Peter Mayhew, Star Wars actor who played Chewbacca dies aged 74

Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew dies aged 74

Click her for more https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48142765

Burt Reynolds movie star known for Boogie Nights & Smokey and the Bandit, dies at 82

Burt Reynolds, Movie Star Who Played It for Grins, Dies at 82

Credit: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/burt-reynolds-dead-deliverance-boogie-nights-star-was-82-831093

Burt Reynolds Turned Down Boogie Nights, 7 times 

Lauren Bacall presents the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture to Burty Reynolds for his role in Boogie Nights. 

The opening of the 46th Academy Awards in 1974, featuring performances by Liza Minnelli, an introduction by Academy President Walter Mirisch, welcoming remarks from host Burt Reynolds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3sM_Fn_Q90

Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon present the prestigious Oscars in 1974 for Musical Scores to Charles Chaplin, Raymond Rasch & Larry Russel for Limelight, Ralph Burns for Cabaret at the 45th Academy Awards 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmQJqxdLnMo

The ex-jock from Florida starred in 'Deliverance' and 'Boogie Nights' but preferred making such populist, fun fare as 'Smokey and the Bandit,' 'The Cannonball Run' and 'Starting Over.'

Burt Reynolds, the charismatic star of such films as Deliverance, The Longest Yard and Smokey and the Bandit who set out to have as much fun as possible on and off the screen — and wildly succeeded — has died. He was 82.

Reynolds, who received an Oscar nomination when he portrayed porn director Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997) and was the No. 1 box-office attraction for a five-year stretch starting in the late 1970s, died Thursday morning at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, his manager, Erik Kritzer, told The Hollywood Reporter. 

Always with a wink, Reynolds shined in many action films (often doing his own stunts) and in such romantic comedies as Starting Over (1979) opposite Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen; The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) with Dolly Parton; Best Friends (1982) with Goldie Hawn; and, quite aptly, The Man Who Loved Women (1983) with Julie Andrews.

Though beloved by audiences for his brand of frivolous, good-ol'-boy fare, the playful Reynolds rarely was embraced by the critics. The first time he saw himself in Boogie Nights, he was so unhappy he fired his agent. (He went on to win a Golden Globe but lost out in the Oscar supporting actor race to Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting, a bitter disappointment for him.)

"I didn't open myself to new writers or risky parts because I wasn't interested in challenging myself as an actor. I was interested in having a good time," Reynolds recalled in his 2015 memoir, But Enough About Me. "As a result, I missed a lot of opportunities to show I could play serious roles. By the time I finally woke up and tried to get it right, nobody would give me a chance."

Still, Reynolds had nothing to apologize for. He was Hollywood's top-grossing star every year from 1978 through 1982, equaling the longest stretch the business had seen since the days of Bing Crosby in the 1940s. In 1978, he had four movies playing in theaters at the same time.

Reynolds' career also is marked by the movies he didn't make. Harrison Ford, Jack Nicholson and Bruce Willis surely were grateful after he turned down the roles of Han Solo, retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove and cop John McClane in Star Wars, Terms of Endearment and Die Hard, respectively. He often said that passing on James L. Brooks' Endearment was one of his worst career mistakes. (Nicholson won an Oscar for playing Breedlove.)

Reynolds also indicated he was Milos Forman's first choice to play R.P. McMurphy (another Nicholson Oscar-winning turn) in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, "backed away" from playing Batman on TV in the 1960s and declined the part made famous by Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.

In John Boorman's Deliverance (1972), based on a book by James Dickey, Reynolds starred as macho survivalist Lewis Medlock, one of four guys from Atlanta who head to the wilderness for the weekend. Filmed by Vilmos Zsigmond along the Chattooga River near the Georgia-South Carolina border, it was an arduous production that Boorman shot in sequence.

"When I asked John why, he said, 'In case one of you drowns,'" Reynolds wrote.

He had good reason. When Reynolds saw test footage of a dummy in a canoe going over the falls in one scene, he told Boorman the scene looked fake. He climbed into the canoe, was sent crashing into the rocks and ended up in the hospital. "I asked [Boorman] how [the new footage] looked, and he said, 'Like a dummy going over the falls,'" Reynolds wrote.

Deliverance, infamous for its uncut 10-minute hillbilly male rape scene ("squeal like a pig"), was nominated for three Academy Awards but came away empty. It lost out to The Godfather in the best picture battle.

"If I had to put only one of my movies in a time capsule, it would be Deliverance," Reynolds wrote. "I don't know if it's the best acting I've done, but it's the best movie I've ever been in. It proved I could act, not only to the public but me."

Three months before the movie opened, Reynolds — once described by journalist Scott Tobias as the "standard of hirsute masculinity" — showed off his mustache and other assets when he posed nude on a bearskin rug for a Cosmopolitan centerfold in April 1972. (Seven years later, he would become the rare man to grace the cover of Playboy.)

The Cosmo issue sold an outlandish 1.5 million copies. "It's been called one of the greatest publicity stunts of all time, but it was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made," he wrote, "and I'm convinced it cost Deliverance the recognition it deserved."

A running back in high school and college who talked with legendary coach Bear Bryant about attending Alabama, Reynolds put his gridiron skills to use in Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard(1974), playing Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, who leads his rag-tag team of prison inmates in a game against the guards. He later starred in Semi-Tough (1977), another football film.

Smokey and the Bandit (1977), written and directed by his pal, the legendary stuntman Hal Needham, grossed $126 million (that's $508 million today, and only Star Wars took in more that year). Reynolds, who stars as Bo "Bandit" Darville, hired to transport 400 cases of Coors from Texas to Atlanta in 28 hours, noted that, unbelievable as it sounds, Smokey was Alfred Hitchcock's favorite movie.

Reynolds drives a sleek Pontiac Trans-Am in the film, and after the picture opened, sales of the model soared. (His black car is mentioned in Bruce Springsteen's "Cadillac Ranch," and the Tampa Bay Bandits, a U.S. Football League team in which he had an ownership stake, were named for the movie.)

Smokey spawned two sequels, and Reynolds went on to work again with Needham in The Cannonball Run (1981), another fun-filled action film that spawned another franchise. His other high-octane films included Sharky's Machine (1981) and two movies as ex-con Gator McClusky.

In Smokey, Reynolds starred alongside Sally Field, and the two were an item for some time. He also had relationships with the likes of Dinah Shore (20 years his senior), Inger Stevens and Chris Evert, and he talked about dating Hawn and Farrah Fawcett in his book.

Reynolds was married to British actress Judy Carne (famous for NBC's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) from 1963-66 and then to Loni Anderson, the voluptuous blonde best known for the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, from 1988-93. Both marriages were tempestuous, and his divorce with Anderson was particularly messy.

After a string of big-screen failures and the cancellation of his ABC private detective series B.L. Stryker, Reynolds rejuvenated his career by starring in the 1990-94 CBS sitcom Evening Shade, created by Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason.

He won an Emmy Award in 1991 for best actor in a comedy series for playing Woodrow "Wood" Newton, a former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback who returns to his small-town home in Arkansas to coach a woeful high school team.

Burton Milo Reynolds Jr. was born on Feb. 11, 1936, in Waycross, Georgia, and raised in Florida's Palm Beach County. His father was an Army veteran who became the police chief in Riviera Beach, Florida, not too far from the Everglades.

"My dad was my hero, but he never acknowledged any of my achievements," he wrote in his memoir. "I always felt that no amount of success would make me a man in his eyes."

Then known as Buddy Reynolds, he played halfback at Palm Beach High School, where his teammate was future New York Yankees manager Dick Howser, then suited up at Florida State, where Lee Corso, later a college coach and ESPN analyst, played on both sides of the ball. But he suffered a knee injury as a sophomore, and that was it for football and Florida State.

Reynolds enrolled at Palm Beach Junior College and appeared in a production of Outward Bound, playing the part handled by John Garfield in the 1944 film adaptation, Between Two Worlds. That led to a scholarship and a summer-stock stint at the Hyde Park Playhouse in New York. He roomed with another aspiring actor, Rip Torn, and they studied at the Actors Studio.

After a few appearances on Broadway and on television, Reynolds was off to Hollywood, where he signed with Universal and manned the wheel as Ben Frazer on Riverboat, an NBC Western that starred Darren McGavin.

He met Needham on that show, and the stuntman would double for him on projects through the years. Reynolds is referenced in "The Unknown Stuntman," the theme song from the 1980s ABC series The Fall Guy, and he played an aging stuntman in Needham's second film, Hooper (1978).

Reynolds joined Gunsmoke for its eighth season in 1962 as Quint Asper, a half-Comanche who becomes the Dodge City blacksmith. He played the title warrior in the 1966 spaghetti Western Navajo Joe, was an Iroquois who worked as a New York City detective in the short-lived ABC series Hawk and portrayed a Mexican revolutionary in 100 Rifles (1969).

Reynolds got another shot at toplining his own ABC show, playing homicide detective Dan August in a 1970-71 Quinn Martin production, but the series was axed after a season.

Reynolds appeared often on NBC's The Tonight Show, and in 1972 he became the first non-comedian to sit in for Johnny Carson as guest host (Reynolds' first guest that night was his ex-wife, Carne; they hadn't spoken in six years, and she made a crack about his older girlfriend Shore). He and Carson once engaged in a wild and improvised whipped-cream fight during a taping, and he got to show a side of him the public never knew.

"Before I met Johnny, I'd played a bunch of angry guys in a series of forgettable action movies, and people didn't know I had a sense of humor," he wrote. "My appearances on The Tonight Showchanged that. My public image went from a constipated actor who never took a chance to a cocky, wisecracking character."

Reynolds showed that lighter side when he played a sperm in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972), and he lampooned his lavish Hollywood lifestyle in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie (1976). He was not above making fun of himself and his toupee.

In 1979, he opened the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre in Jupiter and in the 1980s, he developed the syndicated game show Win, Lose or Draw with host Bert Convy. The set was modeled after his living room.

With his divorce from Anderson and bad restaurant investments contributing to more than $10 million in debts, Reynolds filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1996 and came out of it two years later. In recent years, he sold properties in Florida, including his fabled 160-acre ranch — The Allman Brothers recorded an album there in the 1990s — and auctioned off personal belongings.

Survivors include his son, Quinton; he and Anderson adopted him when he was 3 days old.

Despite the ups and downs of a Hollywood life, Reynolds seemed to have no regrets.

"I always wanted to experience everything and go down swinging," he wrote in the final paragraph of his memoir. "Well, so far, so good. I know I'm old, but I feel young. And there's one thing they can never take away: Nobody had more fun than I did."

Borys Kit contributed to this report.

Movies Burt Reynolds turned down from, Bond to Solo

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/burt-reynolds-turned-down-roles-bond-solo-1202930436/ 



PHOTOS THROUGHT THE YEARS

Star Wars, The Force Awakens Trailer

The Force Awakens trailer returns to Star Wars' strengths

Courtesy of http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/16/star-wars-jj-abrams-the-force-awakens

Watch the second teaser for Star Wars:
https://youtu.be/IyrpqmnAuu4

Watch the second teaser for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in cinemas everywhere 18 December, 2015.

For more Star Wars: The Force Awakens news, go to:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/St...
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/StarWarsUK

The new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, unveiled on Thursday, makes the upcoming JJ Abrams-directed sequel look like a lengthy love letter to every series fan who hasn’t stopped complaining since 1999’s The Phantom Menace. From the dogfight inside the ruined hulk of a crash-landed Imperial Star Destroyer to the not-quite-a-surprise appearance in the last moments of the trailer of Han and Chewie, there’s not an uncomfortably racialized alien or a tousle-headed child in sight.
A few of the many, many Easter eggs jammed into the 110-second trailer: a robot hand, presumably Luke’s, the dunes of Jakku, a wrecked X-wing, Darth Vader’s crushed helmet, and what looks like Leia getting a lightsaber of her own. There are also new twists on old formulas: a black-armored villain who looks like an amped-up stormtrooper, a black TIE fighter, and of course Han Solo disguised as an old man … wait, no, that’s just present-day Harrison Ford.
The film opens on 18 December; the release of the new trailer coincides with California fan convention Star Wars Celebration, happening this week in Anaheim. Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew (who plays Chewbacca) and director JJ Abrams are among the Star Wars royalty in attendance.
Fan reaction was overwhelmingly positive — Reddit, notoriously a wretched hive of scum and villainy (and sarcasm), had plenty of in-jokey commentary. “Commander, tear this trailer apart until you’ve found those clues and bring me those theories, I want them alive!” wrote a redditor called blood_souls. The /r/starwars subreddit was humming with activity, some of it related to the new trailer, some of it related to Star Wars Celebration, all of it devoted to The Force Awakens.
The trailer premiered on YouTube at 2 pm EST and by 5:30 had been retweeted from the official Star Wars account some 37,000 times. The YouTube video counter hadn’t caught up with views as of this writing, but the video had gotten the thumbs-up button 105,000 times and the Facebook video of the trailer had logged some 3.6m views and 97,000 likes (Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook vice president Tom Stocky were the first two). By press time Google had indexed more than 1,200 articles on the trailer. At the end of the footage, fans were redirected to a countdown page for a different Star Wars product: the marketing campaign for EA’s upcoming video game Star Wars Battlefront, the trailer for which is set to launch at the convention at 10 am California time tomorrow.

• This piece was amended on 16 April 2015; the planet is called Jakku.

 

Get your first look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the new 88-second teaser

Get your first look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the new 88-second teaser.
Episode VII in the Star Wars Saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, opens in theaters December 18,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erLk59H86ww

Official Site: http://www.starwars.com/theforceawakens

Subscribe to Star Wars on YouTube for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/starwars
Like Star Wars on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StarWars
Follow @StarWars on Twitter: https://twitter.com/starwars
Follow @StarWars on Instagram: http://instagram.com/starwars
Follow Star Wars on Tumblr: http://starwars.tumblr.com/

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan & Abrams, features a cast including actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Crystal Clarke, Pip Andersen, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. They will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker.

The film is being produced by Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk, and John Williams returns as the composer.
 

JJ ABRAMS IS OFFERING A PART IN STAR WARS VII

WIN A PART IN STAR WARS VII FOR CHARITY

http://youtu.be/XfNiC9iKM0Q

Best prize ever! J.J. Abrams is offering a member of the public a part in STAR WARS VII, all in the name of charity.
http://yhoo.it/1lEzSlQ

We’re excited to share this special announcement from J.J. Abrams: You could be in Star Wars: Episode VII and support a great cause. Enter here: http://bit.ly/BeInStarWarsEpVII ‪#‎ForceForChange‬
See Official Rules for details.

Thank you to Disney for committing $1 million to support the launch of Star Wars: Force for Change, which will benefit UNICEF. No purchase, payment, or contribution necessary to enter or win. See rules for more information.
 

STAR WARS DAY : MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!

May the Fourth Be With You

Star Wars Day is an unofficial holiday in May created by fans to honor the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. Observance of the holiday spread quickly due to Internet, social media, and grassroots celebrations.

May 4 is considered a holiday by Star Wars fans to celebrate the franchise's films series, books and culture.^[2] The date was chosen as "May the 4th" due to its sounding similar to the series' phrase "May the Force be with you" in which fans commonly say "May the fourth be with you".

History[edit]

The reference was first used on May 4, 1979, the day Margaret Thatcher took office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Thatcher's political party, the Conservatives, placed a congratulatory advertisement in The London Evening News that stated "May the Fourth Be with You, Maggie. Congratulations."^[3] This reading of the line has also been recorded in the UK Parliament's Hansard.^[4]
In 2011, the first organized celebration of Star Wars Day took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the Toronto Underground Cinema. Produced by Sean Ward and Alice Quinn, festivities included an Original Trilogy Trivia Game Show; a costume contest with celebrity judges; and the web's best tribute films, mash-ups, parodies, and remixes on the big screen. The second annual edition took place on Friday, May 4, 2012.^[5]
Fans (even government officials^[6]) have celebrated Star Wars in a variety of ways in social media and on television.
Since 2013, Disney Parks have celebrated the holiday with several Star Wars events and festivities.^[7][8][9] The Walt Disney Company had purchased Lucasfilm including the rights to Star Wars in late 2012.^[10]
Minor League baseball teams such as the Toledo Mud Hens^[11] and the Durham Bulls^[12] have worn special uniforms as part of "Star Wars Day" promotions.

Revenge of the Fifth[edit]

Star Wars Day became so popular that the following day was jokingly called “Revenge of the Fifth,” a play on the “Star Wars” movie title “Revenge of the Sith.” On this day, fans let their “evil sides” come out by celebrating the Sith Lords and villains from the Star Wars series. ^[13]

May 25[edit]

The Los Angeles City Council declared^[14] May 25, 2007, as Star Wars Day, in honor of the 30th anniversary release date of Star Wars. A separate initiative for observing Geek Pride Day on May 25 is based on the Star Wars connection along with ties to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (see Towel Day) and Discworld.

References[edit]

1. Jump up ^
   • "Star Wars Day: How old is old enough for this movie?", Kate Shatzkin, The Baltimore Sun, May 4, 2009
   • "Forced" or Not, There's a "Star Wars" Day, by Alysia Gray Painter, NBC, May 4, 2009
   • "The Force Is Strong in this One", Quentin Hardy, Forbes, April 30, 2009 – "There's even an annual "Star Wars Day" in May ("May the fourth be with you")."
   • "Yes, it's 'Star Wars' Day", by Whitney Matheson, USA Today
2. Jump up ^ "Star Wars day: May the 4th be with you". My Fox Chattanooga. May 4, 2010. Archived from the original on May 8, 2010. Retrieved May 8, 2013. 
3. Jump up ^ Danish National Radio on-line news
4. Jump up ^ "Hansard, Column 786". UK Parliament Hansard, Column 784. May 4, 1994. 
5. Jump up ^
   • Star Wars Day Toronto official site
   • Event recap blog post
6. Jump up ^ "Boris Johnson's acceptance speech in full". ITV News. May 5, 2012. Retrieved May 8, 2013. 
7. Jump up ^ "May the 4th Be with You!". Disney Parks Blog. Retrieved April 28, 2013. 
8. Jump up ^ "DISNEYLAND: Park will celebrate 'Star Wars' May 4". The Press-Enterprise. Retrieved April 28, 2014. 
9. Jump up ^ "May the Fourth Be With You! Two New Star Wars-Themed Character Dining Experiences May 4-June 15 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios". Disney Parks Blog. Retrieved April 28, 2014. 
10. Jump up ^ "How Disney Bought Lucasfilm—and Its Plans for Star Wars". Bloomburg Businessweek. Retrieved April 28, 2014. 
11. Jump up ^ "Toledo Mud Hens will wear Chewbacca uniforms for ‘Star Wars’ weekend". New York Daily News. April 28, 2013. Retrieved May 3, 2014. 
12. Jump up ^ Andrew kenney (March 25, 2014). "Durham Bulls to dress as R2-D2 from 'Star Wars' on May 4". News & Observer. Retrieved May 3, 2014. 
13. Jump up ^ http://www.mtv.com/news/1819357/a-brief-history-of-star-wars-celebration-may-the-fourth/
14. Jump up ^ Council File Number:07-1368, May 1, 2007, City of Los Angeles – Council File Number:07-1368.

THE FUTURE OF STAR WARS - EXPANDED UNIVERSE

Future of ‘Star Wars’ Will Rely Only on Past Movies, Animated TV Series

Courtesy Marc Graser, Senior Editor
http://variety.com/2014/biz/news/future-of-star-wars-relies-on-past-movies-animated-tv-series-1201164253/

2 EXCLUSIVE VIDEO CLIPS

(1) The Star Wars Expanded Universe: Past, Present, and Future
http://youtu.be/VUm0Lo6DL-E

(2) Star Wars Rebels: WonderCon 2014 Exclusive Clip
http://youtu.be/a8uJXFxfmiE

Lucasfilm and Disney have given “Star Wars” fans official insight into where they plan to take the sci-fi saga.

While George Lucas had built a world around “Star Wars” through movies, TV shows, comicbooks, novels, videogames and other forms of entertainment, storylines were developed by separate teams creating what’s been called an “Expanded Universe” that veered away from what was seen onscreen by audiences.

As a result of the plethora of “Star Wars”-related characters, creatures, spaceships and worlds created for those properties, Lucasfilm has formed a new story group to oversee all “Stars Wars” creative development, according to Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, that will connect all aspects of storytelling moving forward.

Onscreen, the first new canonical material to appear will be the animated series “Star Wars Rebels” (see a clip presented at WonderCon below), followed by the J.J. Abrams-directed “Star Wars: Episode VII,” set for release on Dec. 18, 2015.

In print, the first new books to come from the group include novels from Del Rey Books, such as the John Jackson Miller-penned “Star Wars: A New Dawn,” set before the events of “Star Wars Rebels” and offering insight into the backstories of key characters Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla, with input directly from executive producers Dave Filoni, Simon Kinberg and Greg Weisman.

“A New Dawn” will be published in hardcover and as an e-book on Sept. 2, followed by “Star Wars: Tarkin,” by James Luceno, on Nov. 4; “Star Wars: Heir to the Jedi,” in January, by author Kevin Hearne; and “Star Wars: Lords of the Sith,” by Paul Kemp, in March.

Lucas may have enabled other people to play in the world of the “Star Wars” Expanded Universe, but “he set the films he created as the canon,” Lucasfilm posted on the StarWars.com site Friday. “This includes the six ‘Star Wars’ episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars.’ These stories are the immovable objects of ‘Star Wars’ history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align.”

“We have an unprecedented slate of new ‘Star Wars’ entertainment on the horizon,” Kennedy said in a statement. “We’re set to bring ‘Star Wars’ back to the bigscreen, and continue the adventure through games, books, comics, and new formats that are just emerging. This future of interconnected storytelling will allow fans to explore this galaxy in deeper ways than ever before.”
That includes the launch of a new “Star Wars: Legends” banner that will keep tales from the Expanded Universe in print.

Lucasfilm added that elements from the Expanded Universe, like the Inquisitor, the Imperial Security Bureau and Sienar Fleet Systems created in role-playing games of the 1980s, are story elements in “Star Wars Rebels.”