Notizie

Ben Gazzara, who was featured on Broadway in the original Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and in movies by the likes of John Cassavetes, Otto Preminger, and Peter Bogdanovich, died earlier today at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital Center as per the New York Times. Gazzara, who had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, was 81. Although Gazzara (the son of Italian immigrants, born Aug. 28, 1930, in New York City) is probably best remembered for his films directed by Cassavetes — Husbands (1970), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), and Opening Night (1978) — he was remarkably effective elsewhere. Arguably, much more effective elsewhere. Gazzara delivered a first-rate performance in Otto Preminger's cynical look at the American justice system, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), in which he played a military man on trial for killing a man — he claims — was attempting to rape his wife (Lee Remick, replacing Lana Turner). James Stewart is his somewhat shady defense attorney,...