardom when he replaced Marlon Brando in The Egyptian (1954) after Brando wisely cried off, preferring to play Napoleon in Desirée instead. In addition, Purdom was married to Linda Christian, better known as Tyrone Power's first wife.

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