Disastrous Demises - 2019

Miss Carol Lynley (of The Poseidon Adventure, 1972) wasn't the only member of the Disaster Movie Club to have passed away last year. She was granted a special tribute, but I don't want to forget several others who contributed to my favorite movie genre, the '70s Disaster Flick. Anyone who had the good (or bad?) fortune to act in a disaster movie from 1970-1980 is automatically a member of the club (which exists only in my demented mind.) These days, so many past performers perish and barely make a ripple in the news even though we have multitudinous "news" channels whose purported purpose is to keep us informed... If not for the annual TCM Remembers memorial tribute, I might not have even known about a fair number of celebrities who passed away in 2019.

First up is an unexpected name. Miss Bibi Andersson. The Swedish Anderson made a mark with Ingmar Bergman in his 1966 film Persona, opposite Liv Ullmann. She also appeared in a number of American movies such as Duel at Diablo (1966) with James Garner and Sidney Poitier, Enemy of the People (1977) with Steve McQueen and Quintet (1979) with Paul Newman. There was also I Never Promised You a Rose Garden in 1977 with Kathleen Quinlan.

Her disaster movie entry is The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979.) In it, she was spared from having to board the title mode of transport and thus be hurled upside down repeatedly as a desperate, criminal businessman tries to blow the thing apart. That's not to say she got off light...!

She portrayed a prostitute hired to ease the mind (and body!) of burly George Kennedy during a Paris layover (no pun intended!) The widowed Kennedy has been "grounded" as far as sex is concerned since the death of his wife and his co-pilot Alain Delon has arranged this special treat.

The couple's fireside lovemaking was apparently deemed worthy for use in promotion of the film albeit primarily in Europe where Ms. Andersson's name and presence meant more in terms of marquee value. (And the movie was renamed with an "'80" by the time it limped into theaters there...)

Ms. Andersson died on April 14th, 2019 from the complications of a stroke at age eighty-three. She had been retired from the screen since 2010. Married three times, she was the mother of one daughter.

Next up is Mr. René Auberjonois. Despite his fanciful French name, Auberjonois was born in New York City to a Swiss father (a successful writer) and mother who was descended from Napoleon Bonaparte (and was of Russian royalty as well!) He did, as a youth, live in London and Paris, lending him a European background. After successful performances on Broadway, he segued to movies, including MASH (1970), King Kong (1976), The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) and many, many others. In more recent years, he established a cult following for his portrayal of Odo on Deep Space Nine.

Auberjonois gained entry into the Disaster Movie Club with 1975's The Hindenburg. He played a con man on board the famed airship with his partner Burgess Meredith. (Auberjoinois had earlier worked at the South Mountain Road artist's colony - later to be named Elmwood Playhouse - with Meredith as well as John Huston and Lotte Lenya.)

He is seated in the smoking lounge of the Hindenburg next to Anne Bancroft who lights up a pipe with marijuana in it, prompting a typically wide-eyed expression from the busy character actor.

During an onboard bit of entertainment, we see him (at far right) along with most of the rest of the cast, reacting to a shocking moment in the performance.

At the climax of the movie, the screen goes black & white in order for director Robert Wise to intersperse actual footage of the fiery conflagration. The deliberately grainy new footage shows Auberjonois (with Bancroft) amid the flaming girders during the crash. Mr. Auberjonois died December 8th, 2019 of lung cancer at age seventy-nine. He'd been wed since 1963 and was the father of two.

Auberjonois gets extra credit for having costarred in The Big Bus (1976), an elaborate spoof of the disaster genre. He's seen here with Ruth Gordon.

Yet another unexpected name for inclusion here is that of Miss Valentina Cortese. An Italian actress who'd begun making films in 1941, she scored a success with Les Miserables (1948), portraying both Fantine and Cosette opposite Marcello Mastroianni. Later, she made American films such as Malaya (1949) with Spencer Tracy and James Stewart, The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) with Richard Basehart, who she promptly married, The Barefoot Contessa (1954) with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner as well as international epics like Barabbas (1961) with Anthony Quinn.

One of her most famous roles came with 1973's Day for Night under the direction of François Truffaut, which garnered her an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. When she lost the award to Ingrid Bergman in Murder on the Orient Express, even Bergman expressed the feeling that the statuette ought to have gone to Cortese. Cortese had THE most expressive eyes and face.

She joined the disaster flick community when she took part in the excru- ciatingly bad When Time Ran Out... (1980.) She and Burgess Meredith played a devoted couple, in retirement after years of having been a successful high wire act. They are vacationing at a luxurious island resort.

When things get rough at the resort (a supposedly safe volcano starts trembling and eventually erupting, forcing the vacationers to evacuate their hotel and hot-foot it across treacherous tropical terrain), Cortese begins to lose some of her European elegance. I always wondered why she so often favored those close-fitting scarves on her head. Then I saw her hair here! At least we could be distracted by Edward Albert's chiseled buns... 

Ms. Cortese had a child with Basehart, but they divorced in 1960. She never remarried and retired from the screen in 1993. She passed away at age ninety-six on July 10th, 2019 and was considered a national treasure in her home country.

In a recent post full of leftover pictures, we bemoaned the loss of one Robert Forster, so handsome in his screen debut Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967.) After this strong debut, he won further acclaim in The Stalking Moon (1968) with Gregory Peck and Medium Cool (1969), in which he starred. After two short-lived, early-1970s TV series of his own, Banyon and Nakia, he found it difficult to reestablished a big screen career.

1973's The Don is Dead was unsuccessful in the face of The Godfather (1972.) He won the lead in the low-budget thriller Stunts (1977) only because Don Stroud was injured in a motorcycle accident just prior to shooting. Thus, he was only too happy to work in his next film, the one that placed him in the disaster genre...

Producer Roger Corman's entry into the realm was Avalanche (1978), the most expensive film to date of his New World Pictures. Starring Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow, Forster was third-billed as an environmentally conscious associate of Hudson's whose warnings of an avalanche at Hudson's expensive ski lodge go unheeded.

The fast-paced, but empty-headed, film was a flop. Part of Forster's contribution was firing shells into the side of a mountain to try to shear off some of the snow as well as taking Hudson's ex-wife Farrow to bed in order to fire off some projectiles of his own. LOL  (This happened off-screen, though Forster was never shy about showing off his body.)

He was still good-looking throughout, but any semblance of actual drama was rendered impossible by the atrocious supporting performances, the Styrofoam and shredded tissue paper snow and the often-tacky direction by former actor Corey Allen.

Forster had a late-career comeback when he appeared in Jackie Brown (1997) and collected an Oscar nomination in the process as Best Supporting Actor. The statuette went to Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting, but the career momentum for Forster continued. He later was aptly cast as George Clooney's father in The Descendants (2011.) Forster was still working steadily when brain cancer claimed him on October 11th, 2019 at age seventy-eight. He will have two movies released in 2020! Married three times, he had three children with his second wife.

Our final member of the Disaster Movie Club to have been lost in 2019 was featured in our very last post on the hooty telefilm Cage Without a Key (1975.) Miss Katherine Helmond worked heavily on stage, including Broadway, before moving into films in 1971 (including The Hospital.) In 1975, she portrayed one of the endangered travelers on board The Hindenburg, sharing the screen with the aforementioned René Auberjonois.

She played the wife of Alan Oppenheimer and the mother of three children who are leaving Germany with the hope of eventually getting Oppenheimer's Jewish grandmother out as well as soon as possible.

When the calamity hits, Helmond is hysterical to the point where Oppen- heimer has to slap her across the face to snap her out of it. She is then hurled through a window in order to save her from the surrounding flames. Helmond's face is listed at the end of the movie along with many others in the cast (and at least she got a slightly better spot than the dog!)

The fates of these people are announced at the finale of The Hindenburg.

After this, she worked on Alfred Hitchcock's final movie Family Plot (1976) before zooming to fame on Soap, followed by Who's the Boss? and further appearances on Coach and Everybody Loves Raymond. Ms. Helmond died of Alzhemier's Disease on February 23rd, 2019 at age eighty-nine, having worked up to 2018. She was wed twice, the second time to a man fourteen years her junior. They were a couple for fifty-seven years, though she had no children.

The late Ms. Helmond and her husband of many years, David Christian.

We also lost a few honorary members of the DMC: Carmen Argenziano, who was a SWAT member in Two-Minute Warning (1976), Arte Johnson, who had a role in the hurricane disaster miniseries Condominium (1980) and Freddie Jones, who was the mad bomber in Juggernaut (1974.)

Only Mr. Jones at far right is shown in his disaster role.

BONUS PICS!

This French lobby card shows a laborious scene trimmed from the edited down rendition of the movie When Time Ran Out...

Cortese costarred with one-time Mr. Shelley Winters, Vittorio Gassman.

If one is going to go through something horrible (in this case escaping from a concentration camp!), it is advisable to do so with someone like Gassman, if at all possible...!

In contrast to virtually every other version of the poster for Avalanche, someone in this country felt the need to add in an extra rendition of Rock Hudson, wearing skis and falling through the air! This never occurred in the movie...

Mr. Forster was a handsome devil in his youth and in his old age.

Katherine "The Cougar" Helmond seemed to have hit the jackpot in her second go at married life!

She and David appeared to enjoy a lot of fun times together and were quite devoted.

I love that they felt free enough to pose for frolicsome photos such as these (in the wondrous 1970s!)

Sunken Treasures from Poseidon's Foot Locker

Today, we've taken quite a dive... We've sunken really low. Ha ha! I stow away so many photos because they either appeal to me for some reason or I think they will be used in a particular post (that ultimately doesn't come to fruition) and before you know it, I've become a photo hoarder. Some pics also have no real spot here because I obtained them after I already featured the subject in a tribute.  But, anyway, today I'm cracking open my treasure chest (which may also include some debris or even junk, depending on your point of view!) and pulling out a heinously random series of pictures to share with you. (Posts like this have been done before under the title of "Clearance.") Maybe think of it as going through an old drawer to see what you tucked away there and forgot about. I don't think you'll need rubber gloves or a germ mask, but you never can tell...

I can never see enough pictures of Errol Flynn in his prime and always enjoy discovering his movies. A deft athlete in action roles, he was also criminally underrated as an actor.

I generally go for hairy-chested gents, but I love the composition and shading of this portrait.

I had considered a photo essay solely featuring men with poles and, even though there are more of them than you think out there, this shot of luscious Buster Crabbe is as far as I ever got...

I liked the details and colors (and it's pretty rare to find color pictures of him) in this portrait of Roy Rogers. Rogers was born and partly raised here Cincinnati so there's strand of connection to him from that. Look at his gloves with the turned down cuff and that silver saddle horn!

Sometimes people look at me as if I've lost my mind when I tell them that when I read the book Gone with the Wind I put Leslie Howard out of my mind and pictured this gent instead... It's the only way I could wrap my mind around Scarlett's obsession with him. Know him?

It's (primarily) western star Randolph Scott, who I think would have been an ideal Ashley Wilkes. Can't you see it??

Speaking of ideal... I am always up for more Clint Walker of Cheyenne.

Is this masseuse the luckiest woman who ever breathed air on planet Earth?!

Another favorite who rarely gets his due is Jeffrey Hunter.

We love Hunter in everything... westerns, war movies, dramas.

Everything's golden here, though it ended tragically.

There's a lot of pancake makeup going on here, but I liked this shot of Elvis Presley in him flight gear.

Van Williams is another favorite of ours. Not a necessarily thrilling actor, but he had sturdy good looks and beautiful eyes.

The always scrumpdillyicious Guy Madison.

This is the kind of lighting I want and never get when my photo is taken. LOL Ricky Nelson's eyes are incredible here. I have blue eyes, too, but too often they look like two raisins lying in a bowl of butterscotch pudding.

Robert Redford in his The Great Gatsby (1974) mode. Every time I read a book and something about Redford is in it, I find him so annoying! Ha ha! Even though I like many of his 1970s films and he certainly did a lot for independent movie making, his off-screen personality just somehow never resonates with me.

Cynics may see this portrait from The Sound of Music (1965) as Christopher Plummer sighing because Julie Andrews won't stop singing, even during a photo shoot...! LOL But I adore both of these people beyond words and I've enjoyed their careers ever since seeing them in the film (the first movie I can ever recall seeing in a theater.)

I love the joyfulness present in this photo of Miss Andrews on the day of her character's regal wedding. Director Robert Wise must have had some good news for her?

This is a rather unusual shot of Music's Baroness Schraeder, Eleanor Parker, in wig and makeup, but out of costume, on location in Austria. The length of her fingers here does confound me, though! I hope it's a lens distortion of some kind (though she would be great to have around with things roll under the fridge and so forth...!)

As far as I'm concerned, Parker is the last word in elegance throughout the entire movie. I love all the clothes she wears, including this party confection. (Remember the stink Vanessa Williams got when she wore a big poofy thing on her shoulder like this during the Miss America pageant? Didn't bother me none... LOL)

I treasure every moment she has on screen.

Those who only know here from her heavy-set late-career roles in either gripping dramas or wacky comedies might be surprised to see how utterly lovely Shirley Knight was in her early years. We thrill to see her name in the credits because she always gives 100% to whatever it is she's doing.

It's unusual to see Shirley MacLaine with long hair, she's favored the shorter 'dos for so many years.

Way back in 2014, I did a photo essay of eye-popping color portraits of men and then one of women, but this rare color picture of Vivien Leigh came along too late to be included. If you're a newer reader of P.U., you really ought to take a look at these posts to see how gorgeously stars were presented back in the day...

Another one that missed the cut was this colored pic of Suzanne Pleshette, who made quite a few black & white Warner Brothers potboilers in the 1960s.

Even with the scarily-heavy, Crawford-like makeup (or maybe because of it!), I love this portrait of Bette Davis.

The quality of this print could be better, but I like the beguiling expression of Miss Kim Novak of Vertigo (1958) in it nonetheless.

In this rare one, the mystery is sort of lost. Maybe it was too brightly lit and stiffly staged?

On the subject of Hitchcock movies, there were many hooty publicity pictures for his Psycho (1960.) I love this one with the specter of the rocking chair looming over the stars. On-screen sisters Vera Miles and Janet Leigh are never seen together in the film. Miles was to star in Vertigo until pregnancy got in the way. She wore a wig in Psycho because she'd shaved her head not long before to make 5 Branded Women (1960.)

So many things stood out to me in this portrait of then-married Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor. His uniform, her lipstick, the fact that her head is so disproportionately large that it almost looks cut and pasted on!

I love the cool colors in this pic of Sandra Dee and how her hair is a little longer than she often wore it in her teen hey-day.

I love this pic of one of our earliest tribute subjects, Miss Diane McBain.

How fun are Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman in this pair of shots of them frugging around? There's a loose freedom here that Newman rarely, if ever, showed to a motion picture camera, even in his comedies. The pic on the left was later photo-shopped with heads of the Frankenstein monster and his bride for a popular Internet image.

Did you think I was kidding?

Speaking of Paul Newman, even though my life has been spent worshiping The Poseidon Adventure (1972), in recent years The Towering Inferno (1974) has somehow risen to a near-equal level of fascination and obsession for me. I think the more time that passes, the more I miss the type of all-star grandeur that a movie like this represents.

And there is simply never, ever, enough of Faye Dunaway's languid, goddess-like presence as she wafts through the film.

When you consider some of the scenery-devouring performances that our Faye has given since Network (1976), her exceedingly understated and elegant work in Inferno becomes even that much more startling.

And where in the hell else are you going to catch the trio of golden age dancemaster Fred Astaire, La Dunaway and Mike Lookinland (Bobby Brady of The Brady Bunch!) sharing screen time together?!?

Even though it only lasts for fleeting moments, I live for this sequence when the windows of The Promenade Room are knocked out to provide access for a breeches buoy.

People, she's giving you Lillian Gish in Way Down East (1920) realness here!

How much do I worship this four-page spread from a Rona Barrett magazine in which the west coast premiere of the movie is covered?! It even has crossover appeal with stars from Poseidon in attendance! (The only thing I dislike is the overuse of the term "preem!")

Natalie Wood turned down the role that Dunaway essayed. By the time she got in on the disaster cycle herself, it was in the execrable Meteor (1978.) Carol Lynley may have attended the premiere with her manager, but the man she's pictured with is not he. That is Irwin Allen's beloved assistant and go-to costume designer Paul Zastupnevich! What an unfortunate picture of Jennifer Jones....

This publicity photo plays to my affection for stars being arranged and labeled properly (like items in a spice rack! LOL) The Group (1966) trumpeted the arrival of several newish female stars, some of who ultimately fared better than others. Happily, a few of them are still at it today.

My guess is... he'd like someone else to be in a woman! LOL

Recognize any of these couples? They may seem familiar because of the styling or perhaps due to their faces. These are the supporting stars of the now-forgotten NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House. Nominated for 10 Emmys (winning for Make-Up), it hasn't been broadcast in eons... Why are so many classic TV programs relegated to oblivion while the very same things are shown over and over and OVER?

This is who's who in the prior picture. Flanders, Vaughn, Heckart and Holm were all nominated for their acting. Also nominated were the leads Louis Gossett Jr and Olivia Cole. Winners? Peter Strauss for The Jericho Mile, Bette Davis in Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter, Marlon Brando in Roots: The Next Generation and Esther Rolle in Summer of My German Soldier.

I love this article about the passing of Miss Joan Crawford because it was published in that nanosecond of time between her death and the publication of Mommie Dearest and as a result doesn't carry any that stigma in it. I only wish I had page 13...

In a recent post on Hollywood Studio Magazine, I relayed some info about the editor Joan Evans and just happened to come across this picture of Joan Evans along with her namesake and godmother Joan Crawford and Crawford's long-time friend (and sometimes "frenemy!") Barbara Stanwyck at an industry function.

This was fun. A presentation of "Deb Stars" all done up in new hairstyles. Look carefully and you will find no less than Mary Ann Mobley, Barbara Parkins and Raquel Welch. When you consider that Welch began in situations like this, her ascendancy to the place of world-wide mega-star is even more considerable.

Sadly, I only have one of the additional pages containing the recipes for this sort of glamour, so if you wish to look like any of the other five gals, you're on your own...!

I gave Miss Welch a big, splashy photo essay once here, but this pic came too late to be included in it.

Back in 2013, I did a post about unexpected or unusual celebrity pairings and I intended to do it again sometime, but I never built up enough pictures to warrant it. There is, though, this meeting of Miss Mae West and Julie Andrews...

...and the inexplicable press conference involving Muhammad Ali and Miss Gloria Swanson!

Every so often I think I'll do something regarding the distinctive Miss Edith Head, multiple Oscar-winner, but I never do! Here she is seen with one of her statuettes (for The Facts of Life, 1960) at the 1961 ceremony. Robert Stack is on-hand to present it to her and that's Barbara Rush in back giving one to another fellow.

I did a post once about actresses and their interesting hats. I intended to revisit the subject once more but only collected two examples; this fascinating one on Jane Wyman...

...and this rather tacky floral one on our beloved Lee Meriwether.

I like the colors of this full-length portrait of screen duo John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara who shared palpable chemistry together in several movies.

Another screen team who had a warm relationship off-camera consisted of Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, who had a load of fun together during the lengthy filming of Giant (1956.)

A little time-worn by The Mirror Crack'd (1980), it was still fun to see them reunited again (even more fun to see Taylor and costar Kim Novak lobbing verbal missles at one another in the story!)

Lacking in chemistry, but not shimmering cinematic glamour, are Sophia Loren and Stephen Boyd of The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), a long movie that gets a bad rap, but which is really eye-popping and has some great moments. Note that Mr. Boyd is free of the brown contacts he had to wear as Messala in Ben-Hur (1959.)

I love the clarity of this pic from The Wizard of Oz (1939) and the detail of the costumes and props it affords. Seeing this on the big-screen not too long ago was a delightful revelation. (I also recently went to a new ballet based on the famous tale and while expecting the worst was positively FLOORED by how good it was!)

Even after all these decades, we're still not over the buck-skinned beauty of Heath on The Big Valley (as played by Lee Majors.) One he was able to shake that badly-dyed hair (and initial stiffness before the camera) of season one and allow his own coloring to shine through, he was dreamy on the show.

Majors was one of the most steadily-employed TV actors of the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

His wife appeared in some episodes of David Janssen's Harry-O before rocketing to superstardom during her single season of Charlie's Angels in 1976. This photo is from the pilot and features what was intended to be a fifth cast member, David Ogden Stiers! You can read more about that, along with other pilot episode oddities, in this, one of my own favorite posts here at P.U. (and, yes, I know how smelly this site's abbreviation is... Ha ha!)

There's a lot going on in this vividly colorful portrait of Miss Elizabeth Taylor and I cannot begin to tell you how I have struggled to figure out the name of that book she's been reading. But look... she's fingering a pillow, has a flower on her lap, has two books lying about and is clasping a cold beverage!! You can't say she was idle. LOLOL

I just love this pic of La Liz. The diffused sunlight is very flattering, as are the colors of her hat and "belt."

She made some very bold fashion choices in the 1970s and not all of them were great, but I do like this crazed get-up that even Maude Findlay might hesitate to don. Fun hair and jewelry, too.

Unless you're a young'n, I presume you can identify this luscious young thing in a bikini (note the covered navel, however!) I mean, she could knock 'em dead even now as this cut of two-piece has made a recent comeback among young ladies.

Yes, that was our beloved Joan Collins in her teen years. Collins never stops for a minute and it was recently revealed to me that she is coming back to Hawaii 5-0 for a couple more episodes (!) which we will certainly be on the lookout for. Her initial appearance was sensational as far as we're concerned (and clearly the producers were equally impressed.)

Well, winter is now upon us, so let's join our other favorite Joan for a brisk walk outside!

Come on, keep up! There's a lot to see!

By this time, our Joan was locked into an eyebrow and eyelash scheme that was pretty much unvaried, but there was no one else like her...

You don't see a whole lot of color pictures of her from the 1960s so you have to appreciate the garish beauty of them when you can find one.

Joan's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) costar and sometimes nemesis Bette Davis once cracked that Joan slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie, but it looks like even Lassie (who was indeed most often played by a male) made a pass at JC when the opportunity presented itself! Ha ha!

It's almost impossible to pick one, but this is my favorite portrait of Crawford. I cannot ever get enough of that face...

...yet unbelievably, I only discovered this past weekend that in the Crawford portrait she is copying her idol Greta Garbo! I like Garbo fine, but I am not obsessed with her like I am some other stars, so I hadn't seen as many pictures of her as I have of Crawford. Call it heresy, but even with Garbo's exquisite features, I still prefer Crawford's face. It may be due to the emotion she projects versus the icy remoteness that Garbo often put forth. Joan was so hungry for approval while Greta barely seemed to care what anyone thought. I wish someone would have written one brief scene for them together in Grand Hotel (1932) fer cryin' out loud.

Another face I always loved and who has his own tribute here is Ted McGinley. I know you've had your fingers crossed that I'd eventually get around to some beefcake, so I will try to oblige!

Get a load of the head of hair on Tony Curtis during his early days as the star of various adventure yarns at Universal Studios. Wouldn't you like to see him in color?

Alakazam three and poof! Here ya go.

Here is Tony with his compatriots from Spartacus (1960.) I'm diggin' those wedge sandals on Kirk Douglas! How have I never taken note of those before...?! Now I wonder if he wore them in the movie and I just couldn't tell it.

Holy shit.... Can you believe Ty Hardin during his time on PT 109 (1963.) Truly a Tom of Finland sketch brought to life. I'm a little mad at that fish, though, for casting its shadow where it did...

Feast your eyes on this hooty lobby still from The Day the Fish Came Out (1967), a true campfest with two male characters stranded on an island in just their underwear and a horde of soldiers undercover as tourists in scads of crazy, scanty, futuristic resortwear and swimsuits. Oh, and a young and beautiful Candice Bergen.

If you frequent this site, you know I basically live in the past and barely acknowledge any current stars, but I do have the occasional exception wherein I love someone who's happening now. This, as you probably know, is Armie Hammer.

A friend of mine, equally disinterested in the stars of today, didn't know who he was, so I put these montages together as evidence of his appeal.

Wow... What could be better than a series of shots of the divine Jon-Erik Hexum peeling his pants off down to his jockey shorts?! Well, there might be one thing better, but we'll have to settle for this.

While I was busy with the visit of a relative from Ireland, we lost one more actor from my Disaster Movie Club and I neglected to write about him or pay proper tribute. Robert Forster (who costarred in Avalanche, 1978) was a handsome guy and a talented actor. He got his start in 1967's Reflections in a Golden Eye.

In Reflections, he was the object of closeted army major Marlon Brando's affection and had a habit of horseback riding in the nude (bareback, no less!)

Forster took his clothes off in several movies, notably Medium Cool (1969), but he wasn't just a hunk. He was a very solid actor who, after a bit of a fallow period, bounced back into the spotlight with 1997's Jackie Brown. He earned an Oscar nomination for that (losing to Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting) and it kicked off a latter day career resurgence. He was seventy-eight when brain cancer felled him on October 11th.

Even though her name doesn't necessary sit on the tongue of film fans, costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden won two Oscars (in fact for the only two times she was nominated!) One was for the ornate pieces in A Man for All Seasons (1966) and the other was for the epic Ben-Hur (1959), though in this particular case she didn't have to waste much fabric! What an interesting day in the work room when Charlton Heston was modeling his galley slave get-up for the first time.

Which brings us to Dennis Cole and The End!