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Ambra Danon, the Italian costume designer who worked on the three La Cage aux Folles films, earning an Oscar nomination for the first one, has died. She was 75.

Danon died April 12 in Rome after a long battle with cancer, her niece, Echo Danon, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The original La Cage Aux Folles (1978), based on Jean Poiret’s 1973 play of the same name, was directed by Édouard Molinaro and released by United Artists. The French-language comedy starred Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault as a gay couple operating a drag nightclub in a French resort town and was a huge box office success.

Danon, who shared her Academy Award nom with five-time nominee Piero Tosi, lost out on Oscar night to Albert Wolsky of All That Jazz. She then returned for the La Cage aux Folles sequels released in 1980 and 1985.

The daughter of Marcello Danon, who produced the first two movies in the series,...

Robert L. Lasky, attorney and cofounder of Agency of the Performing Arts whose clients once included Liberace, Johnny Cash and Harry Belafonte, died Sept. 16. He was 91. His death was announced by APA. A cause was not immediately available.

Lasky played an integral role in APA’s 1962 founding in New York, with David Baumgarten, Roger Vorce and Harvey Litwin. The agency subsequently launched offices in Los Angeles, Nashville, Atlanta, Toronto and London, and today is a leading talent agency with a roster of clients including Gary Oldman, Mary J. Blige, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Famke Janssen, among others.

Lasky was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, of Russian and Hungarian descent, to a long line of attorneys. He attended Harvard University, where he was elected Phi Betta Kappa and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1951. He then went on to receive his LL.B. from Yale School of Law in 1955, and...

Stars: Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Serrault, Michel Galabru, Carmen Scarpitta, Remi Laurent | Written by Jean Poiret, Marcello Danon, Francis Veber, Edouard Molinaro | Directed by Edouard Molinaro

Modern audiences may be familiar with The Birdcage, the 1996 Us remake starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. That film’s success should not have been a surprise because two decades earlier Edouard Molinaro made this French-language breakout hit.

The mainstream press ignored it. The gay media saw it as offensive stereotyping. The public loved it. Is La Cage Aux Folles an Lgbtq cinematic landmark or an exercise in camp mockery? Perhaps it’s a bit of both. One moment you’re congratulating the film for its sophisticated and normalising depictions of gay existence, and the next you’re thrown another crass and tasteless bum joke.

The setting is St Tropez, and we open with a cut-price Scorsese tracking shot, taking us into the titular cabaret club.

‘La Cage aux Folles’ film: Edouard Molinaro international box office hit (photo: Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault in ‘La Cage aux Folles’) (See previous post: “‘La Cage aux Folles’ Director Edouard Molinaro Dead at 85.”) But Edouard Molinaro’s best-known effort — comedy or otherwise — remains La Cage aux Folles (approximate translation: "The Cage of the Queens"), which sold 5.4 million tickets when it came out in France in 1978. Perhaps because many saw it as a letdown when compared to Jean Poiret’s immensely popular 1973 play, Molinaro’s movie ended up nominated for a single César Award — for eventual Best Actor winner Michel Serrault. Somewhat surprisingly, in the next couple of years La Cage aux Folles would become a major hit in the United States and other countries. Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the U.S. in 1979, the film grossed $20.42 million at the North American box office — or about $65 million in 2013 dollars, a remarkable sum for a subtitled release.