Ground-breaking TV producer Lambert dies at 71 23 November 2007 by Matthew Hemley The Stage Verity Lambert, the BBC's first female TV producer, who worked on the original series of Doctor Who in 1963, has died aged 71. Lambert, who has produced shows including Minder, Rumpole of the Bailey, Jonathan Creek and Love Soup, passed away on November 22, just a few weeks before she was due to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and Television Awards next month. She joined the BBC in 1963 as its youngest producer and as the Corporation's first female in such a role, before going on to oversee the first two series of Doctor Who. Later she moved to Thames Television, where she worked on the shows The Naked Civil Servant and was the chief executive of the company's film subsidiary Euston Films, which produced Minder. In the eighties, she set up her own production company called Cinema Verity, which made the sitcom May to December and the soap Eldorado. The company also made the BBC series The Cazalets, which was co- produced by Joanna Lumley. Speaking to The Stage, Lumley praised Lambert, saying "she was the top of her game all the time". She added: "I loved her dearly." Lambert received an OBE for services to film and television in 2002 and also won Bafta's Alan Clarke Award for outstanding contribution to television in the same year.
Anthologist Peter Haining, born 1940, died from a heart attack on November 19, 2007, at the age of 67. He is best known to 007 fans as the author of "James Bond: A Celebration" - one of the first books focussing on the cinematic series. As well as his 1987 Bond book, he edited numerous fantasy and horror anthologies. He began his career as a reporter in Essex and then moved to London where he worked on a trade magazine before joining the publishing house of New English Library. Peter achieved the position of Editorial Director before becoming a full time writer in the early Seventies. He edited a large number of anthologies, predominantly of horror and fantasy short stories, wrote non-fiction books on a variety of topics from the Channel Tunnel to Sweeney Todd and also used the pen names "Ric Alexander" and "Richard Peyton" on a number of crime story anthologies. In the Seventies he wrote three novels, including The Hero (1973), which was optioned for filming. He wrote several reference books on Doctor Who, including the 21st anniversary special Doctor Who: A Celebration Two Decades Through Time and Space (1983), and also wrote the definitive study of Sherlock Holmes on the screen, The Television Sherlock Holmes (1991) and several other television tie-ins featuring famous literary characters, including Maigret and Poirot. Peter Haining's most recent project was a series of World War Two stories based on extensive research and personal interviews: The Jail That Went To Sea (2003), The Mystery of Rommel's Gold (2004), Where The Eagle Landed (2004), The Chianti Raiders (2005) and The Banzai Hunters (2007). He won the British Fantasy Awards Karl Edward Wagner Award in 2001.
Actor and stuntman Roy Jenson (originally from Canada) died May 12th 2007. He was 80. He played many un-credited roles in films (including a “ghost” in William Castle’s 13th GHOSTS). Some of his non-stunt movie roles include CHINATOWN HARPER ANY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE and THE GETAWAY. He also appeared on several TV show.
Emmy Award winning Actor Roscoe Lee Browne died April 11th 2007. He was 81. Browne smooth recognizable voice was nearly as familiar as his face. Films include BLACK LIKE ME THE COMEDIANS Hitchcock’s TOPAZ THE COWBOYS CISCO PIKE SUPER FLY TNT UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT LOGAN’S RUN TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING JUMPIN’ JACK FLASH and others. He made many TV appearances including a regular role on TV’s “Soap”. He was also a poet. His last film role was the narrator of EPIC MOVIE.
Character actor Paul Reed died April 27th 2007 at the age of 90. Best known to TV fans as Captain Block for two seasons on the police comedy “Car 54, Where Are You?” he also sang and acted on Broadway. Seen on many TV episodes of the ‘60’s, he was in a few movies including RIDE TO HANGMAN’S TREE FITZWILLY and DID YOU HERE THE ONE ABOUT THE TRAVELLING SALESLADY?
Actor Barry Nelson died April 7th 2007. He was 89. In 1954 Nelson became the first actor to portray James Bond in an American TV adaptation of “Casino Royale”. Films include SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN RIO RITA (with Abbott & Costello) THE HUMAN COMEDY A GUY NAMED JOE PETE N TILLIE AIRPORT ISLAND CLAWS and Kubrick’s THE SHINING plus many TV shows.
Dabbs Greer was a familiar character actor from 1949 right into the early part of the 21st Century. His film appearances include: THE BAD & THE BEAUTIFUL HOUSE OF WAX INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS THE VAMPIRE IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE I WANT TO LIVE! EVIL TOWN PACIFIC HEIGHTS HOUSE 4 and LITTLE GIANTS. I won’t even try to list some of his TV credits. Here’s picture of him instead!
He died April 28 at age 90.
Kurt Vonnegutt-1922-2007
ROBERT LAWSON Robert "Bob" Sterling Lawson went home to be with the Lord on May 11, 2007 at the Motion Picture Health and Welfare Home in Woodland Hills, California. He was born to Thomas and Honor Maude Lawson on August 6, 1910 in Jackson, Tennessee. Bob moved to Hollywood in the 1930s to pursue an acting career. He worked in the motion picture industry until his retireme nt. He had a long and successful career in an industry in which he loved; a career which included many parts as an actor and extra until the early 1990s. During the 1930s, in Hollywood, Bob met Helen McRuer who he fell in love with and married. He had three beautiful daughters. He lost Helen shortly after the birth of his third daughter. His fourth daughter followed a few years later. Bob is survived by his four daughters, Donna Lawson Wolfe, Teri Deland, Cheryl O'Dwyer and Darlene Bitminis; nin e grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, one niece; and long time friend and companion, Carmen Dirigo. Bob was preceded in death by his parents, his loving wife Helen, his brother Ralph and his sister Myrtle. Bob lived in the San Fernando Valley for 68 years, which was broken up by five years of living and acting in Las Vegas during the 1990s. A funeral service was held on Monday, May 21, 2007, 2:00 p.m., in the Country House at the Motion Picture Health and Welfare Home in Woodland Hills, Calif ornia. Interment will follow at a later date in Jackson, Tennessee. Published in the Los Angeles Daily News on 5/22/2007.
BRUNO MATTEI has died in Rome, Italy. He was 75.The Italian director passed away earlier this week (begs21May07) after checking into a hospital complaining of a stomach pain. He died after falling into a coma.Mattei specialised in the horror genre and is best known for movies including Night Of The Zombies (1980), Rats: Night Of Terror (1984) and Cruel Jaws (1995).He also filmed several erotic movies, including a number of Emmanuelle films starring Laura Gemser.At the time of his death, Mattei was working on sequel Island Of The Living Dead 2. PR-Inside
Date Posted: May 25, 2007, 01:09:55pm
Telegraph George Sewell, the actor, who died on Sunday aged 82, had one of the best-known faces in Britain, thanks to dozens of appearances on television and in films, notably Get Carter (1971). With his sandblasted features and shifty, haunted looks, Sewell was as at home playing shady villains as he was in police and thriller roles, which dated from the early 1960s, when he appeared in series such as Z-Cars, to the 1990s comedy The Detectives. He was still working until recently, making television appearances in Doctors and The Bill (both 2005) and, last year, in Casualty. An accomplished stage actor, and nicknamed in the business "Chuck", he played principal roles in Oliver, Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be and Oh! What A Lovely War in the 1960s, and more recently in Dial M for Murder (1998) and Who Killed Agatha Christie? (2002). His last stage appearance was touring in Francis Durbridge's drama The Gentle Hook in 2004.
But while the theatre was Sewell's preferred medium, it was his career in film and television, extending over 40 years, that ensured his celebrity. He appeared as Detective Chief Inspector Alan Craven in 25 episodes of Special Branch, a 1970s television drama series made by Euston Films in which he was cast opposite Patrick Mower as Haggerty. At the height of his Special Branch fame, his appearance on This Is Your Life topped the television ratings in December 1973. Twenty years later, Sewell played Supt Frank Cottam, a send-up of the same character, in The Detectives, with Robert Powell and Jasper Carrott. George Sewell was born on August 31 1924 at Hoxton in the East End of London. His father was a printer and his mother came from a family of florists, his grandmother having sold flowers and bird seed on the steps of St Paul's. He left school at 14 and started work as an apprentice printer. At the start of the Second World War he worked repairing bomb damage before joining the RAF in 1943; but the war ended before he had completed his training as a pilot and he was demobbed almost immediately. During the following three years Sewell took a string of jobs, among them street photographer, assistant road manager and drummer in a small rumba band. In 1948 he joined the Merchant Navy and became a steward on cruise ships, circling the world three times. On his return, he used his knowledge of languages to work for several seasons as a motor-coach courier for a travel company before making a late entry into acting in 1959 aged 35. A chance encounter with Dudley Sutton and a group of other actors in a West End pub led to an audition and a job with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop. He made his debut in that company's production of Frank Norman and Lionel Bart's musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be in the West End in 1960. Sewell went on to star in two more Littlewood productions, which later transferred to Paris and Broadway. He continued to make regular appearances on television, among his more notable parts being that of Col Alec Freeman in the science fiction series UFO (1970-73), and as Ratcliffe in Doctor Who (1988). On the cinema screen, Sewell appeared in several successful and important films, including Sparrows Can't Sing (1962), shot on location in Stepney, and Lindsay Anderson's bleak This Sporting Life (1963) as well as Get Carter, the gritty gangster classic set in Newcastle and in which he was cast with Michael Caine. In 2002, touring in Who Killed Agatha Christie? with the dancer Lionel Blair, Sewell reflected on a career in which he never quite achieved first-rank stardom. "I don't have enough energy to feel resentment," he said. "You couldn't keep on acting if you felt like that. I've been lucky to work so much. "We all know great actors who have struggled, so I feel lucky I've made a good living." Latterly Sewell divided his time between London and a holiday home at Cannes in the south of France.
Date Posted: April 08, 2007, 09:23:07am
No comments:
Post a Comment