Margot Kidder, Lois Lane of 'Superman' Films, Dead at 69

Margot Kidder, Lois Lane of 'Superman' Films, Dead at 69

Courtesy of https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/margot-kidder-superman-actress-dead-at-69-w520293

Actress also starred in 'Sisters,' 'The Amityville Horror' and 'Black Christmas'

Margot Kidder, the actress who portrayed Lois Lane in four Superman films, died Sunday at her home in Livingston, Montana at the age of 69.

The Franzen-Davis Funeral Home & Crematory first announced Kidder's death, which was later confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter by the actress' representative. No cause of death was provided. 

During the Seventies and Eighties, Kidder's most prolific decades, the actress starred in films like Brian De Palma's Sisters, The Amityville Horror, The Great Waldo Pepperwith Robert Redford, the slasher classic Black Christmas and, between 1978 and 1987, four Superman films: Superman, Superman II, Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. However, the actress' popularity waned in the Nineties after she suffered a public breakdown; Kidder was later diagnosed with bipolar disease and became an activist for mental health. 

Kidder was born in 1948 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and lived in remote areas throughout her childhood. "We didn't have movies in this little mining town. When I was 12 my mom took me to New York and I saw Bye Bye Birdie, with people singing and dancing, and that was it," Kidder told The Guardian in 2005. "I knew I had to go far away. I was clueless, but I did OK."

Kidder first started acting in Canadian television and film productions before making her American feature-film debut with a role in 1969's Gaily, Gaily. The following year, Kidder moved to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career, leading to roles in the Gene Wilder-starring Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx and the TV Western series Nichols.

In 1973, Kidder broke out with her dual role of separated conjoined twins in director Brian de Palma's psychological thriller Sisters. After starring alongside Robert Redford in 1975's The Great Waldo Pepper, Kidder scored the role she's best remembered for: Playing the Daily Planet's star journalist and Clark Kent's love interest Lois Lane in the Christopher Reeve-starring film series about the DC Comics superhero. Kidder landed the Lois Lane role despite having little knowledge of the Man of Steel beforehand.

"I had a very fierce English teacher mother who felt that children should not read comic books. So I didn't know anything about it," Kidder told Superman Homepage in 2005. "I read one comic before my screen test and it was about the Daily Planet having a bowling tournament with those terrible women's libbers. And I thought of myself as a feminist so I read this and went 'What is this?' So I based my interpretation on the script."

Following two years of filming Superman, Kidder capped off the Seventies by playing Kathy Lutz in the 1979 hit horror film The Amityville Horror; Superman became the highest-grossing film of 1979, while The Amityville Horror finished in the Top Five at the year-end box office.

Over the next decade, in addition to three Superman sequels, Kidder starred in films like Heartaches, Miss Right and the Richard Pryor vehicle Some Kind of Hero; Kidder and Pryor would also appear together in 1987's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

However, Kidder's career severely stalled in the Nineties: In 1990, she suffered a serious car crash that prevented her from acting for two years and forced her into bankruptcy. Six years later, Kidder suffered a manic episode that became a source of tabloid fodder. As the actress later explained, her meltdown – sparked by the loss of the computer containing her in-the-works memoir – involved her believing her first husband was going to murder her, so she fled her home, cut her hair and pulled her teeth out to avoid identification. Police ultimately found her on a porch near the studios where Superman was filmed. 

"I guess I came to terms with my demons," Kidder told The Guardian. "Horrifying as it was to crack up in the public eye, it made me look at myself and fix it. People were exploitative; that's human nature. I'll tell you, being pretty crazy while being chased by the National Enquirer is not good. The British tabloids were the worst. But you take the cards you're dealt, and I got better. I'm now ferociously healthy in body and mind." 

Kidder remained active in film and television until her death, including guest roles on Law & Order: SVU, The L Word and the Superman-inspired TV series Smallville in a non-Lois Lane role.

Kidder's last television role, a guest appearance on a 2014 episode of R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour, earned the actress a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming.

READ MORE...

Superman Star, Margot Kidder dies aged 69

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/margot-kidder-dead-superman-actress-was-69-1111613?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

Hollywood pays tribute to Margot Kidder: Your Legacy will live on forever

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/magot-kidder-dies-hollywood-reacts-1202810072/

Hollywood mourns Superman actress, Margot Kidder

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/margot-kidder-dead-superman-actress-remembered-by-celebs-social-media-1111656?utm_source=twitter

Celebrities pay tribute to Margot Kidder

http://ew.com/movies/2018/05/14/margot-kidder-dead-celebrities-react/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=entertainmentweekly

Happy Birthday to the late legendary Oscar winning actor Marlon Brando

Happy Birthday to the late legendary Oscar winning actor Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando Landed His 'Godfather' Role with Some Shoe Polish and Kleenex

Courtesy of http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/marlon-brando-landed-his-godfather-role-some-shoe-polish-kleenex-990744

Marlon Brando (April 3, 1924 - July 1, 2004)

The studio was against the casting idea at first, then  they saw the tape.

The role most fans associate Marlon Brando with in The Godfather almost didn't happen because he was seen as being so toxic by the studio at the time of casting. 

But, director Francis Ford Coppola was relentless in his pursuit for his Don Vito Corleone.

It was the legendary actor's screen test  — which Coppola had to beg Paramount for — which turned the tide. 

In an interview Coppola gave to critic Annette Insdorf years ago, he talked about how Brando morphed into his Oscar-winning character in a matter of moments with some random props and household items. 

"We went to his house on Mulholland Drive and it was early, he wasn't up," Coppola began. "There's a rumble and the door opens, and in walks this beautiful man with long blond hair, in a Japanese robe." 

Brando, who would have turned 93 on Monday, noticed Coppola had set out little props in the form of Italian meats, cheeses and cigars.

"And he came out and looked at all this and figured out what was going on, and he took his hair ... he did it up himself in the back, and he took shoe polish and he made it black and he put on a shirt," Coppola continued. 

Brando suggested the character should be hoarse and "look like a bulldog." 

"He took some Kleenex and he...," Coppola said, pretending to stuff tissue into his mouth. "And then he started acting but not saying anything." 

Brando even got a phone call during the test and he took it in character, Coppola said.  

Studio execs were so impressed with the footage, they agreed to cast Brando. 

Brando died in July 2004. He was 80. 

ALL 16 ICONS MENTIONED IN MADDONA'S VOGUE ARE NOW GONE!

With the passing of Lauren Bacall, all 16 icons mentioned in Madonna's, 'Vogue', are now gone.

1. Jean Harlow
2. James Dean
3. Marilyn Monroe
4. Grace Kelly
5. Rita Hayworth
6. Fred Astaire
7. Bette Davis
8. Greta Garbo
9. Marlene Deitrich
10. Ginger Rogers
11. Lana Turner
12. Gene Kelly
13. Joe DiMaggio
14. Katherine Hepburn
15. Marlon Brando
16. Lauren Bacall

 

11 ACTORS THAT EVERYONE HATES TO WORK WITH!

DIVA BEHAVIOUR OF HOLLYWOOD ACTORS

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/204250/11-actors-everyone-hates-to-work-with/?-0

High maintenance talent at one time or another. In some cases, always.
1. Gene Hackman

Oscar winner Gene Hackman was a force to deal with on the set of “The Royal Tenenbaums.” During a Q&A after the 10th anniversary screening in New York, cast and crew members recollected how Hackman would call screenwriter Noah Baumbach a “cunt” and would tell director Wes Anderson to “pull up your pants and act like a man.”
There’s more where that came from:

Anderson and [Gwyneth] Paltrow both admitted they were “scared” of working with Hackman, with [Anjelica] Huston saying, “I was a lot scared but I was more concerned with protecting Wes,” and said that no one involved with the film had “heard or seen of Gene since this movie.” … [Anderson]: He was one of the things that pulled everybody into this movie. Anytime we are together and talk about the movie we always talk about him.

[IMDb]
2. Lindsay Lohan

Though she’s seemingly got her shit together for now, it’s not a stretch to imagine, I suppose, that LiLo would be a “colossal pain in the ass” on the set. According to one E! News source in regards to her guest spot on FX’s “Anger Management” (above). “From the moment she arrived [on her second day of the shoot], she did nothing but hold up the production. She would sit in her trailer and stall and she delayed until she up and left for her boyfriend’s concert … She held everyone hostage.” [IMDb]

3. William Shatner
William Shatner is apparently an egomaniacal prick. His lack of participation in the 2004 Planet XPo “Beam Me Up Scotty … One Last Time” farewell event for actor James Doohan was just one of many examples. Captain Kirk told the promoter of the event that he didn’t “want to do this and really don’t want to deal with all this Alzheimer’s crap.” (Doohan, Shatner’s longtime co-star on “Star Trek,” was diagnosed with the disease months prior and died in 2005.) “This is the usual thing that happens,” George Takei, another “Star Trek” cast member, told Howard Stern in 2010. “On the set –whether it was the TV series or the movies, or at conventions — this was another convention where he decided he was not going to do what they wanted him to do, and he walked out.” [IMDb]

4. Christian Bale
In what was perhaps one of the most famous on-set blowups of all time, Christian Bale railed on director of photography Shane Hurlbut — also threatened — while filming “Terminator: Salvation” because the latter apparently interrupted an intense acting sequence. You can’t not listen to the leaked recording of the exchange and think this guy’s gotta get on Klonopin. [IMDb]

5. Bruce Willis
In 2011 on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, director Kevin Smith said working with Bruce Willis on the set of “Cop Out” was nothing short of “soul crushing.” The action star, notorious for giving reporters hell come promotion time, wouldn’t even pose for a photo of him next to a poster at one “Cop Out”-related event. Smith gladly shared his antipathy with cast and crew members at the release party: “I want to thank everyone who worked on the film,” he said, “except for Bruce Willis, who is a fucking dick.” [IMDb]

6. Julia RobertsApparently, when she was 23, Julia Roberts was a hot mess on the set of “Hook” in 1991. She fought with director Steven Spielberg, according to the New York Times, which many suspected was her emotional outlet for a “Fellini summer” of drugs followed by a nervous breakdown after splitting with Kiefer Sutherland. People Magazine at the time suggested that all the celebrity visits to the set, which included Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Prince, may have been to see if “Tinkerhell,” as crew members nicknamed Roberts, “was as emaciated and emotionally fragile a Tinkerbell as rumor insisted.” [IMDb]

7. Jennifer LopezOn the set of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” 42-year-old Jennifer Lopez refused to speak to anyone while filming, which kinda puts a kink in the entire moviemaking process. The anti-social behavior, according to one source, was an apparent response to the onslaught of paparazzi attention she received from her recent split-up with Marc Anthony. So, if you wanted to speak to J-Lo on the set of that movie, talk to her “personal handler” only. Not her. [IMDb]

8. Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal has an awful reputation for treating co-stars and stuntmen like garbage — kicking stuntmen in the nuts just to see if they’re wearing cups or not, shit like that. But even actors who aren’t professionally trained to fight have to put up with his bullying. John Leguizamo recalled in 2010 how the karate fatso let out his insecurities in a very schoolyard way when filming “Executive Decision”:

I’m playing his Master Sargeant, and we come in for rehearsals and he says, ‘I’m in command. Everything I say is law. Anybody doesn’t agree?’ I was like, ‘Bwahahaha.’ I started cracking up because he sounded like a retard … He came up and he Taekwondo’ed my ass against the brick and he [hit me with his elbow] … He’s six-foot-five and he caught me off guard and knocked all of the air out of me and I was like, ‘Why?! Why?!’ I really wanted to say how big and fat he was and that he runs like a girl, but I didn’t because all I could say was, ‘Why?!’ Why’d he slam me against the wall? We were rehearsing.

[IMDb]
9. Marlon BrandoIn Frank Oz’s 2001 flick “The Score,” Marlon Brando took offense Frank Oz’s direction that his performance as a homosexual crook was too nelly. Brando’s childlike counter on the set included addressing the director as “Miss Piggy,” refusing to wear pants (obligating the crew to shoot him from the waist up in all scenes) and bringing a note from his doctor, claiming the actor was allergic to Oz. (Oz, supposedly, sat in a different room and gave direction through “The Score” co-star Robert DeNiro in an ear piece.) In 1996′s “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” Brando refused to remove a makeshift ice bucket hat from his head. He also wore an earpiece for crew members to feed him lines while shooting. He cared that little at that point in his career. [IMDb]

10. Wesley Snipes
Actor/comic Patton Oswalt recalled how, on the set of “Blade: Trinity,” Wesley Snipes would sit in his trailer and smoke weed all day. This ill behavior (get it?) was in part a protest against director David Goyer and New Line Cinema who, Snipes believed, owed him more money for his performance and were squeezing him out of creative control. Snipes ended up communicating exclusively with Goyer via Post-it notes that he would sign with the name ‘Blade.’” [IMDb]

11. Mandy Patinkin
“Homeland” actor Mandy Patinkin admitted to New York Times Magazine that, on the medical TV drama “Chicago Hope,” he was too big for his scrubby pants. “I struggled with letting in other people’s opinions,” he said. “I never let directors talk to me, because I was so spoiled. I started off with people like Milos Forman, Sidney Lumet, James Lapine, unbelievably gifted people. So there I was saying, ‘Don’t talk to me, I don’t want your opinion.’ I behaved abominably. I don’t care if my work was good or if I got an award for it. I’m not proud of how I was then, and it pained me.” [IMDb]

THE 30 HARSHEST ACTOR ON ACTOR INSULTS!

The 30 Harshest Actor-on-Actor Insults in History

Courtesy Jason Bailey http://flavorwire.com/466677/the-30-harshest-actor-on-actor-insults-in-history/view-all

 

In the current ultra-managed, publicist-controlled, sound-byte-driven media atmosphere, you don’t get to hear stars really speaking their minds anymore — at least, not about anything fun, like how they really feel about their fellow stars. But occasionally a little something sneaks through the PR wall, both now and back in Hollywood’s golden age, sometimes as whispers, sometimes as gossip, sometimes long after the fact. And thus, we present another, long-overdue installment of our ongoing series (following authors, filmmakers, and musicians) of really famous people really cutting each other down.

 

1. Bette Davis on Joan Crawford: “Joan Crawford — I wouldn’t sit on her toilet!”
“I wouldn’t piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire.”
“Joan Crawford — Hollywood’s first case of syphilis.”
“She has slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie.”
“Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it’s because I’m not a bitch. Maybe that’s why Miss Crawford always plays ladies.”
“You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good… Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”2. Joan Crawford on Bette Davis:
“Bette will play anything, so long as she thinks someone is watching. I’m a little more selective than that.”
“She may have more Oscars… she’s also made herself into something of a joke.”
“Miss Davis was always partial to covering up her face in motion pictures. She called it ‘art.’ Others might call it camouflage — a cover-up for the absence of any real beauty.”
“I don’t hate Bette Davis, even though the press wants me to. I resent her — I don’t see how she built a career out of mannerisms instead of real acting ability. She’s a phony, but I guess the public likes that.”
3. Vivien Leigh on Bette Davis (after turning down Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte:
“I could almost stand to look at Joan Crawford’s face at 6am, but not Bette Davis.”
4. Barbara Stanwyck on Marilyn Monroe:
“Her body has gone to her head.”
5. Bette Davis on Cary Grant:“He needed willowy or boyish girls like Katharine Hepburn to make him look what they now call macho. If I’d co-starred with Grant or if Crawford had, we’d have eaten him for breakfast.”
6. Cary Grant on Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean:
“I have no rapport with the new idols of the screen, and that includes Marlon Brando and his style of Method acting. It certainly includes Montgomery Clift and that God-awful James Dean. Some producer should cast all three of them in the same movie and let them duke it out. When they’ve finished each other off, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and I will return and start making real movies again like we used to.”
7. Richard Burton on Marlon Brando:“Marlon has yet to learn to speak. He should have been born two generations before and acted in silent films.”
8. Marlon Brando on James Dean:“Mr. Dean appears to be wearing my last year’s wardrobe and using my last year’s talent.”
9. Richard Harris on Michael Caine:“An over-fat, flatulent, 62-year-old windbag. A master of inconsequence masquerading as a guru, passing off his vast limitations as pious virtues.”
10. Rex Harrison on Charlton Heston:
“Charlton Heston is good at playing arrogance and ambition. But in the same way that a dwarf is good at being short.”
11. Harrison Ford on Shia LaBeouf:
“I think he was a fucking idiot.”
12. Dean Martin on James Stewart:“There’s a statue of Jimmy Stewart in the Hollywood Wax Museum, and the statue talks better than he does.”
13. Sir John Gielgud on Ingrid Bergman:
“Dear Ingrid — speaks five languages and can’t act in any of them.”
14. Frank Sinatra on Shelly Winters:
“A bowlegged bitch of a Brooklyn blonde.”
15. Shelly Winters on Frank Sinatra:
“A skinny, no-talent, stupid Hoboken bastard.”

16. Ava Gardner on Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra:
“I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a boy.”
17. Traci Lords on Johnny Depp:“He’s the kind of guy that would be really sweet to a girl and bring her flowers, but still take a pee in the alley.”
18. Bill Murray to Chevy Chase:
“Medium talent!”
19. Julia Roberts on Nick Nolte:
“A disgusting human being.”
20. Nick Nolte on Julia Roberts:
“It’s not nice to call someone ‘disgusting’. But she’s not a nice person. Everyone knows that.”

21. Sharon Stone on Gwyneth Paltrow:
“[She’s] very young and lives in rarefied air that’s a little thin. It’s like she’s not getting quite enough oxygen.”
22. Katherine Hepburn on Sharon Stone:“It’s a new low for actresses when you have to wonder what’s between her ears instead of her legs.”
23. Susan Sarandon on Mel Gibson:“Mel Gibson is somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. He’s beautiful, but only on the outside.”
24. Walter Matthau to Barbara Streisand:“I have more talent in my smallest fart than you have in your entire body.”
25. Elliot Gould on Jerry Lewis:“This arrogant, sour, ceremonial, piously chauvinistic egomaniac.”


26. Graham Chapman on John Travolta:
“How difficult can it be to fly an airplane? I mean, John Travolta learned how.”
27. W.C. Fields on Mae West:
“A plumber’s idea of Cleopatra.”
28. W.C. Fields on Charlie Chaplin:
“He’s a goddamned ballet dancer.”
29. Robert Downey Jr. on Hugh Grant:“A self-important, boring, flash-in-the-pan Brit.”
30. John Wayne on Clark Gable:“Gable’s an idiot. You know why he’s an actor? It’s the only thing he’s smart enough to do.”