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Olivia Hussey, who dazzled moviegoers as the female lead in Franco Zeffirelli‘s noteworthy 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, died Friday at her Los Angeles home of breast cancer. She was 73.

The Argentina-born actress died “surrounded by her loved ones,” according to an announcement on her official Instagram account. “Olivia was a remarkable person whose warmth, wisdom, and pure kindness touched the lives of all who knew her,” the post reads.

She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008.

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Hussey was just 15 when she starred opposite British actor Leonard Whiting, 16, as Romeo in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Both were unknowns. The Paramount-distributed film, co-written by Zeffirelli, was nominated for the best picture Oscar and three other Academy Awards, and she received a David di Donatello prize and a Golden Globe for her efforts.

Hussey also...

Veteran TV actor Robert Conrad has died, at age 84.

“He lived a wonderfully long life and while the family is saddened by his passing, he will live forever in their hearts,” family spokesman Jeff Ballard said in a statement to People.com. No other details were immediately available.

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Conrad’s long TV career began with one-shots on series such as Bat Masterson,...

Actor Robert Conrad, the star of television series including “Hawaiian Eye,” “The Wild Wild West” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” during an almost five-decade career that also included the occasional feature film, has died in Malibu, Calif. He was 84.

Conrad toplined at least one series in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, a rare feat of longevity for a TV star.

He made his debut playing a pilot in the 1958 film “Thundering Jets” and would go on to make credited appearances in some 15 features, making the biggest impression in 1975 heist pic “Murph the Surf” and playing John Dillinger in 1979’s “The Lady in Red.” But Conrad was a far bigger presence in television.

In 1959 Conrad signed a contract with Warner Bros., and the studio cast the young actor, with Anthony Eisley, in the Honolulu-set detective show “Hawaiian Eye,” which ran from 1959-63. Conrad played the half-Hawaiian P.I. Tom...

Roger and Gene Corman’s first ‘The Filmgroup’ production is a slick little programmer that belies its drive-in monster movie heritage: the trim tale is no minimalist effort, but a well-developed drama sourced in the twin drives to succeed and stay young. This deluxe edition contains both the Theatrical and TV versions, plus a Tom Weaver commentary that tells the incredible true-crime tale of Corman’s impressive leading lady Susan Cabot.

The Wasp Woman

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1959 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 63 min. / Street Date October 30, 2019 / 27.99

Starring: Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Barboura Morris, William Roerick, Michael Mark, Lynn Cartwright, Frank Gerstle, Bruno VeSota, Roy Gordon, Carolyn Hughes, Frank Wolff, Philip Barry, Gene Corman, Roger Corman, Lani Mars (Kinta Zertuche).

Cinematography: Harry Neumann

Film Editor: Carlo Lodato

Art Direction: Daniel Haller

Original Music: Fred Katz

Written by Leo Gordon, Kinta Zertuche

Produced and Directed by Roger Corman

Roger Corman is much more than an exploitation specialist.

Featuring a cinematic showdown between two of the horror genre's most iconic characters, Dracula vs. Frankenstein is coming to Blu-ray this holiday season from Shriek Show.

Directed by Al Adamson, Dracula vs. Frankenstein stars Lon Chaney Jr., J. Carrol Naish, Anthony Eisley, Regina Carrol, Russ Tamblyn, and Angelo Rossito. Shriek Show will release the film on Blu-ray beginning December 13th, and we have official details and a look at the cover art below.

Synopsis and Special Features (via Blu-ray.com): "With a sudden slash of an axe, a woman named Joan is decapitated on a desolate beach at midnight. In a hellish laboratory hidden below the boardwalk Freak Emporium, Dr. Durea (a.k.a. Dr. Frankenstein!) drains the blood of corpses to distill an all-powerful serum. Count Dracula craves the new serum and offers the doctor the hulking body of the original Frankenstein monster in exchange. With a blast...

'Broadcast News' with Albert Brooks and Holly Hunter: Glib TV news watch. '31 Days of Oscar': 'Broadcast News' slick but superficial critics pleaser (See previous post: “Phony 'A Beautiful Mind,' Unfairly Neglected 'Swing Shift': '31 Days of Oscar'.”) Heralded for its wit and incisiveness, James L. Brooks' multiple Oscar-nominated Broadcast News is everything the largely forgotten Swing Shift isn't: belabored, artificial, superficial. That's very disappointing considering Brooks' highly addictive Mary Tyler Moore television series (and its enjoyable spin-offs, Phyllis and Rhoda), but totally expected considering that three of screenwriter-director Brooks' five other feature films were Terms of Endearment, As Good as It Gets, and Spanglish. (I've yet to check out I'll Do Anything and the box office cataclysm How Do You Know starring Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, and Jack Nicholson.) Having said that, Albert Brooks (no relation to James L.; or to Mel Brooks...

Stars: Francine York, Sherri Vernon, Tura Satana, Leigh Christian, Michael Ansara, Anthony Eisley, John Carter | Written by Ted V. Mikels, Jack Richesin, Pam Eddy | Directed by Ted V. Mikels

A rousing cocktail of bombs and bikinis, topped with a slick 70s score, The Doll Squad (ask Seduce and Destroy) was produced, directed, written and edited by low-budget exploitation mogul Ted V. Mikels, the man responsible for The Corpse Grinders (1971) and Blood Orgy of the She-Devils (1974).

Pre-dating the likes of Charlies Angels (which was clearly influenced by Mikels’ feature), the film sees a group of female special agents brought together by the CIA for a special mission after a space shuttle launch is sabotaged by the megalomaniacal Eamon O’Reilly. The titular Doll Squad are tasked with bringing down O’Reilly and his private army which has warned that if its demands are not met it will strike again. Closing in...

By the time Samuel Fuller had made his first film, he'd been a copy boy, fought in the second world war, written a number of pulp novels and screenplays and worked as a crime reporter. His directorial debut, I Shot Jesse James [1] (1949), was already informed by a lifetime's worth of real world experience. His films are personal -- even autobiographical -- and his storytelling is aggressive. His themes are often presented in an austere nature and his imagery can be heavy handed (White Dog [2]), but his earnestness leaves me smiling rather than cringing. It makes sense that Criterion would re-release two Samuel Fuller classics, The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor, on the same day with matching cover artwork (provided by Ghost World author/illustrator Daniel Clowes). The films share a deep rooted pulp narrative that examines two of cinema's most prototypical social outcasts: hookers and schitzos. The Naked Kiss Directed...