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Peter Jason, the extremely busy character actor who appeared in nine features for Walter Hill and seven for John Carpenter and portrayed the card dealer-turned-reverend Con Stapleton on HBO’s Deadwood, has died. He was 80.

Jason died Thursday in his West Hollywood home after a long battle with cancer, a family representative told The Hollywood Reporter.

Jason amassed more than 275 acting credits on IMDb alone during his seven-decade onscreen career that began in the mid-1960s with a comedy sketch on CBS’ The Red Skelton Show, and he made his big-screen debut in Howard Hawks’ final film, Rio Lobo (1970), where his character died in the arms of John Wayne.

The Hollywood native also was an actor and production associate for Orson Welles on The Other Side of the Wind, which came out in 2018 after 48 years in development.

After working for Hill in The Driver (1978) and The Long Riders (1980), the fun-loving...

Quick Links 'The Color of Money' Is a Sports Movie About Growing Up Tom Cruise Should Have Been Honored

Nine ball — one of the numerous variations of pool, the cue sport. The striking game (widely known for its hustling and gambling culture) started in the United States of America sometime in the 1920s and has been going strong ever since. Like any other competitive game, Hollywood has managed to grab hold and transform it into a storytelling vehicle for some big-screen productions.

This is no criticism, though, as there are some sorely underrated movies revolving around cue sports in general, such as 1980's The Baltimore Bullet (featuring the legendary James Coburn), 2002’s Poolhall Junkies (starring Chazz Palminteri), and The Rack Pack (a 2016 British TV film about snooker). Standing above all — in what seems to be a largely untapped subgenre — is a 1986 movie that not only subtly analyzes the...

Legendary Egyptian-born, British trained actor Omar Sharif has died at the age of 83.

Though studying maths and physics at University, and working in the family business of precious woods, Sharif felt the lure of performing and ended up appearing in more than twenty productions in Egypt from 1953.

His big international break came in 1962 when he joined David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" and scored both a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for his work as Sherif Ali Ben El Kharish. He went on to roles in various major movies including "Doctor Zhivago," "Funny Girl," "Behold a Pale Horse," "Che!," "Top Secret," "Hidalgo," "The Fall of the Roman Empire ," "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," "The Mysterious Island," "The Last Valley," "The Baltimore Bullet," "Mayerling," "The Night of the Generals," "Genghis Khan," "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna," "One Night with the King " and "Monsieur Ibrahim".

Surprisingly he also became famous...

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies who have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. John Brascia (1932-2013) - Actor and dancer whose moves delighted in White Christmas (see below) and Meet Me in Las Vegas. He also appears in the original Walking Tall and The Wrecking Crew and wrote and produced The Baltimore Bullet. He died of Parkinson's disease in Santa Monica on February 19. (THR)   Richard Briers (1934-2013) - English actor who starred in many Kenneth Branagh films, including Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet (see him as Polonius below), Henry V, Frankenstein...

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