RAY STRICKLYN WAS NOT A HOUSEHOLD NAME; however, his face was memorable. He and James Dean were friends in New York, often compared to each other, often going on the same auditions. Then Dean went to Hollywood. Two years later, Stricklyn followed. Ray wanted to be not only an excellent actor but also a Hollywood star. That part was not to be.While under contract to 20th Century Fox, Ray made several films. I first saw him in 1959, in a play called Compulsion, at a little theater on Highland Avenue. His performance was so mesmerizing, I went back to see the play two more times.
Nearly 20 years later, Ray’s path again crossed mine. He was then West Coast head of the John Springer Public Relations firm, and I was editor of Drama-Logue. We did interviews with many of Springer’s star clients, and Ray’s friends David Galligan and Kim Garfield wrote for me. And so, a long, rich and rewarding friendship evolved.
Ray was a private person, impenetrable, not one to gossip (though he loved to hear it), a model of gentility whether onstage or escorting Bette Davis to receive her AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1977.
One time Ray told me he wanted to restart his stalled acting career, which happened in a play called Naomi Court at the long-gone Pilot Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard. His friend Mary Jo Catlett directed it. Though Naomi Court was only a moderate success, it gave Ray the confidence to continue his career. Other plays followed, most notably Tennessee Williams’ Vieux Carre, produced by Karen Kondazian, in 1983. Ray played Nightingale, a Williams prototype. It ran eight months at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, owned by acting teacher Milton Katselas.
In 1985, Katselas commissioned a sculptured bust of Williams for the theater’s courtyard and asked Ray to do a 20-minute dedication piece. Ray’s prodigiously researched monologue ran for an hour, and Milton asked him to do a run at the playhouse. Confessions of a Nightingalewas born. Eva Marie Saint and her husband, Jeffrey Hayden, took out a full-page trade ad exalting Ray’s performance. It started an industry rush. Film and television roles were offered, as well as engagements of Nightingaleall over the country, including a New York run and bookings in Europe.
In the late ’90s, Ray was still touring occasionally but, due to his heavy smoking, had developed emphysema. I learned he was writing his biography, working feverishly as if against time. He asked if I would be his editor, and if I would finish it for him should he die before its completion. He lived two and a half years after it went to print, enjoying the book’s excellent reception while enduring the ravages of his disease.
Near the end, he saw few friends, and, in moments, I saw a rage emerge from him that I’d never seen previously. He had realized his dreams. Well, many of them. As the book’s title, Angels & Demons, implies, he must have been carrying both on his shoulders.
Lee Melville is the editor and publisher of L.A. Stage. A memorial service for Ray Stricklyn takes place Monday, June 24, 7:30 p.m., at the Canon Theater, 209 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills.
A chameleonic actor equally at home on stage or in film either as a hero or a villain, Kevin Spacey first gained notice with several strong stage performances both on and off-Broadway. Performing in stage productions of “Ghosts,” “Long Day’s Journey into Night” and “Hurlyburly” helped pave the way for a feature film career atop the A-list, though his real on-camera start came with his deliciously eccentric performance as a heroin-addicted millionaire on the cult television series, “Wiseguy” (CBS, 1987-1990). After making the segue into features, Spacey bounced around in supporting roles until he gained widespread recognition for “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992), in which he managed to keep up with heavyweights Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin and his personal idol, Jack Lemmon. But it was his Academy Award-winning performance as the mysterious Verbal Kint in “The Usual Suspects” (1995) that propelled Spacey into the limelight. He made equally impressionable appearances in “L.A. Confidential” (1997) and “Se7en” (1997), cementing his status as a hypnotic performer willing to challenge himself by playing unique characters. Though he slipped a bit with “Pay It Forward” (2000) and “K-PAX” (2001), Spacey remained a vital force in films like “Superman Returns” (2006), while also assuming the role of artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London in 2003. With award-worthy performances in the made-for-HBO movie “Recount” (2008) and the feature “Casino Jack” (2010), Spacey only enhanced his stature as one of Hollywood’s most diverse and accomplished performers.
Born July 26, 1959 in South Orange, NJ, Spacey was raised from an early age in and around Los Angeles by his father, Thomas, an oft-unemployed technical writer, and his mother, Kathleen, a secretary. Though his parents were strict, Spacey was rebellious; even destructive – he burned down his sister’s tree house in the backyard of his family’s Malibu home and was later expelled from the Northridge Military Academy for hitting a fellow student with a tire. He moved on to Chatsworth High School, where he discovered theater and acted alongside fellow classmate and future actors, Val Kilmer and Mare Winningham. After graduating, he tried his hand at stand-up comedy, even trying out for “The Gong Show” (1975-1980), but failed to make the cut. He then followed Kilmer to the dramatic program at the Julliard School in Manhattan, where he managed to stick around for only two of the required four years. Spacey occasionally landed small roles on small stages, while working as a shoe salesman and a building superintendent to pay the bills. At the beginning Spacey’s career was decidedly hard-fought.
Spacey was doing office work at Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival when the festival director saw him in an off-off-Broadway play and told him he should be acting, not pushing pencils. He soon landed the role of a soldier in the company’s production of “Henry VI, Part I” (1981). Other roles soon followed and Papp one day “fired” the office worker so he would be free to find employment as an actor. It was not long until Spacey made his Broadway debut opposite Liv Ullman in “Ghosts” (1982), effectively launching his stage career. After appearing in regional theater, Spacey auditioned for the national touring company of “The Real Thing,” but director Mike Nichols instead suggested he try for a role in another one of his productions, “Hurlyburly.” After serving as the understudy for the role of Mickey – which was played by Harvey Keitel – Spacey was the standby for two of the other male roles in the same play. Nichols later gave the actor his first onscreen break as a subway rider who mugs Meryl Streep’s Rachel in “Heartburn” (1986), then later cast him as a Wall Street broker in “Working Girl” (1989).
In between his two parts, Spacey earned plaudits – though he was the only cast member passed over for a Tony Award nomination – playing Jamie Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (1986), a part he landed thanks to stealing a cocktail party invitation from an old woman falling asleep next to him at a lecture given by the play’s director, Jonathan Miller. Spacey sauntered into the party, sat next to Miller and described his months of difficulty getting an audition. Two days later, Spacey scored an audition and eventually landed the part. After calling upon his background as a stand-up comic for “Rocket Gibralter” (1988), Spacey was cast as the lecherous, heroin-addicted multi-millionaire villain Mel Profitt in the cult favorite drama, “Wiseguy.” Spacey continued the television trend, appearing in the miniseries “The Murder of Mary Phagan” (NBC, 1988), which he followed with a return to features with the maudlin “Dad” (1988). As the 1990s dawned, he delivered a dazzling starring turn as disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker in “Fall From Grace” (NBC, 1990), then performed admirably as renowned attorney Clarence Darrow in “Darrow” (PBS, 1991). Both roles preceded his Tony-winning featured performance as a gangster wannabe in Neil Simon’s nostalgic play “Lost in Yonkers” (1991), which cemented his status as an exceptional stage performer capable of making the transition to the big screen.
Despite wide exposure from his television and film work, it was his stage performances that helped propel him down a path of critically acclaimed films that eventually vaulted him atop the Hollywood A-list. Al Pacino had been an audience member at “Lost in Yonkers” and came away duly impressed with Spacey’s performance, lobbying for Spacey to be cast to as Mr. Williamson, the put-upon manager of an office full of deadbeat salesmen in David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992). So electric were the scenes between Spacey and the other actors – including Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin and mentor Jack Lemmon – that Spacey felt beaten down from all the yelling and cursing hurled his way. Later that same year, he visited a suburbia riddled with dark secrets for the first time in Alan Pakula’s not entirely successful tale of wife swapping and murder, “Consenting Adults” (1992). Spacey starred in the underrated black comedy “The Ref” (1994) which paired him with the equally formidable Judy Davis as battling spouses whose home is burglarized by a gunman (Denis Leary) who holds them hostage and forces them to reconcile their differences for the sake of his diminishing sanity.
Spacey continued tackling character-centered roles in small films that he helped amplify with his strong, intense performances. In “Swimming With Sharks” (1994) – on which he also served as a co-producer – Spacey let it fly as an abusive Hollywood studio executive who is taken hostage by his lowly assistant (Frank Whaley) after he steals the recent film grad’s script idea. Hitting his stride as a variety of villainous characters, Spacey offered a chilling – and unbilled – turn in David Fincher’s atmospheric “Seven” (1995), playing serial killer John Doe, who commits a series of bizarre and grisly murders based on the seven deadly sins. As the man who delivered Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box to her unsuspecting onscreen husband Brad Pitt, Spacey proved no one could do creepy as well as he could. On an unbelievable roll, he stole the show as the seemingly crippled con man, “Verbal” Kint, in “The Usual Suspects” (1995), one of the most talked about films of the 1990s, thanks to one simple question: Who is Keyser Söze? Despite stellar performances from Chazz Paleminteri, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro and Gabriel Byrne, Spacey was again singled out by most critics for his intricate portrayal of the pathetic Kint, who narrates to a customs agent the story of a heist gone bad without giving away his ulterior motives. Spacey earned several award nominations and for his work as Kint, won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
With his sudden rise to the top of his profession, Spacey began fielding offers for roles in more mainstream Hollywood fare. After playing a researcher at the Center for Disease Control in the unfortunate “Outbreak” (1995), Spacey essayed the role of a smugly crusading prosecutor in “A Time to Kill” (1996). Like many successful performers, Spacey had an itch to direct. So he stepped behind the cameras for “Albino Alligator” (1997), a character-driven thriller about three petty crooks mistaken for big-time bank robbers. While Spacey had much to learn about camera placement and movement, he clearly knew how to deal with actors, eliciting fine work from Gary Sinise, Matt Dillon and Viggo Mortensen. Returning to his stock in trade, Spacey delivered one of his finest screen performances as the smarmy celebrity cop Jack Vincennes in “L.A. Confidential” (1997), Curtis Hanson’s brilliant adaptation of James Ellroy’s serpentine novel about crime and corruption on both sides of the law in 1950s Los Angeles. In fact, critics considered his death scene a marvel for the way he literally did not move a muscle once shot dead, holding the shot for well over 15 seconds, eyes wide open. Similarly his portrayal of Jim Williams, the homosexual Savannah resident accused of murder in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” (1997), allowed the actor to plumb the depths of an upstanding public citizen who succumbs to his darker impulses.
His successful turn as Jim Williams merely fueled speculation about his private life, which peaked with an October 1997Esquire cover story by Tom Junod that intimated that the actor was, in fact, gay. The matter proved a double-edged sword for Spacey. He earned sympathy from those who felt the journalist and the magazine had crossed a line, but scorn from those who felt he should offer comments on his private life, and if indeed gay, “come out” already. Spacey later addressed the concerns in a 1999 Playboy interview, effectively denying the rumors. The profile, however, had zero effect on his career – Spacey took on a rare heroic role to play a cop who excels at excising hostages from their kidnappers in “The Negotiator” (1998). Paired with Samuel L. Jackson – who portrayed a good cop suspected of wrongdoings – Spacey proved a mesmerizing presence and matched Jackson’s intensity. The pair meshed well and elevated a somewhat pedestrian mystery into an enjoyable film. After a turn voicing the evil Hopper in the animated “A Bug’s Life” (1998), Spacey reprised his stage role as the amoral and cynically sarcastic casting agent, Mickey, for the filmed version of “Hurlyburly” (1998).
Unlike many stage-trained actors who achieved Hollywood success, Spacey returned to the theater with a great deal of fanfare. He undertook the difficult role of Theodore “Hickey” Hickman in Eugene O’Neill’s mammoth “The Iceman Cometh,” originally staged at London’s Almeida Theatre in the spring of 1998. By taking on a role that had become associated with Jason Robards, Spacey managed to successfully make it his own, offering a unique perspective on the hardware salesman. Spacey earned himself a Tony Award nomination, but lost to Brian Dennehy, who ironically starred in a Chicago production of “Iceman Cometh.” Spacey returned to the big screen as Lester Burnham in “American Beauty” (1999), a character who ranked among his best and most fully realized screen creations. In delineating the mid-life crisis of a man who moves from a henpecked husband, ignored father and impotent employee to an empowered, take-charge guy, Spacey undertook a risky role that firmly vaulted him from esteemed character actor to full-fledged leading man. Spacey earned critical kudos for “Beauty” across the board – as well as his second Academy Award; this time, for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Returning to his more conventional slickster persona, he joined Danny DeVito to star as a smooth-talking salesman in “The Big Kahuna” (2000) – a dazzling performance in an otherwise little-seen film – before starring in “Ordinary Decent Criminal” (2000), a fictionalized biography of Irish master thief Martin Cahill. Playing juicy roles in small films had no effect on Spacey’s reputation as being one of the premiere actors working in Hollywood, but the actor seemed to have lost some steam when he starred in the mawkish “Pay It Forward” (2000), playing a scarred schoolteacher who opens himself up to love when his young student (Haley Joel Osment) devises a system of paying good deeds forward to three people. Spacey’s affected manner and overdone makeup did little to aid this already over-sentimentalized tale. Spacey received mixed reviews when he teamed with Jeff Bridges in “K-PAX” (2001), playing a man who claims to be an alien from outer space. Later that year, he was cast – and many argued, miscast – as the milquetoast hero of the screen adaptation of the Pulitzer-winning “The Shipping News” (2001), which also suffered from tepid reviews and indifferent audience response. Meanwhile, Spacey made the requisite appearance on “Inside the Actors Studio” (Bravo, 1995- ), where he impressed host James Lipton and the audience with dead-on impressions of Jimmy Stewart, Johnny Carson, Christopher Walken, Marlon Brando and even Katherine Hepburn.
In between projects, Spacey distinguished himself as a champion of his craft, becoming involved with the Screen Actors Guild and launching Triggerstreet.com as a means for aspiring creative people to form an online community. In 2003, he was named artistic director of London’s historic Old Vic Theater, a stage where he appeared in his triumphant production of “The Ice Man Cometh.” Despite being a celebrity – guaranteeing not giving him the anonymity enjoyed past artistic directors – Spacey’s tenure at the Old Vic was a rocky one. He was heavily criticized for not putting on enough classics, though his “Richard II,” in which he starred as the immature and detached king, was critically acclaimed. While the press had a field day lambasting his choices, Spacey cited his success in bringing the theater back into public prominence. Several productions – notably “National Anthems” (2005) and “Philadelphia Story” (2005) – filled seats, but reviews were savage. Then Spacey hit a bona fide disaster with Arthur Miller’s “Resurrection Blues,” which suffered from poor performances and attendance that failed to reach even half-capacity. Spacey remained unapologetic, however, claiming that the press was out to get him because of his celebrity.
The actor was next seen as an academic with strong views on capital punishment who finds himself accused of murder in director Alan Parker’s film “The Life of David Gale” (2003). Again slipping into a now-familiar martyr role, Spacey found his performance praised despite the movie’s many flaws, which included an overwrought and unconvincing story, and an overindulgent anti-death penalty message. Changing gears, Spacey returned beyond the camera to helm – as well as co-write and star in – “Beyond the Sea” (2004), a pet project about the popular 1950s and 1960s singer Bobby Darin, who the actor had idolized and imitated since he was a child. Ironically, the singer had died an early death and by the time Spacey got the project into production, he was nearly too old to play Darin. Fortunately, a clever script device had Darin looking back at his life and plugging his later-years self into his memories, allowing audiences to easily forget Spacey’s age. The actor provided a tour de force performance and provided all of the Darin-like vocals himself. As a director, he excelled at visually interpreting the film’s lavish and energetic musical sequences, though some of the performances were a tough sell. Nonetheless, Spacey delivered an engaging film and one of his finest performances.
Spacey made headlines when he agreed to reunite with Bryan Singer for the first time since “The Usual Suspects,” starring in the director’s controversial revival of the original comic book film franchise, playing the Man of Steel’s brilliant nemesis Lex Luthor in “Superman Returns” (2006). With a shaven head and flashy suits, Spacey exuded a much more subdued evil than did predecessor Gene Hackman’s campy take in the 1978 version. Nonetheless, Luthor’s plot this time around was no less dastardly – he plans to use Superman’s own technology from Krypton to create a new land mass in the Atlantic Ocean so he can destroy the United States, sending Superman (Brandon Routh) on an epic journey through the depths of the ocean and into the reaches of outer space. After playing an efficiency expert hell-bent on ridding the world of Christmas in the terribly unfunny “Fred Claus” (2007), Spacey was an unorthodox math professor and genius statistician who leads a group of likewise brilliant MIT students to Las Vegas to crack the gambling code in “21” (2008), a slick and sexy thriller based on the best seller, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.
Before he was inked to revive Lex Luthor for Bryan Singer’s second go-round with “Superman: Man of Steel” (2011), Spacey generated considerable critical acclaim playing Democratic insider Ron Klain in the made-for-television movie, “Recount” (HBO, 2008), a behind the scenes look at the voting scandal that erupted in Florida in 2000 during the election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. For his work, he was nominated in late 2008 for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television. After voicing the robot Gerty in the acclaimed “Moon” (2009), Spacey co-starred opposite George Clooney in the moderately panned military satire, “The Men Who Stare at Goats” (2009). Returning to the political arena, Spacey was the perfect choice to play Jack Abramoff in the satirical comedy “Casino Jack” (2010), which chronicled the rise and fall of Washington’s most notorious and disgraced lobbyist. Directed by George Hickenlooper, who died just weeks after the release of the film, “Casino Jack” gave Spacey the right platform to once again put his formidable talents on display, resulting in a Golden Globe nod for Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy or Musical.
After playing Jason Bateman’s manipulative boss in the hit R-rated comedy “Horrible Bosses” (2011), Spacey was a Wall Street executive whose decisions during the first days of the 2008 financial crisis are called into question in the indie financial thriller “Margin Call” (2011). Surrounded by a strong cast that included Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto and Simon Baker, Spacey stood out as a man worn down by the machinations of the cutthroat financial world. In 2011, he returned to the stage to star in a production of “Richard III” directed by Sam Mendes, which premiered at the Old Vic, and later commenced on a worldwide tour that ended in early 2012. From there, Spacey took a rare turn into television with “House of Cards” (Netflix, 2013- ), a remake of a British miniseries of the same name that aired on the BBC in 1990. Set in the world of Washington politics, “House of Cards” starred Spacey as Frank Underwood, the Democratic House Majority Whip who hides behind his genial Southern charm while plotting Machiavellian-like vengeance for being passed over as Defense Secretary. Co-starring Robin Wright as his Lady Macbeth, Kate Mara as an ambitious young reporter and Cory Stoll as a drug-addled congressman under Underwood’s thumb, “House of Cards” made waves for being streamed exclusively on Netflix, where all 13 episodes were available for viewing at once. Both the series and Spacey’s performance were widely hailed by critics.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Like his brothers David, Robert and Bruce and half-brother Michael Bowen, Keith Carradine followed in the footsteps of his father, John Carradine, and became an actor in the early 1970s. He enjoyed considerable success in that decade thanks to performances in independent-minded films like “Nashville” (1975), “Welcome to L.A.” (1976) and “Pretty Baby” (1978). Carradine branched into Hollywood features in the 1980s, but found more success on Broadway in the following decade, most notably with his Tony-nominated turn as American humorist Will Rogers in “The Will Rogers Follies” (1991). Carradine later divided his time between features and television, often in Western roles which benefited from his laconic presence, particularly as Wild Bill Hickok on David Milch’s brilliant revisionist series, “Deadwood” (HBO, 2004-07). By the time he played a formidable FBI agent hunting down the titular serial killer in “Dexter” (Showtime, 2006- ), Carradine had proven himself to be a highly-sought and versatile actor comfortable in both leading and supporting roles.
Born on Aug. 8, 1949 in San Mateo, CA, Carradine was raised in a show business home headed by his actor father, John, and his actress mother, Sonia Sorel. Carradine’s father had made a name for himself in Hollywood for his performances in films by John Ford and Cecil B. DeMille, among many others. After Sorel gave birth to his brothers Robert and Christopher, Carradine’s parents split when he was 6; she later married artist Michael Bowen and gave birth to Carradine’s half-brother Michael Bowen Jr. A protracted custody battled followed, but his father eventually claimed custody of his three sons, who joined their half-brothers, David and Bruce, in the sprawling clan. Meanwhile, Carradine began acting in high school and later attended Colorado State University as a theater major. But he found collegiate life stifling and dropped out after three months to pursue acting fulltime. After returning to Los Angeles in 1968, Carradine joined the Broadway production of “Hair” the following year; ironically, it was David who auditioned for the role and brought Carradine along to accompany him on piano. The producers preferred Carradine over David and cast him in the role of “tribal leader” Claude. During his tenure with the show, he and co-star Shelley Plimpton had a daughter, Martha, who later became an acclaimed stage and film actress of her own.
A 1970 stage production of “Tobacco Road” with his father preceded his first onscreen appearance in the downbeat Western “A Gunfight” (1971) with Kirk Douglas and Johnny Cash. Director Robert Altman liked his performance and cast Carradine as a cowpoke in his revisionist Western, “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” (1971), a film that marked the first of several acclaimed collaborations between the actor and director over the next half-decade. He bolstered his resume with several television appearances, including a guest shot on David’s hit series “Kung Fu” (ABC, 1972-75), in which he played the teenage version of Caine in flashbacks. Carradine began delivering impressive dramatic performances in a series of independent features, as well as the occasional Hollywood title. He was best used in mildly sensuous roles, like the Depression Era bank robber who complicates the life of a small town girl (Shelley Duvall) by falling in love with her in Altman’s “Thieves Like Us” (1974), or the folk singer who carries on multiple affairs with fellow musicians in “Nashville.” Carradine’s composition for the film, “I’m Easy,” earned him a 1976 Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Original Composition, and even ushered in a brief spell as a pop star when the song reached #17 on the Billboardcharts.
Carradine’s offbeat romantic qualities were also put to excellent use in “Welcome To L.A.” (1976), an early effort by Robert Altman’s protégé Alan Rudolph, and in Joan Tewkesbury’s “Old Boyfriends” (1979). The terminal point for these types of roles came in Louis Malle’s controversial “Pretty Baby,” which cast him as a dissolute 19th century photographer who falls in love with a 12-year-old New Orleans prostitute (Brooke Shields). Carradine also scored as a French officer entangled in a bitter struggle over respect in Ridley Scott’s “The Duellists” (1976) and Walter Hill’s Western “The Long Riders” (1980), which found him co-starring with brothers David and Robert as notorious outlaws the Younger brothers.
Eventually, Carradine’s involvement in arthouse-minded efforts began to yield fewer positive returns – features like Rudolph’s “Choose Me” (1984) and Andrei Konchalovsky’s “Maria’s Lovers” (1984) received critical praise, but were seen by relatively few moviegoers. Around this time, he began to shift his interests to television, where he found rewarding work in television movies and miniseries like “A Rumor of War” (CBS, 1980), “Chiefs” (CBS, 1983), which earned him an Emmy nomination for playing a Southern serial killer, and “A Winner Never Quits” (1986), in which he played one-armed baseball pitcher Pete Gray. His most widely seen television appearance of the decade, however, was undoubtedly Madonna’s music video for “Material Girl” (1984), which cast him as a Golden Age Hollywood director who is smitten by the singer after seeing her in a production number inspired by “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (1953).
Carradine made a return to Broadway opposite the legendary Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in “Foxfire” (1982), which brought him an Outer Critics Circle Award. He reprised the role in Los Angeles in 1985 while racking up praise for his turns in “Another Part of the Forest” (1983) and “Detective Story” (1984). His greatest stage success, however, came with “The Will Rogers Follies” (1991), which required him to not only sing and dance, but show off some impressive rope tricks and deliver quips on the day’s headlines at each show. For his ingratiating turn as the American humorist, Carradine earned a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award that same year.
Carradine’s film career continued to blaze an independent path during the late 1980s and early 1990s. He remained faithful to director Alan Rudolph, enjoying a richly florid role as a wildly coiffured killer in “Choose Me” (1986), before he tackled playing an American ex-patriate painter in “The Moderns” (1988) and reprising Will Rogers for a cameo in “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle” (1994). Carradine also displayed a talent for art by creating the painting that served as the one-sheet for “The Moderns.” Most of his big-screen efforts, however, were viewed by limited audiences, though not for lack of quality. He was Vanessa Redgrave’s ex-husband in Simon Callow’s fine film version of “The Ballad of the Sad Café” (1991) for producers Merchant Ivory, but few saw managed to see it, as was the case for “CrissCross” (1992) and the dark Southern comedy “Daddy’s Dyin’, Who’s Got the Will?” (1990). Carradine had his biggest hit in theaters during the 1990s with “Andre” (1994), a genial true story about a Maine family who nurses a baby seal back to health and later adopts the animal when it returns to their home after trying to set him free. Carradine also marked the decade by claiming his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1993.
Carradine kept busy throughout the late 1990s and into the new millennium in numerous features and television projects, as well as occasional turns to the stage. Among the better received stage efforts was a fine take on George W. Bush in a 2005 production of David Hare’s “Stuff Happens,” which concerned the political thinking behind the invasion of Iraq. He also made his debut as a series regular for the Showtime series “Fast Track” (1997), a short-lived drama from Larry Gelbart about the world of professional stock car racing. Meanwhile, “Complete Savages” (ABC, 2004-05), Carradine’s foray into family comedy, met a similar fate. But he received outstanding notices as Wild Bill Hickok in the first season of “Deadwood” (HBO, 2004-06), despite only surviving the series for its initial four episodes. In playing the weary gunslinger, Carradine imbued the often misunderstood figure with depth and nuance, turning a typically caricatured persona into a highly complex human being. His identification with the Old West later brought him to the hosting duties for the History Channel technology series “Wild West Tech” (2003-05) and the Stephen Spielberg-produced miniseries “Into the West” (TNT, 2005), where he played misguided Native American policymaker and educator Richard Henry Pratt.
In 2006, Carradine returned to Broadway in the sparkling comedy “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” The production preceded his joining the cast of Showtime’s darkly comic thriller, “Dexter” (2006- ); Carradine played Special Agent Lundy, who is tasked by the FBI to track down the Bay Harbor Butcher, also known as the series’ titular serial killer (Michael C. Hall). Off-screen, however, he was associated with a real-life criminal case when his first wife, Sandra Will Carradine, was convicted on two counts of perjury for her false testimony in the wiretapping trial of celebrity detective Anthony Pellicano. After divorcing Carradine in 1993, she hired Pellicano to place wire taps on her ex-husband’s phone, as well as that of his girlfriend and eventual second wife, Haley DuMond. Carradine’s ex-wife later complicated her involvement by becoming romantically involved with Pellicano. Meanwhile, Carradine appeared in an episode of “Criminal Minds” (CBS, 2005- ), which he followed by voicing a character in the Grapes of Wrath segment of “Novel Reflections on the American Dream” (PBS, PBS, 2007), a documentary look at how novelists have portrayed the idea of the American Dream.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
A dependable character actor for over three decades, Emmy winner Powers Boothe lent grit to powerful men on both sides of the moral fence in a variety of diverse projects like “Red Dawn” (1984), “Nixon” (1995), “Deadwood” (HBO, 2004-06), “24” (Fox, 2001-2010) and “The Avengers” (2012). Boothe made an indelible impression on audiences with his first major screen role as the deranged Reverend Jim Jones in “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones” (CBS, 1980) before making the leap to features with Walter Hill’s “Southern Comfort” (1981). He soon became a favorite for directors like Hill and Oliver Stone, who cast Boothe as flinty bad guys in “Extreme Prejudice” (1987), “U Turn” (1990) and “Nixon” (1995). “Deadwood” brought him back to prominence with his complex turn as a brutal but emotionally wounded brothel owner, which in turn led to high-profile parts on “24” and significant smaller roles in “Sin City” (2005) and “The Avengers” (2012). Boothe’s tough exterior and talent for intimate drama made him one of the most in-demand character actors in Hollywood.
Born June 1, 1948 on a farm in Snyder, TX, Powers Allen Boothe was the youngest of three sons by Merrill Vestal Boothe and his wife, Emily Reeves. He attended Texas State University, where he earned a degree in theater. Unsure if he could make a living as an actor, Boothe considered teaching before being encouraged by fellow members in a summer stock troupe to audition for the graduate program at Southern Methodist University. After receiving his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1972, Boothe was a member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, then made his stage debut in New York in a 1974 production of “Richard III” at Lincoln Center. He would return to the play for his screen debut in 1977’s “The Goodbye Girl,” which featured him as a cast member in a doomed, off-off-Broadway production which depicted Richard – as portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss’ character Elliot Garfield – as a camp homosexual.
Boothe made his Broadway debut in 1980 with the comic one-act “Lone Star,” but his stage work was completely overshadowed by his terrifying performance as the Reverend Jim Jones, the fanatical leader of the People’s Temple who led his followers to commit mass suicide, in “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones” (CBS, 1980). For his formidable turn as the messianic madman, Boothe received not only critical praise but also the Emmy for Best Actor in 1980. He was the only actor in any category to attend the ceremony that year, which was under boycott by the Screen Actors Guild due to a strike. In his acceptance speech, Boothe admitted that his appearance at the ceremony was either the bravest moment of his career or the most foolish.
Boothe’s fears proved unwarranted, as the acclaim for “Guyana Tragedy” led to a string of lead and supporting roles in features. Blessed with considerable height (6’5″) and a strong jaw, he was a natural to play men of action, as he did for Walter Hill in “Southern Comfort” (1981) and John Milius in the cult favorite “Red Dawn” (1984). But Boothe brought more than brawn to his tough guy roles; there was also an all-too-evident humanity that made him both vulnerable and appealing to audiences. These traits were put to excellent use in John Boorman’s “The Emerald Forest” (1985), with Boothe as an engineer in Brazil whose son (the director’s son, Charley Boorman), was abducted by and inducted into a primitive tribe. Boothe also possessed the right mix of brass and world-weariness to play Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s iconic detective, in the cable series “Philip Marlowe, Private Eye” (ITV/HBO, 1983-86).
By the end of the 1980s, Boothe’s movie career seemed stuck in conventional action roles, playing heavies or cops in Hill’s ultra-violent “Extreme Prejudice” (1987) and Brandon Lee’s sidekick in “Sudden Death” (1990). He found more substantive work on the small screen, where he essayed Navy officer and convicted spy John A. Walker, Jr. in “Family of Spies” (CBS, 1990), and “By Dawn’s Early Light” (HBO, 1990), as a B-52 bomber pilot who refused to honor orders to drop nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union. In 1993, he played real-life outlaw “Curly Bill” Brocious in the all-star “Tombstone” (1993), about the events leading up to and after the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
In the mid-1990s, Boothe settled into character roles, often as imposing authority figures, ruthless villains or some combination of both attributes. He faced off against Jean-Claude Van Damme as a terrorist holding the vice president hostage at a hockey game in Peter Hyams’ “Sudden Death” (1995), then shifted gears to play the hawkish Alexander Haig, White House chief of staff in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” (1995). Boothe reunited with Stone in 1997 to play a corrupt Southwestern sheriff in the neo-noir “U Turn.” His gravely voice also found frequent employment on animated series like “Justice League” (Cartoon Network, 2001-04) and full-length animated features like “Superman: Brainiac Attacks” (2006), for which he voiced the DC Comics supervillains Gorilla Grodd and Lex Luthor, respectively.
In 2004, he enjoyed something of a revival with a recurring role on “Deadwood” as Cy Tolliver, a polished brothel owner whose dandified veneer hid both an iron hand in business dealings, as well as a damaged heart over Joanie Stubbs (Kim Dickens), a former prostitute made madam under Tolliver’s aegis. The exposure afforded by the critically acclaimed but short-lived “Deadwood” led to small parts in major features like “Sin City” (2005) and steady work on television, most notably as the duplicitous Vice President Noah Daniels on “24” (Fox, 2001-2010).
In 2008, Boothe’s steely, conservative screen persona made him the ideal choice to narrate a television campaign for Senator John McCain’s bid for the Presidency. He worked steadily over the next few years in projects ranging from the wildly popular animated series “Ben 10: Alien Force” (Cartoon Network, 2008-2010) to the dismal failed comedy “MacGruber” (2010). However, 2012 proved to be a banner year for Boothe, with a bit role as the World Security Council Leader in the box office blockbuster “The Avengers” (2012) landing shortly before his appearance as judge Valentine “Wall” Hatfield, whose decision in a case involving stolen livestock leads to a bloody feud in “Hatfields & McCoys” (A&E, 2012), one of the highest-rated made-for-cable miniseries in history. He died in 2017.
By Paul Gaita
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
One of Greece’s most beloved and respected actresses, Katina Paxinou had a brief but illustrious career in American films of the 1940s. Paxinou was born in Piraeus, an Athenian seaport, but studied theater and opera in Switzerland. She made her debut singing in the Mitropoulis Opera in Athens (1920), then became a legit actress in ’29. While working at the Greek National Theater, she met (and later married) actor/director Alexis Minotis. The two co-starred in and co-directed many productions, becoming known as Greece’s Lunt and Fontanne. Thei
r repertory included Shakespeare, Ibsen, O’Neill and classical Greek drama (Paxinou herself translated many scripts into modern Greek and wrote musical scores for several).
With the onset of World War Two, she found herself stranded in London, unable to return to her home. She fled to the US, making her Broadway debut in “Hedda Gabler” (1942). She next appeared in the film “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1943), as a peasant woman caught in the Spanish Civil War, and won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work. She made another four films in the US: “Hostages” (1943), “Confidential Agent” (1945), “Mourning Becomes Electra” (1947), and “Prince of Foxes” (1949) before returning to Greece.
Paxinou’s stage career continued where she’d left off. She and her husband rejoined the National Theater and eventually opened their own Royal Theater in Athens. They toured the world in revivals of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. She made a handful of films in various countries, including Spain (“Mr. Arkadin”, 1955), the US (“The Miracle”, 1959), Italy (“Rocco e i suoi Fratelli”, 1960), and France (“The Trial”, 1962, “Aunt Zita”, 1967, and “Un Ete sauvage”, 1970). Paxinou was still acting alongside her husband at the time of her death
Film and TV actor Larry Pennell died on August 28, 2013, place unknown. Born Lawrence Keneth Pennell on February 2, 1928 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Before becoming an actor he was a professional baseball player for the Boston Braves [1948-1953]. He then drifted into acting appearing in several films before he was given the lead in the 1961-1963 TV series ‘Ripcord’ about skydivers. He made his most lasting impression on the TV series, ‘The Beverly Hillbillies” as Elly May’s boyfriend Dash Riprock. His career continued with small parts in films and television including “Mr. Baseball” (1992) with Tom Selleck. His last film appearance was in “The Passing” (2011).
The above “Boot Hill” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Ray MillandRay Milland2523615 ARE HUSBANDS NECESSARY?: ARE HUSBANDS NECESSARY, US poster, from left: Ray Milland, Betty Field, Patricia Morison, 1942; (add.info.: Affiche du film ARE HUSBANDS NECESSARY? de Norman Taurog avec Ray Milland, Betty Field, Patricia Morison, 1942 ); Everett Collection.
Ray Milland’s TCM profile:
Ray Milland was named Best Actor of 1945 for his performance as an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend. It was a career making film — and a record making Oscar® acceptance. Milland is the only Best Actor winner to have not spoken a single word when accepting the Oscar. Instead of a speech, Milland simply bowed and made a graceful exit. In his career, like his speech, Milland’s style was often understated. He spent many years in Hollywood playing B-movie romantic leads and the buddies and rivals of the films’ male stars. The Lost Weekend should have launched Milland into stardom at long last. It proved, instead, to be the pinnacle of a 50-year career of an actor who didn’t take Hollywood fame too seriously and was willing to take on roles others might not equate with an Oscar® winner.
Milland was born Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones on January 3, 1905 in Wales. He made his start in British films in 1929 – his first two films were The Plaything and The Lady from the Sea (both 1929). In 1930, Milland made his way to Hollywood and took a stage name. There are several versions of how “Ray Milland” came to be. In some accounts the name was a version of his stepfather’s name Mullane. Others suggest the moniker came from the flat mill lands that surround Milland’s hometown of Neath. This second explanation mostly likely did play a part. As with most people’s life decisions, there was another influential factor – his mother. In his 1974 autobiography Wide-eyed in Babylon, Milland recalls arguing for hours with his agent over the name. Fed up, Milland claims he got up and said, “I don’t really care what you call me. I must keep the initial R because my mother had it engraved on my suitcases. Other than that, I don’t really care, but if you all don’t come up with something soon, I’m packing these suitcases and going back to the mill lands where I came from.” And so the name Ray Milland remained.
Milland’s early days in Hollywood were made up of supporting roles. One of his first films, Way for a Sailor(1930) cast him opposite John Gilbert and Wallace Beery. Other memorable films of his early career include:Strangers May Kiss (1931) with Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery; the James Cagney-Joan Blondell crime drama Blonde Crazy (1931); the romantic comedy Just a Gigolo (1931); and Payment Deferred(1932) with Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Sullivan. By the late ’30s Milland had made the jump to more leading roles in films like Easy Living (1937) with Jean Arthur, Wise Girl (1937) opposite Miriam Hopkins, and the romantic musical-comedy Irene (1940). The 1940s brought more first rate films like the Billy Wilder comedy The Major and the Minor (1942) with Ginger Rogers, the haunted house story The Uninvited(1944) and Fritz Lang’s spy thriller Ministry of Fear (1944).
1945 would bring Milland the best role of his career with The Lost Weekend. Ironically, since this film has become so synonymous with Milland, he was not director Billy Wilder’s first choice for the part. Actors such as Cary Grant and Jose Ferrer were considered before him – and like most Hollywood stars, they wanted nothing to do with what was sure to be an unpopular film. Studio advisors also warned Milland that the film’s grim subject matter could offend viewers and hurt his career. On the other hand, Wilder, once he settled on Milland, correctly predicted that the actor would win the Oscar®. Not only was he right, but Milland also became the first actor to win both the Oscar® and the leading acting award at Cannes for the same role.
Despite his success in The Lost Weekend, Milland’s Hollywood life was largely unchanged. He followed up the film with three unremarkable pictures that might’ve been made years earlier in his career; there was the romantic comedy The Well-Groomed Bride (1946) with Olivia de Havilland, the western California (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck and the comedy The Trouble with Women (1947) opposite Teresa Wright. Two high points in those post-Lost Weekend years were the noir thriller, The Big Clock (1948), and Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954) where Milland had a chance to play the villain. For the most part, however, Milland was no longer getting “A” roles.
As several stories from his early career illustrate, Milland was always a risk taker. He had a near-fatal accident while filming Hotel Imperial (1939). The script called for him to jump on a horse, and being an accomplished horseman, Milland insisted on doing the stunt himself. Unfortunately when he made the jump, the saddle came loose and Milland fell into a pile of broken masonry. He was hospitalized for weeks with fractures and lacerations. Another stunt on I Wanted Wings (1941) found Milland on a test flight where he thought he’d take a jump (he was an amateur parachutist). But engine trouble forced the plane to land before he could jump. On the ground, Milland told the story to his costumer who went suddenly pale. Apparently, the parachute Milland had almost jumped with contained no parachute at all – it was just a prop. With a history of taking risks like these, it probably came as no surprise when Milland took his career in his own hands in the 1950s and began directing.
Milland made his directorial debut in 1955 on the Republic western A Man Alone. He would go on to direct several more films including The Safecracker (1958) and Panic in the Year Zero! (1962). In his later career, Milland turned his attention largely to television. He co-starred in two TV series – the comedy Meet Mr. McNuttyand the crime-drama Markham. He also appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies, including the popular mini-series Rich Man, Poor Man (1976). Milland also turned up in a number of low budget horror features such as Roger Corman’s cult sci-fi drama, X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963) and Frogs (1972). And he made something of a comeback in 1970’s Love Story, where he played Oliver Barrett III (Ryan O’Neal’s father). He also starred as an evil business mogul in Disney’s Escape to Witch Mountain (1975).
Never one to be interested in the limelight, Milland was, on a personal level, something of a book-lover and homebody. He was married to the same woman, his wife Malvina, from 1932 until his death on March 10, 1986.
by Stephanie Thames
The above TCM profile can also be accessed online here.
A versatile character actor for over five decades, Academy Award winner George Kennedy brought both gravity and boundless energy to a considerable list of memorable pictures ranging from “Cool Hand Luke” (1967) and “The Dirty Dozen” (1967) to the campy “Airport” pictures and the “Naked Gun” franchise. A near two-decade stint in the military preceded his acting pursuits, where he logged numerous appearances as heavies and rough-hewn types in pictures like “Charade” (1963) and “The Sons of Katie Elder” (1964). However, his turn as a tough Southern prisoner who becomes Paul Newman’s disciple of sorts in “Cool Hand Luke” brought him both an Oscar and a career boost that included heroic turns in all four “Airport” films, “The Boston Strangler” (1968) and “The Eiger Sanction” (1975). Kennedy’s career went into decline in the mid-1970s, though there were occasional flashes of offbeat brilliance; most notably the slapstick “Naked Gun” series. Kennedy’s long and impressive body of work surpassed any career dips, and he remained one of Hollywood’s most dependable and well-regarded talents.
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. was born into a New York-based show business family on Feb. 18, 1925. Kennedy’s father was a musician and orchestra leader who died when his son was only four years old, leaving him to be raised by his mother, former ballet dancer Helen Kieselbach. He made his acting debut two years before in a touring production of “Bringing Up Father;” he would continue to perform as a radio actor until the outbreak of World War II, when he joined the Army. The service would occupy the next 16 years of his life, during which he was instrumental in establishing the Army Information Office, which provided technical service to the film and television industries, and spun records as a disk jockey on Armed Forces Radio.
A back injury ended Kennedy’s career in the military, but it provided him with a direct route back into show business. He served as a technical advisor for the popular “Phil Silvers Show” (CBS, 1955-59) and landed a few uncredited appearances on the series as well. The experience inspired him to try his hand at acting. In the late 1950s he began appearing in bit and supporting roles on television series. His burly frame and deep voice made him ideal for crooked cowpokes, gunmen and the occasional tough detective in Western and crime series throughout the early 1960s; he also made his screen debut around this time as one of the rebel soldiers who joins “Spartacus” (1960) in the rousing conclusion of Stanley Kubrick’s acclaimed epic. Within a few years, he was handling more substantial roles in features like “Lonely Are the Brave” (1962) and “Charade” (1963) opposite Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.
Like all journeyman actors, Kennedy worked in every possible genre, from high-gloss thrillers like “Charade” and “Mirage” (1965) to low-budget horror flicks like “Strait-Jacket” (1964) and scores of Westerns, including the John Wayne classic, “The Sons of Katie Elder” (1965). Kennedy’s on-screen roles continued to subsist largely of tough, loud-mouthed rogues and authority figures, though there were occasional forays into more sympathetic parts, like the compassionate Union officer in the anti-war film “Shenandoah” (1965), starring his acting idol, Jimmy Stewart.
Kennedy’s onscreen assignments continued to grow in stature throughout the 1960s. He reunited with Stewart in the air crash drama “Flight of the Phoenix” (1966), then lent solid support to such major players as Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes and Robert Ryan in “The Dirty Dozen” (1967), as well as Michael Caine and Jane Fonda in “Hurry Sundown” (1967). That same year, the 42-year-old actor finally landed his big break as Paul Newman’s chain-gang antagonist and eventual companion in Stuart Rosenberg’s “Cool Hand Luke” (1967). The role afforded Kennedy a rare opportunity to show all the colors in his acting palette – menacing at first, but later thoughtful, repentant and even worshipful towards Newman’s unbreakable convict. The turn won Kennedy an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1967, and ushered him to the forefront of the screen acting community.
By 1970, Kennedy had finally broken out of the supporting acting mold to land his first lead in “Guns of the Magnificent Seven” (1970), as the gun for hire played by Yul Brynner in “The Magnificent Seven” (1960). That same year, he made his first appearance as dogged airplane mechanic Joe Patroni in the glossy disaster drama, “Airport” (1970). After receiving a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, Kennedy revisited the character in its three ludicrous sequels, “Airport 1975” (1975), “Airport ’77” (1977) and “The Concorde: Airport ’79” (1979), in which Patroni finally got to pilot a doomed flight. There were also impressive appearances opposite Clint Eastwood – once as his nemesis in “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” (1973) and later as his ally in “The Eiger Sanction” (1975) – and a single-season stint as a fair-minded beat cop on the TV series, “The Blue Knight” (CBS, 1975-76).
The mid-1970s marked a precipitous decline in Kennedy’s career. Gone, suddenly, were the roles in major Hollywood movies; replaced instead were a string of low-budget horror pictures, comedies and exploitation flicks. The worst of the lot was John Derek’s jaw-dropping “Bolero” (1984) which starred his ubiquitous wife Bo in various states of undress, but “Wacko” (1982), “Uninvited” (1988) and “Demonwarp” (1989) certainly gave the Derek flesh-fest a run for its money. Television provided some degree of respect for Kennedy’s talents; he enjoyed a recurring role on “Dallas” (CBS, 1978-1991) as a oil company foil for Larry Hagman’s J.R. Ewing, and there were quality TV projects like “The Jesse Owens Story” (1984) and “Backstairs at the White House” (NBC, 1979), in which he played President Warren G. Harding.
Fortunately, this low-budget material, which dominated Kennedy’s output well into the 21st century, eventually transformed industry perception of him into a camp figure, which in turn afforded him a new audience as a broad comic performer. He had shown flashes of ability in that arena in Albert Brooks’ “Modern Romance” (1981), in which he played himself as the star of an atrocious science fiction film, as well as serving as host of a 1981 episode of “Saturday Night Live” (NBC, 1975- ), but his turn as Captain Ed Hocken, the slow-witted, food-loving sidekick to Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin in “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” (1988) and its two successful sequels – The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994) – were particularly spirited. In fact, his performance as Hocken nearly sent up that of Nielsen’s, which was no small feat. Because of his success with “Naked Gun,” he was later asked to join his “Dirty Dozen” co-stars Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown and Clint Walker to voice an aggressive action toy brought to life in Joe Dante’s underrated sci-fi comedy, “Small Soldiers” (1997). He also made for an ebullient pitchman for Breathasure tablets in a series of humorous spots in the late 1990s.
Kennedy retired from acting in 1998, but returned in 2003 to a regular routine of television and low-budget features, including a stint on “The Young and the Restless” (CBS, 1973- ). A pleasant exception at this time was Wim Wenders’ “Don’t Come Knocking” (2003), which cast him as the frustrated director of a trouble-plagued Western. In addition to his acting roles, Kennedy was credited as author on two mystery novels, Murder on Location (1981) and Murder on High (1984), both of which featured Kennedy as amateur sleuth on the trail of killers in a Hollywood setting rife with his many famous co-stars. An uncredited ghost author penned both novels.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Max Rosenbloom was 5’11” and weighed 165-170 lb. during the peak of his professional boxing years (which included 289 fights). In later years the larger-than-life “Slapsie Maxie” would parlay his sports fame into a Hollywood career playing a series of Runyonesque-type thugs and pugs. Born Max Everitt Rosenbloom in Connecticut, the son of an impoverished Russian-Jewish shoemaker and his wife, Maxie was a truant and upstart from the beginning. An older brother, who fought under the name Leonard Rose, helped straighten him out and influenced him to try jabbing away at his own career. The lackluster amateur once called the “Harlem Harlequin” lost most of his matches, working odd jobs as a railroad worker, lifeguard and elevator operator to support himself. Everything turned around for Maxie after he became managed by the seasoned Frank Bachman and turned pro in 1923 as a welterweight. He won all of his first 36 professional fights in various weight divisions. He reached his peak from 1930, after winning the light heavyweight belt in a decision against Jimmy Slattery, to 1932, when he earned international recognition as champion in a decision against Lou Suozzo. Dubiously nicknamed “Slapsie Maxie” by sportswriter Damon Runyon who disapproved of Maxie’s less-than-classy style of slapping opponents with open gloves, he is considered the most active champion in contemporary boxing history with a fighting total of 106 while champion (only eight, however, were for the title). Outside the ring, Maxie eased easily into the nightlife and became infamous for his gambling and womanizing. Though he married psychologist Muriel Faider in 1937, the marriage was childless and lasted but 8 years. Hollywood opened its doors to Maxie the celebrity after he permanently hung up his gloves. He would go on play in more than a hundred films, his better known beingNothing Sacred (1937), The Kid Comes Back (1938), Each Dawn I Die (1939) and Irish Eyes Are Smiling (1944). A colorful character with cauliflower ears, fat lips and punch-drunk mug, he was usually only called upon to play various extensions of his own flashy persona. After opening the Hollywood nightclub “Slapsie Maxie’s” in 1943, he partnered with another former boxing champion, Max Baer, in a nightclub act and in a few films following WWII. On TV in 1955, he was a regular as Clyde on The Joe Palooka Story(1954). On stage he was ideally suited to the role of Big Jules in a 1961 revival of “Guys and Dolls”. Three years earlier he had published his autobiography titled “Fifty Years at Ringside.” Maxie’s health deteriorated with age, and he suffered from pugilistica dementia (better known as Paget’s disease) as a result of the continuous head blows he endured as a boxer. He died at age 71 in South Pasadena, California.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
