Latest news with #EliaKazan
New York Times
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
What's in Our Queue? ‘Face in the Crowd' and More
I'm a White House correspondent. I spend a lot of time and psychic energy reporting on the daily convulsions in Washington. I think it's good to unplug from the warp-speed news cycle from time to time, to let my mind wander to faraway places and the past. It helps → Elia Kazan's 1957 movie about another charismatic loudmouth who whips up a populist furor and rides it all the way to the pinnacle of power is another thing worth revisiting. It's a movie about mass media as much as about politics. I finally read this most famous of Russian novels and loved it for its cynical, florid absurdism, and most of all for the chapter on Satan's grand ball. The writing is so over the top and the guest list so wicked, it reminded me almost of Tom Wolfe describing a 1980s Park Avenue dinner party. This comprehensive, compulsively watchable docuseries about what happened after 9/11 features original interviews from big players in the Bush administration and beyond who played pivotal, often disastrous, roles in those years leading up to these wars we've only just disentangled ourselves from. I recently read for the first time Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning opus of a novel based on Huey Long, a.k.a the Kingfish, a.k.a the Dictator of Louisiana. It's such a dark, riveting tale of politics, power, the press, populism and elites, and I love the way he writes about the land itself. It's all sulfuric atmospherics. This masterpiece from 1969 unravels what life was like in one small town in France that collaborated with the Nazis. It's more than four hours, but gets better as it goes — the sort of thing you put on on a gloomy Sunday when you want to put your phone in the other room and really get lost in something.
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jack Betts Dies: ‘Spider-Man' Actor Was 96
Jack Betts, the character actor who appeared in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002) and over a dozen Spaghetti Western films, has died at the age of 96. Per The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported the news, Betts died Thursday in his sleep at his Los Osos, Calif. home, his nephew, Dean Sullivan, said. More from Deadline Andrew Garfield Says Spider-Man Return "Would Have To Be Very Weird" & The "Creative Freedom" Of Animated 'Spider-Verse' Movies Jon Bernthal Helped Tom Holland With Spider-Man Audition Tape: "Not That I Take Responsibility" New 'Spider-Man' With Tom Holland Gets Title - CinemaCon Born Jack Fillmore Betts (saying he bore a relation to the 13th POTUS Millard Fillmore) on April 11, 1929 in Jersey City, NJ, he grew up in Miami, where he eventually studied theater at University of Miami. Afterward, he moved to New York City, where he made his Broadway debut in 1953's Richard III. When a friend asked him to help with an audition for Lee Strasberg's famed nonprofit, The Actors Studio, the director of the prestigious acting school granted him a three-year scholarship to study there. As a result, the venerated Elia Kazan later cast him in a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. (He later returned to Braodway for Kazan's 1959 production of Sweet Bird of Youth, as well as a late '70s revival of Dracula, in which he once portrayed the eponymous count as Raul Julia's standby.) Betts' first film credit was in 1959's The Bloody Brood, and in 1966 he was cast as the title character in Franco Giraldi's Sugar Colt, billed as Hunt Powers for the first time. That kicked off a string of credits in over a dozen Spaghetti Westerns through the 1970s. On the television side, Betts racked up a number of appearances in daytime soaps, including General Hospital, The Young Marrieds, The Edge of Night, The Doctors, Another World, All My Children, Falcon Crest, Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light, Generations and The Young and the Restless. His other notable arcs included episodes for Perry Mason and The F.B.I., as well as turns in popular series like Gunsmoke, Seinfeld, Mad TV, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, The Mentalist and Monk. (Betts was great friends with Everybody Loves Raymond star Doris Roberts, whom he met at The Actors Studio in the '50s; the two shared a home from the late '80s until her death in 2016.) In Spider-Man, Betts notably portrays Henry Balkan, the Oscorp Technologies board chairman who tells Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborn, 'You're out, Norman,' kicking off the Green Goblin's villainous arc. Later on in the movie, Osborn parrots back the phrase to Balkan, as he vaporizes the board in an attack on Times Square, gleefully shouting: 'Out, am I?' Additional film credits include 1993's Falling Down with Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall, the 1995 Val Kilmer-starring Batman Forever and 1998's Gods and Monsters opposite Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser. In addition to his nephew, survivors include his nieces, Lynne and Gail, and his sister, Joan, who turns 100 in November. Following the news of his death, Beverly Hills Playhouse shared a tribute to the performer on Instagram, writing: 'Our beloved Jack Betts passed away peacefully at home. It is a sad day for the BHP as we have enjoyed his presence for so many years. There are actors who credit him with their not giving up because of his encouragement. We were so fortunate to have enjoyed his great spirit, passion and true dedication to the work. There was only ever one like this and we are the richer for having his presence in our theatre. Rest in peace, Jack.' Best of Deadline 2025 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries 2024 Hollywood & Media Deaths: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Remembering Shelley Duvall: A Career In Photos
