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In the eyes of cinephiles, remaking any film from Japanese giant Akira Kurosawa would be sheer blasphemy. But when captivating actor Bill Nighy is at the center of the story, his angelic smile and splendid vocals do more than win you over.

The Sony Pictures Classics drama “Living” — about a civil servant who decides to seize life after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis — debuted at Sundance and has since made stops at the Telluride, Venice and Toronto fests, building word-of-mouth buzz along the way. The common denominator of critical acclaim and joyful audience response is Nighy, whose submersion into the role of Mr. Williams, the tale’s central figure, delivers a compelling reminder to Hollywood that the 73-year-old thespian is long overdue for accolades.

Nighy’s work is studded with memorable roles, from Davy Jones in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” to Ray Simms, lead singer of the...

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Virginia Patton, who portrayed Ruth Dakin Bailey, the sister-in-law of Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey, in the Frank Capra holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life, has died. She was 97.

Patton died Thursday at an assisted living facility in Albany, Georgia, the Mathews Funeral Home announced.

Patton’s character in the 1946 film was married to Harry Bailey (Todd Karns), and her big scene takes place at the Bedford Falls train station, when she meets George and Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) for the first time.

While crewmembers were lighting her scene — filmed at the Santa Fe railroad’s now-defunct Lamanda Park station in Pasadena — with her stand-in, she was wondering about how she was going to eat her buttered popcorn while wearing white gloves.

“I was dressed as a young matron. I had a hat, a suit and white gloves, I was coming to meet my new in-laws,...