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In Jeff Bridges’ 1977 Rolling Stone cover story, the actor plays “Kong” — a truly wild and oddly impassioned song he wrote and sang, inspired by the lead creature of the King Kong remake Bridges was filming at the time — for writer Tim Cahill. Nearly five decades later, the world is getting to hear that long-lost track and 10 others, all recorded by Bridges and a musically gifted group of friends from high school. Bridges’ Slow Magic, due April 12 in record stores and April 11 online, is a deeply enjoyable collection that unearths the...

The ending of Yellowstone may have left a bad taste in some people's mouths, but there are undoubtedly still a legion of Taylor Sheridan fans out there who still love his work. The filmmaker is arguably at his best when writing film scripts, as evidenced by Sicario, Wind River, and Hell or High Water. That latter film is arguably his most acclaimed script, garnering a massive 97% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 88% audience rating. The film earned Sheridan an Oscar nomination for his script, and was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Editing, and Best Supporting Actor, with that nod going to star Jeff Bridges. Now Hell or High Water is a big streaming hit eight years after its release.

The Western heist film stars Bridges alongside Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham, Dale Dickey, and Sheridan himself, and was directed by David Mackenzie. Its plot synopsis reads as...

Any given movie might have a strict number of requirements to justify itself as a Western, but for as tight of a scope as the genre has, many unique films within it manage to stand out for their uniqueness. Westerns are characterized by their themes of isolation, revenge, and lawlessness, typically utilizing familiar characters like the lone gunslinger and taking place in the American Wild West. While the tropes that define the Western genre may seem to limit the films to a quite standard procedure, a few notable Westerns manage to break the mold in fascinating ways.

The few Westerns that do manage to stand out in their uniqueness do so in a few ways. Some of them break the conventional story beats of the more classic Western films by introducing plot elements or thematic tones that may seem foreign or unheard of for the genre. Others use mash-ups with...

Hearts of the West is a 1975 American comedy film written by Rob Thompson, produced for MGM by Tony Bill, and directed by legendary commercial producer Howard Zieff: (I cant believe I ate the whole thing). The film has been called a valentine to the early days of moviemaking and is built around the performance of then-26-year-old actor Jeff Bridges, fresh off a string of early, career-building successes like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.

Jeff Bridges isn’t like other leading men. So goes the tale for over 50 years and 70 films. Where other actors of his generation—Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson—brought volume and bravado, Bridges excelled in the shadows. A charming pretty boy turned weary and soulful iconoclast, his characters have never been showy. As The Dude in “The Big Lebowski” or Bad Blake in “Crazy Heart,” he’s moved into his roles and lived in them—“enough,” as one critic wrote as early as 1973, “to make a picture worth seeing.”

“I’m not sure what to make of all that,” Bridges told Variety at Film at Lincoln Center Monday evening, where the actor received the prestigious Chaplin Award. “It’s shocking for myself to think about how many films I’ve done,” he said. “Each film is like a little lifetime. I was a reluctant actor at first. It took many...

Dianne Crittenden, the casting director whose impressive résumé included the first Star Wars film, The In-Laws and the Terrence Malick features Badlands, Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, has died. She was 82.

Crittenden died Wednesday at her home in Pacific Palisades after a battle with several cancers, fellow casting director Ilene Starger told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Dianne was my mentor, we’ve known each other for 44 years,” Starger said. “She was also my dear friend, more like an older sister, really. So generous, kind, brilliant, funny. A people magnet. Her knowledge of and insight into actors was extraordinary.”

A former head of casting at Warner Bros., Crittenden collaborated with Martin Ritt on Murphy’s Romance (1985) and Stanley & Iris (1990); with Roger Donaldson on Thirteen Days (2000) and The World’s Fastest Indian (2005); and with Peter Weir on Witness (1985), The Mosquito Coast (1986) and Green Card (1990).

Crittenden was born in Queens on Aug.

The reaction was always the same. During my high school days, I must have seen “Wait Until Dark” five times during its theatrical release. Audrey Hepburn was appealing, of course, but the main attraction for me was Alan Arkin’s chilling portrayal of a psycho sadist who, in the course of reclaiming a misdirected heroin shipment, terrorizes a blind woman in her apartment. Late in the 1967 thriller, the distressed damsel temporarily gets the upper hand by stabbing her tormentor. But as she walks away, the psycho leaps back into her kitchen and grabs her ankle.

And every time he did this, every time I saw “Wait Until Dark,” people in the audience screamed. Really, really loudly. Like, louder than the folks around me in a theater seven years later during the first jump-scare in “Jaws.”

While reading the online obituaries and social media tributes as the sad news of Arkin’s death spread,...

Alan Arkin, the versatile actor who finally won an Oscar — for Little Miss Sunshine — after making a career of disappearing into characters with turns that could be comic, chilling or charming, has died. He was 89.

His sons, Adam, Matthew and Anthony, announced the news in a joint statement. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” they said. “A loving husband, father, grand and great-grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.”

He had heart trouble and died Thursday at his home in San Marcos, California.

In his first significant role in a feature, Arkin received a rare best actor Oscar nomination for work in a comedy when he played a Russian sailor whose submarine is marooned off the coast of a New England fishing village in Norman Jewison’s The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming (1966).

Two years later,...

Anthony James, an instantly recognizable character actor who often played the creepy guy including in Best Picture Oscar winners In the Heat of the Night and Unforgiven, died May 26 of cancer. He was 77.

James had made a single brief appearance on a TV series before Norman Jewison cast him as the killer Ralph in 1967’s In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. The film went on to win five Oscars, including Best Picture.

He would bookend his career with a key role in Unforgiven as the slimy brothel owner Skinny Dubois, who ends up on the losing end of Bill Munny’s gun. That 1992 pic starring and helmed by Eastwood won four Academy Awards, including the marquee prize, and would be James’ final screen credit.

It was the second time an Eastwood character would dispatch James in a revenge Western. Two decades earlier, his Cole...

Not funny enough, or too hip for the house? I found the Coen Bros.' send-up of old-fashioned movie madness good fun, with some great new actors. If you like droll comedy combined with spot-on recreations of old movie genres, this show can't lose. And there has to be somebody out there who wants to see George Clooney in a skirt. Hail, Caesar! Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD Universal Pictures Home Entertainment 2016 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date June 7, 2016 / 34.98 Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum, Veronica Osorio, Heather Goldenhersh, Max Baker, Clancy Brown, Fisher Stevens, Patick Fischler, Robert Picardo, Christopher Lambert, Robert Trebor, Michael Gambon (voice), Dolph Lundgren. Cinematography Roger Deakins Film Editors Ethan and Joel Coen Original Music Carter Burwell Produced by Tim Bevan, Ethan and Joel Coen, Eric Fellner Written and Directed by Ethan and Joel Coen...

"The Mets Game last night was so Texas man.  I was freaking out!" You might not understand that sentence for a number of reasons. What are these Mets? And what makes them so Texas? Why are people freaking out?! Well our good friends from the Scandinavian country of Norway have coined a new, bizarre slang practice; replacing the word "crazy" with "Texas." The phrase "helt Texas" means totally crazy or chaotic to Norwegians.  Some believe the trend started in the 1970s with a rise in Hollywood cowboy movies but regardless it seems to have taken full effect in 2015.   For example, this commercial in the video above from a Norwegian Pizza Restaurant uses...

By Todd Garbarini

Lewis John Carlino’s 1979 film The Great Santini, which stars Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, and Michael O’Keefe, will be screened at the The Royale Laemmle Theater in Los Angeles. Based upon the novel by Pat Conroy (The Water is Wide, The Lords of Discipline, and The Prince of Tides), the 115-minute film will be screened on Tuesday, October 27th, 2015 at 7:00 pm.

Actresses Blythe Danner and Lisa Jane Persky and director Lewis John Carlino are scheduled to appear at the screening and are due to partake in a post-screening Q & A for a discussion on the making of the film. Please be sure the check back with the website in regards to personal appearances/changing schedules.

From the press release:

Ben Meechum (Michael O’Keefe) struggles to win the approval of his demanding alpha male father (Robert Duvall), an aggressively competitive marine pilot.

The Great Santini...

It’s definitely been a week for good-byes.

My daughters and I spent the weekend in the beautiful, still somewhat quaint small town of Auburn, California, helping to lay to rest and celebrate the life of my dear aunt Mary Pascuzzi, my fraternal grandmother’s sister, who was the centered matriarch of her own family and a stabilizing force for all of us in her extended family as well. She, and my grandmother, were big fans of classic-era American movies and enthusiastically encouraged my interest, just one reason why they’re both held dear in my heart and in my memory. And being Italian, they both had more than a casual interest in The Godfather when it came out in 1972. I remember my aunt Mary talking to me about having seen it and wondering, me at the ripe old age of 12, if I’d had a chance to go yet.

Alex Rocco, a veteran character actor most famous for starring in Hollywood classic "The Godfather," has died. He was 79.

Rocco's daughter, Jennifer Rocco, revealed the actor's passing in a series of Facebook posts, writing that her father passed away on July 18 after a long, private battle with cancer. Jennifer Rocco thanked his fans for their support, writing, "I know he is watching over us."

Alex Rocco's prolific career spanned decades, but the actor became synonymous with "The Godfather," the 1972 Oscar-winning film in which he played casino owner Moe Greene. In a 2012 interview with The A.V. Club, Rocco said that that role was "without a doubt, my biggest ticket anywhere. I mean that literally."

Rocco parlayed that fame into a lengthy, eclectic resume in both film and television. He starred most recently on Starz series "Magic City," "Episodes," and "Maron," and also appeared on shows including "The Simpsons," "The Facts of Life,...

Alan Menken and Glenn Slater are turning from the medieval knights of Galavant to a Hollywood cowboy. Producers today announced that Menken and Slater are writing the music and lyrics for Happy Trails, a new musical heading to Broadway about Roy Rogers and his wife, Dale Evans. Marshall Brickman, who won an Academy Award for co-writing Annie Hall with Woody Allen, is responsible for the book, and Tony winner Des McAnuff will direct.

Analysis of 10,000 movies reveals the films with the highest disparity between critic and audience reviews

There are some movies you'll just go and see no matter what the critics say. Maybe it's a big dumb comedy and you feel like a laugh, or there's that one actor who you'll watch no matter what. Conversely, there are some critics who can have a big influence on what you'll see, no matter what your friends say – you know their work, and trust their recommendations.

So, what are the movies that people loved, but critics hated? And what about those movies that got rave reviews but just didn't click with audiences?

To try and answer these questions I've analysed 10,000 movies from 1970 to 2013 in the Rotten Tomatoes database, and determined the difference in audience score and critic score by subtracting the former from the latter. This gives us an index of audience-critic agreement, which...

Ben Affleck's latest film as a director is a memorable dramatisation of the CIA's rescue of six diplomats from Iran

In the early 20th century Baroness Orczy created Sir Percy Blakeney, the British aristocrat who, as that intrepid master of disguise the Scarlet Pimpernel, whisked noble folk away from the guillotine during the French revolution. The 1934 film version was a big success for Leslie Howard, who seven years later updated the story to the outbreak of the second world war as Pimpernel Smith, with himself as a mild-mannered Cambridge archaeologist rescuing anti-Nazi intellectuals from Hitler's Germany.

The film made him a personal target of Joseph Goebbels, and shortly thereafter the young diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saw the film at the British embassy in Stockholm and was inspired to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from Adolf Eichmann by issuing them with Swedish documents. In 1945 he was arrested by the Soviet army...

I remember back in school how annoyed I would get with my English teachers as we dissected every word in the books we were assigned to read. It seemed not a sentence would go by that didn't hold some larger meaning. I'd be thinking, "Not every word has to have some deeper meaning. Can't an author simply be telling a story?" When it comes to films, I think a larger case can be made for looking deeper into things given they are working under tighter constraints than most books, but at the same time I can't tell you how many interviews I've read where directors have been asked the "What did you mean by X? And was there anything to Y?" and the answer comes back, "Nothing really, just thought it worked for the story." In fact, I had a similar situation recently when discussing The Perks of Being a Wallflower...

HollywoodNews.com: The 16th Annual Hollywood Film Awards, presented by the Los Angeles Times, is pleased to announce that the feature "Argo," directed by Ben Affleck, will receive the "Hollywood Ensemble Acting Award." "We are very proud to recognize the ensemble cast of "Argo," for their dramatic and outstanding performances," said Carlos de Abreu, Founder and Executive Director of the Hollywood Film Awards. The 2012 Hollywood Film Awards has also announced that it will honor director David O. Russell with the "Hollywood Director Award"; Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro with the "Hollywood Supporting Actor Award"; Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard with the "Hollywood Actress Award"; three-time Academy Award-nominated actress Amy Adams with the "Hollywood Supporting Actress Award"; producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner with the "Hollywood Producers Award"; writer/director Judd Apatow with the "Hollywood Comedy Award"; actor John Hawkes with the "Hollywood Breakout Performance Award" for "The Sessions"; and Quvenzhané Wallis...

On TV this Wednesday: Dallas is saddlin’ up for a whodunit, Andy Griffith is A Face in the Crowd, Futurama is on the juice and Around the World in 80 Plates is ready to pick a champ. Here are 10 programs to keep in mind today.

3 pm General Hospital (ABC) | Blair’s back! One Life to Live favorite Kassie DePaiva returns to Port Charles to support daughter Starr – and share a scene or two with Todd (watch an exclusive sneak peek). Daytime fans, what news do you think Ms. Cramer and her ex might have for each other? Sound off in the comments!

Andy Griffith was understandably defined by his most popular role: Sheriff Andy Taylor on the early 1960s series, The Andy Griffith Show.

Because of that, it sometimes seemed, in the years after – at least to those of us who’d grown up watching Sheriff Andy — Griffith was working awfully hard to show there was more to him than the genial, sage, small-town sheriff on what was easily one of the gentlest and most sweet-natured (without being saccharine) shows in TV history. I remember his racist murderer in the true crime-inspired Murder in Coweta County (1983), still defiant and unapologetic as he’s being strapped into an electric chair for execution; his caustic, hard-drinking, and ultimately thieving Hollywood cowboy extra in the overlooked cult favorite, Hearts of the West (1975); his neo-fascist general in the 1979 TV mini-series redo of From Here to Eternity.

This was, in fact, the reason he’d left Andy Griffith...

Update: TV Land just announced that it has scheduled marathon programming blocks of The Andy Griffith Show from 8 Am-1 Pm tomorrow and from 11 Am-8 Pm on Saturday and Sunday. The show has been a staple on the network for years and even dedicated a statue to Griffith in Raleigh, North Carolina. Previous, 8:59 Am:  Turner Classic Movies will show four Andy Griffith films on July 18 as a tribute to the actor, who died Tuesday at age 86. The network will remember his life and career with the Elia Kazan-directed A Face In The Crowd (1957) at 8 Pm Et, followed by No Time For Sargeants (1958) at 10:15, Hearts Of The West (1975) at 12:30, and Onionhead (1958) at 2:15. Related: Exclusive: Ron Howard On Andy Griffith...

TCM Remembers American actor Andy Griffith Wednesday, July 18. Their tribute will include A Face in the Crowd (1957),No Time for Sergeants (1958), Hearts of the West (1975) and Onionhead (1958) Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will remember the life and career of actor Andy Griffith on Wednesday, July 18. Griffith passed away this morning at the age of 86. TCM.s four-film memorial tribute is set to begin at 8 p.m. (Et) with Griffith's brilliant performance in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). The night also features the hilarious service comedy No Time for Sergeants (1958). The following is a complete schedule (all times Eastern): A Face in the Crowd (1957)8 p.m. . A Face in...

Legendary multihyphenate Andy Griffith has died, his close friend and Unc president Bill Friday told North Carolina’s Witn-tv. Griffith was found in his Dare County, N.C. home on Tuesday morning; he was 86.

Television viewers first met Griffith through his 1950s appearances on variety programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show, but it was the role of Sheriff Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show, which ran from 1960 to 1968, that made him a household name. Watch the opening:

Ron Howard, who played Sheriff Taylor’s son Opie, remembers Griffith for “his love of creating,...

Character actor Frank Cady has died at age 96. Cady was best known for playing folksy, friendly everyday people. His portrayal of Mr. Drucker, the general store owner in the fictional town of Hooterville, saw him play the same character in the popular CBS TV series Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction. He played the role between 1965 and 1971. The shows were still at the top of the ratings when CBS president Fred Silverman decided to cancel the rural-themed comedies, a move that is now considered to be one of the most ill-advised in the history of the television industry. Cady also had supporting and bit roles in feature films such as Rear Window, The Gnome Mobile, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and Hearts of the West. For more click here...

It's hard to believe that yesterday's rebellious hearthrob could ever have transformed into today's premier Hollywood cowboy, but that's been the career trajectory of Timothy Olyphant. Whether you know him as Seth Bullock, Raylan Givens, or one of his many villain roles, Timothy Olyphant's sly, somewhat off-kilter persona has garnered him a surprising body of work. We choose eleven Timothy Olyphant roles that prove the man's a badass.

It's hard to believe that yesterday's rebellious hearthrob could ever have transformed into today's premier Hollywood cowboy, but that's been the career trajectory of Timothy Olyphant. Whether you know him as Seth Bullock, Raylan Givens, or one of his many villain roles, Timothy Olyphant's sly, somewhat off-kilter persona has garnered him a surprising body of work. We choose eleven Timothy Olyphant roles that prove the man's a badass.

With the Fall Classic rapidly coming our way, A&E productions has foisted another series of nostalgic baseball DVDs upon us. As usual, the Yankees take center stage, but this time at least, they’ve left room for another team of note to share the spotlight. That would be the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels, one of the most snake-bitten franchises in baseball without even the cold comfort of a famous curse to fall back on. The Angels celebrated their 50th anniversary this year, which A&E properly notes in a pair of DVD sets… as well as delivering another gorgeous piece of Yankee porn to keep the pinstriped faithful warm after their disappointing playoff departure this year. Hit the jump for my full review of Angels Memories, The Anaheim Angels 2002 World Series Collection, and Yankeeography Collectors Edition on DVD. All three sets are built with hardcore fans in mind...

Watching the 1975 film Hearts Of The West, it’s easy to figure out why it faded into obscurity, in spite of a cast headed by Jeff Bridges and including Andy Griffith, Alan Arkin, and Blythe Danner. Unfailingly sweet and low-key almost to a fault, it’s more pleasant than excellent, the sort of film remembered fondly but faintly. But that doesn’t mean it deserves obscurity, particularly with such virtues as Bridges’ aw-shucks performance as the memorably named Lewis Tater, a Depression-era Iowa farm boy with dreams of writing Westerns. Deciding to cut out the middleman, he travels to ...

Here's the latest celeb gossip excerpt from a post originally featured on Green Celebrity Network (http://greencelebrity.net), a green gossip website that shares unique lifestyle reviews about Hollywood star celebs featured in movies, on television, and whose names recently made front page headlines in entertainment news. The website says...

Celebrity Death! Gunsmoke actor James Arness dead in La celebrity home? [Jun. 3] Immortalized in Toby Keith’s song, Should’ve Been a Cowboy, Legendary actor James Arness, passed away quietly Friday, June 3, in his Los Angeles celebrity home. Known most for his role as Marshall Dillon on Gunsmoke from 1955 to 1975, he was the epitome of a Hollywood cowboy, and also starred in dozens of movies, some as recent as 1994. Arness (brother of late Mission Impossible actor, Peter Graves), died of natural causes at age 88. During Arness’s career, he shared screen time with numerous famous actors, including Alec Baldwin, John Wayne,...

Mosaïques, London

This festival of world culture offers a different perspective to British equivalents, leaning as it does towards France's ties with Africa, the Middle East and south-east Asia. A case in point is French-Tunisian guest of honour Abdellatif "Couscous" Kechiche, whose Black Venus finds rich material in the life of 19th century "Hottentot Venus" Saartjie Baartman. There's also Berlin film festival winner A Separation, and from south China, The Rice Paddy, set among the tribal Dong people. Among documentaries are Ethiopian sounds in Abyssinie Swing and Mexican circus thrills in Circo.

Various venues, Thu to 9 Jun, institut-francais.org.uk/mosaiques

On Dangerous Ground: The Cinema Of Bernard Herrmann, Bristol

There's music for film, there are films that use music, and then there's the work of Bernard Herrmann, which seems to come from another place entirely. His work with Hitchcock is best known – the stabbing strings of Psycho, the...

For this edition of The Guide, we're going to jump around a little through time and space. Well, if not exactly time and space, then at least relatives and hair. If you really think about it, Hollywood is all about hair -- who has it, who doesn't, who makes good use of his or hers, whose is a disaster (here's looking at you Helena Bonham Carter), whose haircut is in or out, whose color is real and which bald dude is hot. Sometimes I can get confused between the bald dudes, especially now that half the guys with receding or spotty hairlines have decided to just shave their heads instead of waiting for the inevitable. And sometimes, as with the Bridges-Russell continuum, a similar hair shadow (footprint?) leaves almost no way to tell a couple of hairy dudes apart.

Then there are the actor families you didn't even know were actor families,...

The trailer for Joel and Ethan Coen's Western True Grit, featuring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Hailee Steinfeld, received wild raves by various online pundits earlier today. Perhaps I'm the only one who has been left totally unimpressed. Not only that, as much as I admire Jeff Bridges, this trailer makes True Grit look like something I'd be quite reluctant to shell out $12 for. Come to think of it, while watching the trailer I wondered what kind of audience the Coens and distributor Paramount are after. The people who stayed away from Jonah Hex? Based on Charles Portis' novel — and not on Henry Hathaway's lame 1969 movie that earned John Wayne one of the most undeserved Oscars in Academy history — the Coens' Western looks dark and dirty, but still very much like a Hollywood cowboy flick. In fact, there's at least one homage to the 1969 film,...

Craig here with this week's Take Three

Today: Alan Arkin

Take One: Three-hundred-and-sixty-three words about one performance

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001) was a solemn little indie film. I caught at random back in ’06 - and returned to it this week for Take Three. It’s one of those character-driven, multi-plot-strand affairs, à la Short Cuts - one of the many that came in the wake of Magnolia etc - where the cast are individually designated an appropriately emotional storyline to battle through. It was worth seeing (twice) for Arkin’s greatly measured, affecting performance. His character, Gene English, comes across as initially unlikeable; he’s a difficult, workaholic manager for an insurance firm, none too cheery day-to-day, largely due to the utter joylessness of his life, but brusquely committed to his work regardless.

Alan Arkin as Gene in Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

On a few rare occasions director...

Jeff Bridges is outstanding as a washed-up country singer desperate to achieve personal and professional redemption, writes Philip French

Jeff Bridges, with his big, open, all-American face, has been a major presence on the screen for 40 years now, ever since becoming a star at the age of 22 as a small-town high-school senior in The Last Picture Show, a role for which he was Oscar-nominated as best supporting actor. In The Last Picture Show, Hank Williams figures prominently on the soundtrack and the film ends with Bridges seeing John Wayne in Red River before leaving for military service in the Korean war. So it's appropriate that the 60-year-old Bridges should have received an Oscar nomination for his ageing country singer in first-time writer-director Scott Cooper's Crazy Heart and is soon to play "Rooster" Cogburn in a remake of True Grit, the role that eventually brought John Wayne his only Oscar.

Howard Zieff, a famed director of TV commercials in the 1960s who went on to specialize in Hollywood comedies, died Feb. 21 of Parkinson's disease at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 81.

Zieff's films include "Hearts of the West" (1975), "Private Benjamin" (1980), "Unfaithfully Yours" (1984), "The Dream Team" (1989), "My Girl" (1991) and his last film, "My Girl 2" (1994).

Goldie Hawn, who received an Oscar nomination for best actress for her role in "Private Benjamin," told the Los Angeles Times that Zieff "had a special talent for directing comedies, always a rare gift."

The Chicago native also is credited with helping to change the face of American commercials in the '60s with witty slice-of life vignettes, such as his "Spicy Meatball" spot for Alka-Seltzer. Time magazine called him the "master of the mini ha-ha."

One of the best-known photographers on Madison Avenue early in his career, Zieff also did the posters for Levy's Rye Bread,...