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Quick Links What is She's Funny That Way About? She's Funny That Way Has a Perfect Ensemble She's Funny That Way Isn't the Film's Real Title She's Funny That Way Failed to Connect With Critics and Fans

Long gone are the days of romantic comedy movies dominating the worldwide box office. The vast majority of romcoms are consigned to an eternity on the streaming services, with no hope of making a real cultural impact. While the '90s and 2000s had Sleepless in Seattle, Something About Mary, and 50 First Dates staking their claim as box office giants, fans of the 2010s and 2020s are forced to excavate gems from streaming services and struggling theaters. Certain gems like Anyone But You, Crazy Rich Asians, or Midnight in Paris manage to break free of the "chick flick" label, but, for whatever reason, they are a dime a dozen. Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris,...

One of the brightest bulbs in the New Hollywood marquee was former film critic and historian Peter Bogdanovich. Exploding onto the scene in 1968 with the still-topical mass-shooter thriller “Targets,” Bogdanovich followed this breakout success with a slew of successful films, including “The Last Picture Show,” which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, the screwball comedy “What’s Up, Doc?,” and the Depression-set road movie “Paper Moon.”

But for as much success as he could find early on in his career, what goes up must come down, and during the latter half of the 1970s, he struggled to keep his initial spark aflame. Finally, moving further away from the studio system, Bogdanovich scaled back his approach, shooting an adaptation of Paul Theroux’s “Saint Jack” on location in Singapore with German cinematographer Robby Müller and actor Ben Gazzara. Though the film struggled at the box office, it fared well...

Quick Links Playboy's Involvement in the Production of Macbeth Cast and Crew of Macbeth Why MacBeth (1971) Is the Best '70s Shakespeare Adaptation How to Watch Macbeth

What do Playboy and Shakespeare have in common? The answer is very little. Yet, for a brief period, Hugh Hefner, through Playboy Productions, looked to get into making big-budgeted movies to make the brand more mainstream. This led to a chance meeting with acclaimed director Roman Polanski, leading to Playboy Productions starting off with one of the playwright's most recognizable works, Macbeth.

We will examine how Playboy got out of the grotto to try to class up their brand and how it led to one of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever to grace the screen. We will also break down those involved in the production and why you must watch 1971's Macbeth.

Playboy's Involvement in the Production of Macbeth

While Playboy has...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSTrenque Lauquen.Absurdly early as it may seem, the Best of 2023 lists are starting to arrive. The New York Times published top tens by Manohla Dargis and Alissa Wilkinson (only her third published piece as the Times’s newest movie critic after an illustrious run at Vox), Vulture shared lists from Bilge Ebiri and Allison Willmore, and Richard Brody unveiled his impossible-to-hem-in roundup at the New Yorker (we’ll return to his list in the Readings section). There are some consensus picks—among them, Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, Showing Up, and Passages—but there’s an exciting sprawl overall. Meanwhile, Cahiers du Cinéma shared their top ten; Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen was their delightful, well-deserved sleeper choice for film of the year. But...

Robby Müller: Living The Light director Claire Pijman will do a Q&a with Andrea Müller-Schirmer following the 2:30pm screening at Metrograph on Sunday, October 1 Photo: Claire Pijman

Claire Pijman’s resourceful and enlightening documentary, Robby Müller: Living The Light (with a score by Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan’s Sqùrl), is a big part of the series, Robby Müller: Remain in Light, at Metrograph that celebrates the legendary cinematographer, who died in 2018. Films by Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Sara Driver’s When Pigs Fly, Andrzej Wajda’s Korczak, Alex Cox’s Repo Man, Peter Bogdanovich’s Saint Jack, William Friedkin’s To Live And Die In LA, and Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People will all be shown.

Claire Pijman with Anne-Katrin Titze on Robby Müller and Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club: “That’s how I got to know him, and since then we stayed...

The list of directors who put their trust in Robby Müller could constitute a nice history of post-war cinema. A retrospective of films on which he served as Dp reflects accordingly––so’s the case with Metrograph’s “Robby Müller: Remain in Light,” which starts on Friday, September 29, and for which we’re glad to debut the trailer.

Contained therein are bits and pieces of what Metrograph attendees can anticipate. The series will offer a chance to see (among others) 24 Hour Party People, Alice in the Cities, The American Friend, Barfly, Breaking the Waves, Dead Man, Down by Law, Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, Kings of the Road, Korczak, Living the Light – Robby Müller, Mystery Train, Repo Man, Saint Jack, To Live and Die in L.A., When Pigs Fly, The Wrong Move, and Paris, Texas. The opening night will be anchored by “a panel on Müller’s continued influence on filmmaking,...

Edward L. Rissien, who produced the Burt Lancaster-starring war film Castle Keep and served as an executive at ABC, Bing Crosby Productions, Filmways and Playboy Productions, has died. He was 98.

Rissien died April 8 of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, his nephew, Emmy-nominated director Michael Zinberg (The Bob Newhart Show, The Good Wife, NCIS), told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Eddie was a well-respected man who had beautiful taste in material,” Zinberg said. “He was always looking for something that would make a difference.”

An Iowa native who started out as a stage manager on Broadway, Rissien helped set up Harry Belafonte‘s HarBel Productions after acquiring the film rights for Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), the Robert Wise-directed drama that starred Belafonte, Robert Ryan and Shelley Winters.

He also produced Snow Job (1972), starring legendary French skier and Olympic champion Jean-Claude Killy as a thief in his only feature role,...

Not many movie buffs have the chance to meet, let alone interview or become friendly with, their favorite moviemakers.

Peter Bogdanovich, who died January 6 at the age of 82, managed the trick many times over. First as a film scholar and magazine features writer, then as a filmmaker in his own right, Bogdanovich cozied up to the likes of directors like Ford, Hawks, and Welles, and actors like John Wayne, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart, among countless others.

By some combination of luck and persistence, Bogdanovich saw to it that these men, whose movies he had seen, inhaled, and studied as a youth in New York, became his teachers, mentors, and friends.

He accomplished what had been the dream of every movie buff since before the movies talked: to get to know, in flesh and blood, those icons of the silver screen.

It was with that model in the back of...

Update: Martin Scorsese shared a statement reflecting on the passing of Bogdanovich on Sunday: ““In the 60s, at a crucial moment in the history of the movie business and the art of cinema, Peter Bogdanovich was right there at the crossroads of the Old Hollywood and the New. Curator, critic, historian, actor, director, popular entertainer…Peter did it all. As a programmer here in New York, he put together essential retrospectives of then still overlooked masters from the glory days of the studio system; as a journalist he got to know almost everybody, from John Ford and Howard Hawks to Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant. Like many of us, he made his way into directing pictures by way of Roger Corman, and he and Francis Coppola broke into the system early on: Peter’s debut, ‘Targets,’ is still one of his very best films.

“With ‘The Last Picture Show,’ he...

Chicago – The work of filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich – who passed away on January 6th, 2022, at age 82 – was inspired by the cinematic language of American movies, which he interpreted through his many classic films. His most fertile and imaginative period were three movies from 1971 through 1973, which began with his masterpiece, “The Last Picture Show.”

Bogdanovich’s personal life was also the stuff of legend, and contributed to to a less inspired creative period after 1973, but he made a major comeback with “Mask” (1985) and didn’t stop there … he directed six more narrative feature films thereafter, two documentaries and seven TV movies.

In 2016: Peter Bogdanovich at the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival

Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

Peter Bogdanovich was born in Kingston, New York, the son of Serbian immigrants. An early adapter of film scholarship, Bogdanovich kept a meticulous record of every film he ever saw...

Peter Bogdanovich was born too late, but also at just the right time.

The 82-year-old film critic, historian, advocate and maker, who died Thursday, first blinked his eyes in 1939, the year Alfred Hitchcock moved to Hollywood, Mr. Smith went to Washington and John Ford made “Stagecoach.” He’d surely love to have worked during the 50-year “Golden Age” he identified as 1912-1962. And though he is most closely associated with the New Hollywood movement of the late ’60s and ’70s, his filmography feels anything but modern.

Bogdanovich’s two best films, “The Last Picture Show” (1971) and “Paper Moon” (1973) were shot in black and white decades after the format had gone out of fashion — the first a poignant elegy to a tumbleweed Texas town, as seen through the eyes of its restless teenage population, the other a Depression-era road movie about a handsome grifter (Ryan O’Neal) and his precocious traveling companion...

The passing of director Peter Bogdanovich January 6, at the age of 82, marks the loss of a maverick director who also kept the spirit of classic Hollywood alive with his entertaining anecdotes and spot-on impressions. He was truly a bridge to the past that served as his muse and eventually mourned the decline in Hollywood storytelling. To Bogdanovich, the difference between the classical and post-modern Hollywood was a full course meal versus an hors d’oeuvre.

The first time I interviewed Peter was for a story about “Mask” in 1985 when I was with The Hollywood Reporter. He was in the midst of a legal battle to obtain the rights to some Bruce Springsteen songs for his biopic about Rocky Dennis (Eric Stoltz), the sweet teenager who suffered from lionitis, and his struggle to survive with his mom (Cher). Rocky adored Springsteen’s music, which was a source of constant joy for him,...

Peter Bogdanovich, the celebrated, Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind classics like The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, as well as a frequent actor, died Thursday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 82. Bogdanovich’s daughter, Antonia Bogdanovich, confirmed his death, saying the director died of natural causes.

Bogdanovich began his career as a film critic and reporter before meeting producer Roger Corman, who’d been so impressed with some of his work that he enlisted him to help out on some of his films. Despite this ostensibly unconventional path into the film industry,...

Peter Bogdanovich, the actor, film historian and critic-turned-director of such classics as The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, What’s Up, Doc? and Mask, died today of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles. He was 82. Family members, who were by his side, said paramedics were unable to revive him.

His daughter, writer-director Antonia Bogdanovich, said of her father: “He never stopped working, and film was his life and he loved his family. He taught me a lot.”

Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery

While he would be best known later for his deadpan turn as the shrink’s shrink in The Sopranos, Bogdanovich exploded onto the cinematic scene in 1971 with The Last Picture Show, a box office hit he wrote and directed that drew comparisons to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and earned the filmmaker his only two Oscar noms — for Best Director and Adapted Screenplay. With a...

Celebrating the release of his new memoir, multi-hyphenate Steven Van Zandt joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Elevator To The Gallows (1958) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Breathless (1960) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

The Fisher King (1991)

Tony Rome (1967)

Lady In Cement (1968)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

The Killer (1989)

True Romance (1993)

True Lies (1994)

Get Shorty (1995) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Point Blank (1967) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Catch Us If You Can a.k.a. Sweet Memories (1965)

Double Trouble (1967)

Performance (1970) – Mark Goldblatt’s trailer commentary

The Driver (1978)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Tfh’s Don’t Knock The Rock piece

Help! (1965) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s review

Blue Collar (1978) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s...

Skin: A History Of Nudity In The Movies , Available On Demand August 18th, explores the history of nudity in film, beginning with the silent movie era through present day. The film features revealing interviews with actors including Pam Grier and Malcolm McDowellas well as directors Peter Bogdanovich, Kevin Smithand Amy Heckerling. Check out this trailer:

A definitive documentary on the history of nudity in the movies, beginning with the silent movie era through present day, examining the changes in morality that led to the use of nudity in films while emphasizing the political, sociological and artistic changes that shaped this rich history.

Skin: A History Of Nudity In The Movies delves into the gender bias concerning nudity in motion pictures and will follow the revolution that has pushed for gender equality in feature films today. A deep discussion of pre-code Hollywood and its amoral roots, the censorship that...

George Morfogen, a veteran stage actor who is best known for portraying the inmate Bob Rebadow on the HBO drama Oz, died Friday at his home in New York, his family announced. He was 86.

Morfogen also showed up in eight films directed by Peter Bogdanovich: What's Up Doc? (1972), Daisy Miller (1974), At Long Last Love (1975), Saint Jack (1979), They All Laughed (1981), Mask (1985), Illegally Yours (1988) and She's Funny That Way (2014).

Morfogen played the murderer Rebadow on 56 episodes over all six seasons (1997–2003) of Oz, created by Tom Fontana. His character, the oldest inmate at the Oswald State Correctional Facility, possessed ...

The 10th Lumière Festival this year will honor filmmaker, film historian and heritage film enthusiast Peter Bogdanovich, director of such classics as “The Last Picture Show” and “Paper Moon,” with a film showcase and celebration of his recent works.

The tribute will include the French premiere of his restored 1979 drama “Saint Jack” and the presentation of “The Great Buster,” his new documentary about Buster Keaton.

The festival, which runs Oct. 13-21 in Lyon, France, will also screen 1971’s “The Last Picture Show”; the 1971 documentary “Directed by John Ford” (which the director revised and re-edited for a 2006 version); 1972’s “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Paper Moon,” from 1973.

A major voice of the New Hollywood wave, Bogdanovich will also discuss his long career as part of a master class in Lyon. Also screening for the first time in France as part of the tribute will be Bill Teck’s 2014 documentary “One Day...

Singapore’s history as a filming location might not ever rival Tokyo or Hong Kong, but things are starting to look up: “Crazy Rich Asians,” the upcoming Hollywood adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s locally set novel, has already been touted as the biggest film to ever spotlight the metropolis.

The Warner Bros. release starring Constance Wu and Michelle Yeoh joins other noteworthy international movies that have filmed in Singapore since its founding as a republic in 1965.

Possibly the biggest pre-millennium title was “Saint Jack” (1979), Peter Bogdanovich’s down-and-dirty adaptation of Paul Theroux’s novel, which was partly based on the author’s own experiences in Singapore. It was filmed illicitly and without the government’s knowledge, long before the city cleaned up its prostitution scene, with salacious bits shot around Bugis Street.

Singapore subsequently banned the film until 2006, and few Hollywood movies attempted to risk the country’s wrath in the following decades.

Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.

The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt)

The last two trips director James Ponsoldt made to Sundance it was with two excellent dramas: Smashed and The Spectacular Now. This year, Ponsoldt returns with the often moving and consistently funny The End of the Tour. While the director’s latest may not be on par with his past two efforts, that’s not much of a problem considering the level of quality he achieves here. The End of the Tour follows a failed author,...

1979 is our "Year of the Month" and this post was way way too much fun to research. Before the main course of the Supporting Actress Smackdown (pushed to June 7th), let's marinate a little in the year that was. 

original print ad for Kramer vs. Kramer (available on eBay)

Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Christopher, and Daniel Stern broke out via "Breaking Away"

Best Movies According To...

Oscar: Kramer vs Kramer*, All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, and Norma Rae were the best pictures nominees but they also loved La Cage Aux Folles, The China Syndrome, Manhattan, Being There and The Black Stallion

Golden Globe: (drama) Kramer vs Kramer*, Apocalypse Now, The China Syndrome, Manhattan and Norma Rae (comedy)  Breaking Away*, Being There, Hair, The Rose, and 10

Cannes: Apocalypse Now And All That Jazz (Glenn discussed this odd consecutive Oscar-adjacent business)

Box Office: 1) Kramer vs. Kramer 2) The Amityville Horror...

By Lee Pfeiffer 

Scorpion has released the complete version of the 3-part 1978 mini series "The Dain Curse" as a double DVD set. The show has a checkered history in terms of home video. A truncated version was available for a while on VHS, then Image released the full three episodes on DVD. Now Scorpion has done the same and the quality of the set is very good, capturing the relatively rich production values of the series. Those of us of a certain age can remember when the major networks put a great deal of time, talent and financial resources into mini-series. In the 1970s and 1980s, many of these shows constituted "must-see" TV. In an age in which the average household didn't have video recorders, some shows were so special that people altered their lifestyles to ensure they could catch each episode. Today, those days seem long gone, with network...

"A New York native of Sicilian heritage, Ben Gazzara was a strongly masculine, subtly menacing screen presence with a gravelly voice that one writer described as 'saloon-cured' and another said could strip paint at 50 paces," writes Dennis McLellan in the Los Angeles Times. "The veteran actor, who died Friday in New York City, found fame on Broadway in the 1950s, starred in the TV series Run for Your Life in the 1960s and was closely identified on the big screen with independent filmmaker John Cassavetes."

In Cassavetes's Husbands (1970), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) and Opening Night (1976), "he plays varieties of himself, as Cassavetes saw him: the moderate man who loses his head and takes immoderate action," blogs the New Yorker's Richard Brody. "Husbands, in particular, finds Gazzara accomplishing one of the most astonishing, and moving, feats ever filmed: he steals a movie from Cassavetes and Peter Falk…. The movies...

February has kicked off on a sad note this year, as respected and beloved character actor Ben Gazzara has passed way at the age of 81 from pancreatic cancer. Gazzara first earned notice for this role on the NBC series "Run For Your Life" in the 1960s, a part that would earn him three Golden Globe nominations, however, it was his work with John Cassavetes would mark the most memorable and influential of his career. As part of the director's regular retinue, he starred in "Husbands," "The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie" and "Opening Night." And as actors they both appeared together in "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" and "Capone." The actor also found a fan in Peter Bogdanovich, who directed him in the cult favorite "Saint Jack" and the infamous "They All Laughed." "I don't think they make actors like Ben anymore. I'm going to miss him a lot,...

Prolific actor who built a 60-year career in the Us and Europe

Few screen debuts have equalled the searing malevolence of Ben Gazzara's Iago-inspired Jocko De Paris in The Strange One (1957). The role, which he had created on stage, became forever associated with this intense graduate of New York's method school of acting.

Gazzara, who has died aged 81 of pancreatic cancer, continued his stage career in modern classics including Epitaph for George Dillon and as the humiliated and vengeful George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1976). He also achieved popular acclaim through television series – notably Run for Your Life (1965-68) – and in movies for his friend John Cassavetes and other directors including Otto Preminger, Peter Bogdanovich, David Mamet, Todd Solondz and the Coen brothers.

Gazzara was born to Sicilian immigrants and grew up on Manhattan's lower east side. He began acting at the Madison Square Boys Club and...

Ben Gazzara at Cinema Retro's dinner for Robert Vaughn at New York's Players club, 2009. (Photo by Tom Stroud)

By Lee Pfeiffer

Ben Gazzara, who was born in poverty in a New York slum and rose to be a major star of stage and screen, has succumbed to cancer at age 81. Gazzara was part of a new generation of method actors that emerged in the 1950s and he studied at the fabled Actors Studio under the direction of Lee Strasberg in the company of other up-and-coming stars as Marlon Brando, James Dean and Paul Newman. The competitiveness of that talented group often meant that roles created by one actor later proved to be star-making vehicles for another actor. For example, it was Gazzara who originated the role of Brick, the hunk who is confused about his own sexuality in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, earning one of...

Stage and screen legend Ben Gazzara has died after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer - the same disease that killed his Road House co-star Patrick Swayze.

Gazzara, who was 81, died at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan on Friday.

A native New Yorker, the Emmy winner studied with drama guru Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio and became a Broadway stage sensation in the 1950s thanks to leading roles in plays like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Hatful of Rain.

Gazzara made a string of TV appearances in the late 1950s and hit the big screen in Anatomy of a Murder, opposite James Stewart, in 1959.

The film picked up seven Oscar nominations and shot Gazzara into the Hollywood spotlight - where he became a revered actor for 50 years. Key projects have included Convicts 4, Saint Jack, The Big Lebowski, Buffalo 66, Happiness, Dogville, Summer of Sam and the 1999 Thomas Crown Affair remake.

Gazzara also enjoyed a string of movie successes as legendary director John Cassavetes' collaborator - the two old pals teamed up in Husbands, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night.

He always brought a sense of great drama and a tremendous physical presence to his roles, often playing villains and morally corrupt characters.

On TV, he is best known for his role as Paul Bryan in the long-running 1960s series Run For Your Life.

He returned to the stage in recent years and toured his one-man show throughout the New York area as he battled throat cancer.

Gazzara was working with Jerry Lewis and Peter Bogdanovich on new movie Max Rose when he died. As WENN went to press it was not known if he had completed his work for the film.

Ben Gazzara died today at 81, of pancreatic cancer. As an actor, he's one of the last of a generation: trained at the Actors Studio, he went on to create a 60-year career. After success on Broadway, Gazzara starred in films like Otto Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder" and as the terminally ill lawyer of the TV series "Run For Your Life." And while he later created memorable performances in films like "The Big Lebowski," "Buffalo 66" and "Happiness," he may have been best known as part of the repertory group that defined many of John Cassavetes' productions, including "Husbands," "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" and "Opening Night." "Opening Night" is also where Gazzara met Peter Bogdanovich, a longtime admirer who became his champion and directed him in two films, "Saint Jack," an adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel in which Gazzara portrayed Jack Flowers, a...

Ben Gazzara, star of "Anatomy of a Murder" and "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" has died at age 81. The actor, who was a favorite of director John Cassavetes, died of pancreatic cancer at Bellevue Hospital Center, his lawyer, Jay Julien, told the New York Times. He was a contemporary of higher-profile stars Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger and also studied at the famed Actors Studio in Manhattan. He conquered Broadway, originating the role of Brick in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," but didn't capitalize on his rising star when Hollywood came calling. "When I became hot, so to speak, in the theater, I got a lot of offers,” he told Charlie Rose in a 1998 interview. “I won't tell you the pictures I turned down because you would say, ‘You are a fool.' And I was a fool.” Gazzara still managed to make an indelible mark on the movies,...

Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, They All Laughed Ben Gazzara Dead Pt.1: Anatomy Of A Murder, Husbands, An Early Frost Long before An Early Frost, Ben Gazzara had already appeared in two (however veiled) gay-themed productions. On Broadway, he was the virile ex-football player pining for his "best friend" while ignoring wife Barbara Bel Geddes in the 1955 original staging of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. (Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor played those two roles in the bowdlerized 1958 movie version directed by Richard Brooks.) And in 1957, Gazzara made his film debut as a sexually troubled military man who gets off by viciously abusing (or watching others viciously abuse) his fellow cadets in Jack Garfein's The Strange One. Among Gazzara's other 75 or so feature films — many of which were made in Italy — are Steve Carver's Capone (1975), in the title role; Stuart Rosenberg's Voyage of the Damned...

Stage and screen legend Ben Gazzara has died after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer - the same disease that killed his Road House co-star Patrick Swayze.

Gazzara, who was 81, died at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan on Friday.

A native New Yorker, the Emmy winner studied with drama guru Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio and became a Broadway stage sensation in the 1950s thanks to leading roles in plays like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Hatful of Rain.

Gazzara made a string of TV appearances in the late 1950s and hit the big screen in Anatomy of a Murder, opposite James Stewart, in 1959.

The film picked up seven Oscar nominations and shot Gazzara into the Hollywood spotlight - where he became a revered actor for 50 years. Key projects have included Convicts 4, Saint Jack, The Big Lebowski, Buffalo 66, Happiness, Dogville, Summer of Sam and the 1999 Thomas Crown Affair remake.

Gazzara also enjoyed a string of movie successes as legendary director John Cassavetes' collaborator - the two old pals teamed up in Husbands, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night.

He always brought a sense of great drama and a tremendous physical presence to his roles, often playing villains and morally corrupt characters.

On TV, he is best known for his role as Paul Bryan in the long-running 1960s series Run For Your Life.

He returned to the stage in recent years and toured his one-man show throughout the New York area as he battled throat cancer.

Gazzara was working with Jerry Lewis and Peter Bogdanovich on new movie Max Rose when he died. As WENN went to press it was not known if he had completed his work for the film.

Veteran actor Ben Gazzara passed away earlier today at the Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan at the age of 81, after a longtime battle with pancreatic cancer.

Ben Gazzara was born on August 28, 1930 in the East Side of Manhattan to Italian immigrants. He enrolled in the prestigious Actors Studio in Manhattan, and honed his craft under the tutelage of legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg.

He is best known for is work with director John Cassavetes including roles in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night. He also worked with acclaimed directors such as Peter Bogdanovich (Saint Jack, They All Laughed), Otto Preminger (Anatomy of a Murder), David Mamet (The Spanish Prisoner), Spike Lee (Summer of Sam), and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (The Big Lebowski).

He was also known for his extensive work on the Broadway stage, including his turn as Brick in the original version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

The New York Times is reporting that legendary actor Ben Gazzara lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City earlier today. He was 81 years old. The New York-based, classically-trained actor, born Biagio Anthony Gazzara, is best known for his work with the late John Cassavetes, a pioneer in independent filmmaking with pioneering films like The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) and Opening Night (1977). He followed those pivotal films by working with other prominent directors, such as Peter Bogdanovich ( Saint Jack , They All Laughed ), David Mamet ( The Spanish Prisoner ), Spike Lee ( Summer of Sam ) and Lars von Trier ( Dogville ). Although Gazzara never received an Oscar nomination for his film work, he received four Emmy...

Millions of dollars can be yours and all you have to do is spin, aim, and survive. An all-star cast bring the chills to DVD and Blu-ray on November 8th with the Anchor Bay Films thriller 13.A remake of the award-winning 2005 international sensation 13 Tzameti, 13 is written and directed by Gela Babluani, the original film.s writer/director, and boasts an all-star cast including Sam Riley (Control, Brighton Rock), Curtis .50 Cent. Jackson (Get Rich or Die Tryin.), Ray Winstone (The Departed, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), Alexander Skarsgård (.True Blood.), Oscar nominee Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, .Boardwalk Empire,. the upcoming Superman film Man of Steel), Ben Gazzara (Saint Jack, They All Laughed), Emmanuelle Chriqui (You...

Blogdanovich is the blog of director, producer, writer, actor, film critic, and author Peter Bogdanovich. He has directed over 25 feature films including international award winners The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon, Daisy Miller, Saint Jack, Mask; cult favorites Targets, Texasville, Noises Off, They All Laughed, and A The Thing Called Love, among stars he’s introduced: Cybill Shepherd, Tatum O’Neal, Madeline Kahn, John Ritter, Sandra Bullock; has directed stars Audrey Hepburn, Barbra Streisand, Michael Caine, Cher; best-sellers Who the Devil Made It: Who the Hell's In It, The Killing of the Unicorn; standard texts John Ford, This is Orson Welles; and was a recurring guest-star on the popular HBO series The Sopranos.

Director Peter Bogdanovich.

Interviewing Peter Bogdanovich for the April 2002 issue of Venice Magazine was a thrill for me. Like Francis Coppola, John Frankenheimer, and William Friedkin before him, Bogdanovich was one of those filmmakers whose one-sheets hung on my bedroom walls growing up. Plus the fact that he himself had a renowned career as a film historian and interviewer of his own childhood heroes, such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Orson Welles, and dozens of others, made our talk a real feast.

Not long after the article was printed, I received a letter with a New York City postmark. The note enclosed said simply: “Dear Alex, thanks for doing your homework so well, and thanks for the good vibes. All the best to you of love and luck, Peter Bogdanovich.”

Our chat remains one of my favorites during my 15 year tenure as a film writer. --A.S.

Peter Bogdanovich’S...

Thank goodness Hugh Hefner came in at the last minute to save the Hollywood Sign. At least for the sake of the tourism industry, which would have been left with an enormous supply of worthless redundantly captioned postcards and snow globes. I'm reminded of the poor stereotypical Italian guy in Superman III who has to make new models of the Tower of Pisa after Evil Superman straightens it.

But seriously, the Sign is little more than a relic of some ancient real estate scheme, so it would have been fitting for a modern real estate venture to do away with it. Just as it would be appropriate for the Chinese to demolish parts of the Great Wall as a sign of its willingness to let in certain foreign invaders influences so long as they contribute to the nation's rise as a global economic superpower.

No, but seriously, the Hollywood Sign is a necessary landmark,...

The list of Roger Corman protégés is amazingly long and stuffed with goodies of all persuasions. There are the famous men: Scorcese (Box Car Bertha); Demme (Caged Heat, Crazy Mama), Nicholson (Little Shop of Horrors), Joe Dante (Cockfighter), Francis Coppola (Battle Beyond the Sun), Ron Howard (Grand Theft Auto) Sylvester Stallone (Death Race 2000), Bruce Dern, Robert De Niro (Bloody Mama) Peter Fonda ( The Wild Angels), Peter Bogdanovich (Saint Jack) Curtis Hanson (Sweet Kill) and Jonathan Kaplan (Night Call Nurses) and those are just a few of the guys who wrote to the Motion Picture Academy to advocate for the award that Corman is finally getting this weekend. Corman with Jonathan Demme. They said, "it is virtually impossible to separate our various entries into the film industry from Roger Corman and his obsession with working with newcomers." Or how about...