Officials at a state-run hospital said Cacoyannis died early Monday of complications from a heart attack.
Cacoyannis won multiple awards and worked with such well-known actors as Melina Mercouri, Irene Papas, Tom Courtenay and Candice Bergen.
But we was best known internationally for the Academy Award-winning “Zorba the Greek.”
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/zorba-the-greek-director-michael-cacoyannis-dies-at-89/2011/07/25/gIQA78T7XI_story.html
G.D. Spradlin, veteran character actor, dies at 90
G.D. Spradlin, a former Oklahoma oilman who didn't begin acting until he was in his 40s, was known for playing authority figures, including roles in 'The Godfather: Part II' and 'Apocalypse Now.'
By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times
1:43 PM PDT, July 25, 2011
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Gervase Duan "G.D." Spradlin, a character actor best known for playing authority figures in television and films, including "The Godfather: Part II" and "Apocalypse Now," has died. He was 90.
Spradlin died of natural causes at his cattle ranch in San Luis Obispo on Sunday, said his grandson, Justin Demko.
A former oil company lawyer and millionaire independent oil producer who didn't begin acting until he was in his 40s, the tall and lean Oklahoma native played his share of doctors, ministers, judges, military officers and historical figures during his more than 30-year acting career.
He portrayed President Lyndon Johnson in the 1985 TV mini-series "Robert Kennedy & His Times" and President Andrew Jackson in the 1986 TV movie "Houston: The Legend of Texas."
He also played an admiral in the 1988 TV mini-series "War and Remembrance" and was a pro football coach in the 1979 film "North Dallas Forty" and a college basketball coach in the 1977 film "One on One."
His breakthrough movie role as a character actor was as corrupt Nevada Sen. Pat Geary in director Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather: Part II" in 1974.
Five years later, Spradlin was the Army general who sent Martin Sheen's Capt. Willard up river to find and kill Marlon Brando's Col. Kurtz in Coppola's Vietnam war movie "Apocalypse Now."
Spradlin, whose other film credits include "The War of the Roses" and "Ed Wood," retired from acting after playing Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in the 1999 comedy "Dick."
"He brought a lot of what he had done in his life to what he did on the screen" said Demko, adding that his grandfather had a lifelong love of language and could recite passages from Shakespeare and poetry from memory until the end.
The son of two school teachers, Spradlin was born Aug. 31, 1920, in Pauls Valley, Okla. He received a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Oklahoma before serving in the Army Air Forces in China during World War II.
After earning a law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1948, he became an attorney for Phillips Petroleum Co. and then became head of Phillips' legal department in Caracas, Venezuela.
After returning to Oklahoma in 1951, Spradlin became an independent oil producer. He was so successful that he retired in 1960 and spent time cruising the Bahamas with his family on a yacht.
"Being rich changes surprisingly little," Spradlin told The Times in 1967. "You'll still have to have an absorbing interest in life, something to do to make you feel alive."
For Spradlin, that was acting.
In late 1963 his daughter Wendy, a member of the children's classes at the Mummers Theater in Oklahoma City, wanted to audition for a role in a production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
To give her moral support, Spradlin accompanied her to the theater and wound up auditioning for — and landing — a role in the play, the first of three local productions he appeared in.
Spradlin, who earned a master's degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Miami in 1965 and was a doctoral candidate in the same field, had directed John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign in Oklahoma and had an unsuccessful run for mayor of Oklahoma City in 1965.
A year later, he moved his family to Los Angeles.
He was so new to show business, he told The Times in 1980, that when a secretary at the William Morris Agency asked him if he had any film, "I told her no, but that there was a drugstore around the corner and I could run over and buy some. I thought you must have to bring your own film to have a screen test."
Spradlin's first wife Nell, with whom he had two daughters, Tamara Kelly and Wendy Spradlin, died in 2000.
In 2002, he married Frances Hendrickson, who survives him, as do his two daughters and five grandchildren.
Silvio Narizzano obituary
Director best known for Georgy Girl, a romantic comedy set in 60s London
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 July 2011 17.46 BST
Article history
Georgy Girl, with Lynn Redgrave as Georgina and James Mason as her admirer, directed by Silvio Narizzano. Photograph: Allstar/Columbia
The film and TV director Silvio Narizzano, who has died aged 84, handled several genres throughout his career, including black comedies, period pieces, social dramas, action thrillers and horror movies. But one picture, his swinging London romantic comedy Georgy Girl (1966), stands out from the rest of his eclectic filmography.
Georgy Girl was part of the trend in which British cinema shifted the focus from provincial life and back to the metropolis, celebrating new freedoms and social possibilities. Narizzano, influenced by the French New Wave and his chic contemporaries Richard Lester, John Schlesinger and Tony Richardson, explored such "shocking" subjects as abortion, illegitimacy, adultery and sexual promiscuity with a light touch. The film, which took its cue from the jaunty title song by the Seekers, had superb performances from Lynn Redgrave as the virginal and plain Georgina; Charlotte Rampling as her sexy and amoral flatmate, made pregnant by her charming, laidback boyfriend (Alan Bates); and James Mason as a wealthy businessman who takes more than a fatherly interest in Georgy. The film was nominated for four Oscars, for best actress (Redgrave), supporting actor (Mason), cinematography (Kenneth Higgins) and original song. Narizzano was nominated for a Bafta for best British film and a Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival.
The son of an Italian-American family, Narizzano was born in Montreal and educated at Bishop's University in Quebec. After graduation, he joined the Mountain Playhouse in Montreal. The theatre was run by Joy Thompson, a leading figure in English-language theatre in Quebec and a great influence on Narizzano. He then joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, working as an assistant to Norman Jewison, Arthur Hiller and Ted Kotcheff. Soon after co-directing a documentary about Tyrone Guthrie, the artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Narizzano came to Britain to work in television.
Narizzano's first feature was the Hammer horror film Fanatic. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
He rapidly reached the top as a director, gaining plaudits for his work on ITV Television Playhouse (1956-60), a series of Saki tales (1962) and ITV Play of the Week (1956-63), all with superb casts and writers. He directed JB Priestley's anti-nuclear play Doomsday for Dyson (1958); an episode of the BBC series On Trial, starring Micheál MacLiammóir as Oscar Wilde (1960); and 24 Hours in a Woman's Life (1961), starring Ingrid Bergman and adapted by John Mortimer from Stefan Zweig's novel.
Narizzano's feature debut was Fanatic (1965), a Hammer horror film notable for being Tallulah Bankhead's last movie (and her first in 20 years). She plays a crazed religious fanatic who keeps her dead son's fiancee (Stefanie Powers) prisoner, hoping to "cleanse" and then kill her so that she can marry the dead son in heaven. Narizzano managed to coax a venomous performance out of Bankhead, who was intoxicated throughout the shoot. After being shown the film with a small audience of her friends, Bankhead, who is seen in many harsh, unflattering close-ups, announced: "Darlings, I must apologise for looking older than God's wet nurse."
The triumph of Georgy Girl was followed by Blue (1968), a plodding western starring Terence Stamp, which opened to withering reviews but, surprisingly, remained Narizzano's favourite film. Loot (1970), a pointless reworking of Joe Orton's mordant play by the comedy TV writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and directed at a rapid pace, was only marginally better received.
Narizzano was more at ease with Why Shoot the Teacher? (1977), a feelgood adaptation of a novel set in Saskatchewan in the mid-1930s. Then it was back to British television with William Inge's Come Back, Little Sheba (1977), fluidly directed on an elaborate studio set, starring Laurence Olivier and Joanne Woodward. In contrast, Staying On (1980), Julian Mitchell's adaptation of Paul Scott's novel, was shot for Granada Television in Simla, India, with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.
From the mid-60s, Narizzano lived with his longtime companion, the writer Win Wells, in Mojácar in Andalusia, Spain, as well as keeping a house in London. Wells co-wrote the screenplay of Narizzano's Bloodbath (1979), a weird straight-to-video horror movie, shot in Mojácar, starring Dennis Hopper as the leader of a group of degenerate Americans terrorised by locals for their indulgence in drugs and sex.
After directing a Miss Marple mystery, The Body in the Library (1984), for the BBC, Narizzano's work began to tail off. Since his 30s, he had suffered from bouts of depression which became more serious and prolonged after the death of Wells in 1983. He found some comfort at a Buddhist retreat in Chislehurst, south-east London, and later through a Bible study group in Greenwich, where he lived a semi-reclusive life. He is survived by two sisters and a brother.
• Silvio Narizzano, film and television director, born 8 February 1927; died 26 July 2011
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) - Frank Foster, a jazz saxophonist who played
with the Count Basie Orchestra and composed the band's hit, "Shiny
Stockings," died Tuesday. He was 82.
Foster died Tuesday morning at his home in Chesapeake, Virginia, of
complications from kidney failure, according to Cecilia Foster, his
wife of 45 years.
Foster was recognized in 2002 by the National Endowment for the Arts
as a Jazz Master, the nation's highest jazz honor . In a statement
expressing sadness at Foster's death, NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman
called him "an extraordinary saxophonist, composer, arranger,
bandleader, and educator."
Landesman added, "We join many others in the jazz community and beyond
in mourning his death while celebrating his life."
According to the NEA, Foster's many compositions included material for
singers Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra, and a commissioned piece
written for jazz orchestra for the 1980 Winter Olympics: "Lake Placid
Sui te."
Foster was a native of Cincinnati. He told NEA interviewer Don Ball in
2008 that he "had an ear for music" from an early age. He said his
mother took him to hear opera when he was just 6.
Jazz big bands caught his attention when he was 12. Foster's first
instrument was clarinet, but at age 13 he took up the sax. Foster told
the interviewer he played in a dance band at Wilberforce University
and went on to join Basie's band in 1953.
During his 11-year tenure with Basie, Foster not only played tenor
saxophone and other woodwinds but also contributed numerous
arrangements and compositions for the band, including the jazz
standard "Shiny Stockings," Down for the Count," and "Back to the
Apple."
After Basie's death, he returned to assume leadership of the Count
Basie Orchestra from Thad Jones in 1986. He won two Grammy Awards
while leading the band until 1995.
However, Cecelia Foster said he was proudest of his own big band:
Frank Foster's Loud M inority. He also played as a sideman in drummer
Elvin Jones' combo and co-led a quintet with fellow Basie veteran,
saxophonist-flutist Frank Wess.
Foster also served as a musical consultant in the New York City public
schools and taught at Queens College and the State University of New
York at Buffalo.
Although he was partially paralyzed by a stroke in 2001, Foster's wife
said he continued composing "up until the end."
In the NEA interview, Foster said, "I had always had as much fun
writing as playing ... But when you play something, if you mess up you
can't make it right. But you can write something, and if it's not
right you can change it. And I always had as much pleasure writing as
playing because the thrill of hearing your music played back to you is
almost indescribable."
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