In Memoriam links of interest

[RayKelly]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The actress who became a leading lady of Hollywood films in the 1950s opposite Glenn Ford, Alan Ladd, Karl Malden and Fernando Lamas has died in Los Angeles. Patricia Medina was 92.

Her friend, Meredith Silverbach, told the Los Angeles Times (lat.ms/K1ouks) that Medina had been in declining health and that she died Saturday at Barlow Respiratory Hospital.

The British-born actress was the widow of actor Joseph Cotten. She arrived in Hollywood after World War II and signed with the MGM studios.

She had lead roles in "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion" in 1950, "Sangaree" with Lamas in 1953, "Plunder of the Sun" with Ford in 1953, "Botany Bay" with Ladd in 1953 and "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" with Malden in 1954.

Medina wrote an autobiography, "Laid Back in Hollywood," in 1998.

[Glenn Anders]

A dazzling beauty, and evidently, a most loyal wife and companion to Joseph Cotten.

[RayKelly]

There is a temptation, I know, to dance on his grave.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/c ... cal-319595

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Charles Higham, the prolific author of best-selling and sometimes controversial biographies of film stars and political figures, died April 21 at his home in Los Angeles of an apparent heart attack. He was 81 and had broken his hip in a fall.

Among Higham’s most notable books were Kate: The Life of Katharine Hepburn, his first best-seller, in 1975, and The Duchess of Windsor (1988). Certainly his most controversial was Errol Flynn: The Untold Story (1980), in which the author offered evidence that the actor had worked as a Nazi spy, stirring up a frenzy of denials and debate that still persists. His Howard Hughes: The Secret Life became the main source for Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator.

Two of Higham’s most enduring works dealt directly with American business and financial complicity with the Third Reich and its sympathizers before, during and after World War II: Trading With the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933-1949, and American Swastika: The Shocking Story of Nazi Collaborators in Our Midst From 1933 to the Present Day.

The son of Sir Charles Frederick Higham, the English advertising tycoon and member of Parliament, young Charles was raised in upper class London until his father died when the boy was 7. With his mother, long since divorced from her husband, Charles lived in much reduced circumstances during World War II and thereafter until, in 1954, he emigrated to Australia.

Working as a journalist and film critic in Sydney, he began profiling Hollywood stars and directors as well as contributing to international film journals. Based on his reputation as a poet, he was invited to be Regents Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1969 and shortly thereafter settled permanently in Los Angeles, where he became a regular Hollywood feature writer for The New York Times and conducted interviews for Time-Life Books’ phonographic history of American films.

He also quickly became notorious in some circles due to his contention, in his generally admiring scholarly book The Films of Orson Welles in 1970, that the celebrated director suffered from a “fear of completion” that helped explain his many unfinished film projects. During the next 35 years, Higham wrote biographies of well over a dozen major show business figures, including Welles, Florenz Ziegfeld, Cecil B. DeMille, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Charles Laughton, Ava Gardner, Marlon Brando, Audrey Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Merle Oberon, Louis B. Mayer and the sisters Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine.

Still, Higham’s personal favorite among his biographies was of an author, The Adventures of Conan Doyle: The Life of the Creator of Sherlock Holmes (1976); his father had served on World War I committees with the famous writer.

Among Higham’s many other books were Hollywood in the Forties and The Celluloid Muse (both with Joel Greenberg); The Art of American Film, 1900-1971; Dark Lady: Winston Churchill’s Mother and Her World; Murder in Hollywood: Solving a Silent Screen Mystery, about the notorious 1922 murder of film director William Desmond Taylor; The Midnight Tree: A Fairy Tale of Terror; and five volumes of verse. His frank autobiography, In and Out of Hollywood: A Biographer’s Memoir, was published in 2009. He also wrote many plays, most notably His Majesty Mr. Kean and Murder by Moonlight, which were staged in Los Angeles and New York. Higham received the French literary prize, Prix des Createurs, in 1978, as well as the Poetry Society of London Prize.

Higham had been married once, in the 1950s. His longtime companion, Richard Palafox, died two years ago. He leaves no survivors.

[Le Chiffre]

I wonder if she ever finally watched MR. ARKADIN before she died. I remember her mentioning in previous interviews that she had never seen the film.

[RayKelly]

A tribute piece on Higham (and Welles) in the LA Observer http://www.laobserved.com/intell/2012/0 ... les_hi.php

I don't think the writer, Joel Bellman, is a bad fellow but he seems to base his opinion on Orson Welles on 2 literary sources: Higham and Barbara Leaming. He found Leaming to be too adoring of Welles, so he sides with Higham and the "fear of completion" nonsense. He ought to read the works of Joseph McBride, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Peter Cowie, James Naremore and a few others.

[Le Chiffre]

I'm reminded of Hearst a bit in that Higham made a career out of sensationalism and character assassination. I wonder if his last word was "Rosebud".

[Le Chiffre]

NYT Obit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/movie ... wanted=all

Tribute from Roger Ebert:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries ... at-83.html

[Le Chiffre]

Tribute from Joseph mcBride, at Dave Kehr's website:

Joseph McBride
June 20, 2012 at 9:01 pm

I think we can all agree that we all owe Andrew Sarris everything.

THE AMERICAN CINEMA was/is the bible I have carried around for decades, underlining titles
of films I have seen and searching out the ones I haven’t seen in all his categories, pro or con (a common
experience for film scholars of my generation and later ones as well). One of the great
virtues of this polemical work is that inspired debate and invited reasoned disagreement. Sarris
is large; he contains multitudes. I agree with Brian Dauth that one of Sarris’s finest attributes was his willingness to evolve
and reexamine his views on directors he once dismissed. That is a rare trait in anyone, especially in a critic. Billy Wilder backhandedly
admitted to me his pleasure that Sarris and others who used to knock him but later came to appreciate him “just don’t feel like kicking an elderly man in the ass anymore.”

Sarris wrote many beautiful sentences (they were not only true
because they were beautiful but also beautiful because they were true,
to paraphrase Godard on Rossellini), but the line of Sarris’s that has always meant the most to me
is from THE AMERICAN CINEMA:

“The last champions of John Ford have now gathered around
7 WOMEN as a beacon of personal cinema.”

I have always found that thrilling and inspirational not only as a guide
to my Ford research but as a general statement of cinephilia and why it matters. When I heard
the sad news of Andrew Sarris’s death, I still had THE AMERICAN CINEMA right
next to my desk. The cover has fallen off because I’ve been using it so long. It still has
the original underlinings.

[Le Chiffre]

The great writer Gore Vidal has died at 86:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/obi ... 56631952/1

He was a frequent lunch partner of Welles, and his wonderful essay, REMEMBERING ORSON WELLES, can be read here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... tion=false

[Glenn Anders]

Happy (posthumous) Birthday to John Huston [1906-1987], Orson Welles friend, student, model, and mentor.

He was "some kind of man" (and artist), too.

Hail and farewell to him and all. [As I'm afraid you'll see.]

Glenn

[RayKelly]

What's better than a lost interview with Gore Vidal?
A banned Vidal interview conducted by none other than Joseph McBride!
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/77/77go ... ariety.php

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks Ray. Good to see the McBride/Vidal piece finally see the light of day. Makes me want to dig out my old VHS copy of BOB ROBERTS. Haven't seen it in awhile.

He's written a feature about Theodora and Justinian for Martin Scorsese at Universal. Sting is interested in a film version of Kalki, Empire is in the works as a TNT miniseries and Vidal continues hoping ABC will activate Burr, which almost came together as a mini with Albert Finney not long ago. [None of these projects has come to fruition — yet.]

I would have loved to have seen any of those. I don't think any of them ever came to fruition, although they are doing a remake of CALIGULA now. Hopefully it's better then the first one, which I didn't care for.

Here's an excerpt from Merv Griffin's 1979 autobiography, MERV:

If someone like Orson Welles is booked we kick around the ideas that might add spice to his appearance. In this situation a few years ago, someone suggested we book Gore Vidal with Orson, because Gore had written a magazine piece critical of Orson.

In the pre-interview both men fired potshots at each other. But what looks good on paper doesn't always play itself out on air. Orson was out first and as usual did an interview rich with interesting opinions. Then came Gore, and I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of a first rate political tussle. Just as I started to introduce Gore, however, Orson stopped me and said, "Before you bring him out, let me just say I'm delighted he's here today. He is one of America's finest writers and truly has a first rate mind. I'm anxious to talk to him."

[RayKelly]

I am confident I am not alone is wondering how close Orson Welles remained with his Mercury colleagues. Close enough to remember them on the holidays at the very least

On eBay, there is a postcard for sale ($975!!!) from Welles to Agnes Moorehead. Here is the description:

Signed from Orson Welles to Actress Agnes Morehead. Vienna, Austria: 1959. The postcard is written, signed and addressed by Orson Welles and reads in full: “All my love darling Aggie, on Christmas and always, Orson.” is addressed to: “Miss Agnes Morehead, 1023 N. Roxbury Dr., Beverly Hills, California, U.S.A.” and is postmarked December 1, 1959.

[RayKelly]

Dann Cahn. who was part of the creative team at Desilu during its glory days and twice worked with Orson Welles, has passed away. See http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=3180

[Wellesnet]

Richard Collins, an uncredited scriptwriter on Orson Welles’ 1943 film “Journey Into Fear” died Feb. 14 at the age of 98. He was married to "Citizen Kane" co-star Dorothy Comingore between 1939 and 1945. Read about his death at http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=5620