Peter Ustinov: Last News

Olivia Hussey Eisley, the actress who shot to fame as one of the star-crossed lovers in Franco Zeffirelli’s controversial Romeo and Juliet in 1968, died peacefully today at home surrounded by her loved ones, according to a post on her Instagram page. She was 73. 

I was the poor schlub who was about to be killed. But, while “Murder On The Orient Express” and “Death On The Nile” were hack-job excuses to force as many disparate and ghastly celebrities onscreen as possible, “Haunting” is an actual, surefooted film with strong performances and a luxurious-yet-frightful tone.Running time: 103 minutes. Rated PG-13 (some strong violence, disturbing images and thematic elements.) In theaters Sept.

Glynis Johns has been a bikini-clad pin-up, a famous character actor, an Oscar nominee, and a Bafta award winner. The British actress has appeared in countless films - being perhaps best-remembered for starring in Mary Poppins - alongside everyone from David Niven to Sandra Bullock, and later in much-loved TV shows like Batman, Scooby Doo, and Cheers. What's most remarkable is that her stage debut as a baby occurred 100 years ago this autumn - which means she is fast approaching her centenary.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeThe Banff World Media Festival revealed the winners of the 2022 Rockie Awards International Program Competition on Monday, with big winners including the “Friends” Reunion, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “We Are Lady Parts” and more.The event, held in Banff and hosted by comedian Rakhee Morzaria (“Run the Burbs”) featured winners chosen by a panel of 150 international industry professionals. The Rockie Awards International Program Competition presented awards in 28 categories spanning Documentary & Factual, Arts & Entertainment, Children & Youth, Scripted, and Podcast.The competition featured 148 nominations from 45 countries including the UK, United, Canada, Australia, France, China, Germany, Italy and Norway.

Death on the Nile (★★☆☆☆) miscalculates from the start, marching into a mystery Christie herself showed no interest in exploring: the origins of Hercule Poirot’s trademark mustache.Director and star Kenneth Branagh, helming his second Christie adaptation following the 2017 hit Murder on the Orient Express, digs into a black-and-white, WWI-set prologue that firmly establishes Belgian sleuth Poirot as the film’s romantic hero.Christie’s sturdy plots and colorful characters certainly invite inventive reinterpretation, but it feels misguided making this or any Poirot story more about the man solving the mystery, than about the mystery that Poirot must solve.The sprightlier 1978 version of Death on the Nile, directed by John Guillermin and scripted by Sleuth playwright Anthony Shaffer, struck a more satisfying balance between the famous detective and the cast of suspects all harboring motives for murder.That whodunnit boasted a lineup of eccentric legends — Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, Maggie Smith, David Niven, and, of course, Peter Ustinov as Poirot — inhabiting Dame Agatha’s larger-than-life characters while swooning about in Anthony Powell’s Oscar-winning ’30s-era costumes.The result was gloriously camp, as much as it was wickedly intriguing.

Bright Road (1953), Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), and 1974’s comedy Uptown Saturday Night, which the actor and singer directed. That film, in particular, is notable for its cast, which includes Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor, Calvin Lockhart, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Bill Cosby.Also on the bill, Robert Altman’s 1996 jazz-noir Kansas City, in which Belafonte plays a gangster named “Seldom Seen.” The film also stars Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson, and Steve Buscemi.The channel is also highlighting the innovative independent works of Melvin Van Peebles, a one-man creative force who often starred in, wrote, directed, and composed his films.Of the four entries, the most notable are Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), in which a Black man outruns white police authorities (the score, by Van Peebles, was performed by Earth, Wind & Fire) and Watermelon Man (1970), a renowned social comedy starring Godfrey Cambridge and Estelle Parsons, in which a white bigot wakes up to find his skin has turned Black.Also on tap: The Harder They Come (1972), featuring reggae artist Jimmy Cliff as a singer who faces down corruption in Jamaica’s music industry.

Peter Ustinov’s play Photo Finish, and in the mid-1960s she did a three-year stint on the daytime soap Love of Life, while also appearing in shows such as Naked City, The Fugitive and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Her big-screen career began with Lilith in 1964, and several more decent parts followed that decade, including The Group, in which she played an aspiring writer, and Grand Prix (both 1966), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as the wife of a Formula One driver recovering from a crash.

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