The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (396 page)

In recent years, Stallone seems to have taken more punishment from his own films than ever Rocky endured. He looks miserable and picture-drunk. In America, his popularity has diminished, but it is said that he is still “very big, foreign.” Maybe, but then one must conclude that that condition is not healthy.
The Specialist
(94, Luis Llosa);
Judge Dredd
(95, Danny Cannon);
Assassins
(95, Richard Donner);
Daylight
(96, Rob Cohen);
Cop Land
(97, James Mangold), where he tried to be ordinary; the voice of the Weaver on
Antz
(98, Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson);
Get Carter
(00, Stephen T. Kay);
Driven
(01, Harlin), which he wrote and produced;
Avenging Angelo
(02, Martyn Burke);
D-Tox
(02, Jim Gillespie).

The slide goes on, and it becomes harder to believe that he was once as big as the numbers said:
My Little Hollywood
(02, Matthew Harrison);
Taxi 3
(03, Gérard Krawczyk);
Shade
(03, Damian Nieman);
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
(03, Robert Rodriguez).

And then, in the spirit of maturity, he looked back on all he had wrought in a retrospective mood and directed two farewells(?) to the self—
Rocky Balboa
(06) and
Rambo
(08). No one noticed.

Terence Stamp
, b. Stepney, London, 1939
What on earth was Terence Stamp doing in
Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace
(99, George Lucas)—and why was he looking so angry? Because he’d had no direction and couldn’t follow the script? Because the rubbishy movie was a poor sixtieth birthday present for one of the most beautiful actors on film? Because he’d been this thankless route before—with an equally inane General Zod in the absurd but pompous
Superman
(78, Richard Donner)? Because he guessed that he wouldn’t even figure in the abbreviated cast list for
Phantom Menace
in the
New York Times
review? Or was it just that he’d been left out of the first three editions of this book?

Well, I wronged Mr. Stamp. Yet I feel that he feels I am not alone. Is he chilly, difficult, a loner—or does he just give haughty imitations of those qualities? Whatever, it is remarkable that he hasn’t been more important: for he is a good actor, very striking looking, and seldom far from magic at his best. Even now, is it possible that some great venture could take the fatalism out of his eyes—or make it one of the most alarming things we’ve ever seen?

He was a real cockney and working-class before Peter Ustinov put him in the lead role in
Billy Budd
(62), where he effortlessly suggested Melville’s intimation of a seaman Christ. He seemed like a new star, but within a few years his career choices were those of a determined lone wolf—and so he has remained:
Term of Trial
(62, Peter Glenville); as the young man after butterflies in
The Collector
(65, William Wyler)—for which he won the best actor prize at Cannes; sidekick to
Modesty Blaise
(66, Joseph Losey); as the soldier in
Far from the Madding Crowd
(67, John Schlesinger);
Poor Cow
(67, Kenneth Loach);
Blue
(68, Silvio Narizzano); in Fellini’s episode of
Spirits of the Dead
(68); as the mysterious stranger who masters everyone in
Teorema
(68, Pier Paolo Pasolini); as the man who emerges from a cave in
The Mind of Mr. Soames
(70, Alan Cooke).

Then for several years he traveled and made only a few foreign films before his strictly supporting parts in a TV
Thief of Baghdad
(78, Clive Donner) and
Superman
. He seemed fully committed to the quest for the mystery of existence in
Meetings with Remarkable Men
(78, Peter Brook) and the bizarre sex intrigues of
I Love You, I Love You Not
(79, Americo Balducci).

If he had become disenchanted with film, his work now only explained that malaise:
Monster Island
(80, Juan Piquer Simón);
Superman II
(80, Donner);
Death in the Vatican
(81, Marcello Aliprandi). But then he gave maybe his greatest performance as the betrayer being brought home to death in
The Hit
(84, Stephen Frears), in which he worked wonderfully with John Hurt and Tim Roth and made clear that he was one of England’s best actors. In which case how could one explain
Link
(84, Richard Franklin) or his stooge role in
Legal Eagles
(86, Ivan Reitman)?

Since then, he has made
The Sicilian
(87, Michael Cimino);
Wall Street
(87, Oliver Stone);
Young Guns
(88, Christopher Cain);
Alien Nation
(88, Graham Baker);
Stranger in the House
(91), which he directed;
The Real McCoy
(93, Russell Mulcahy);
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
(94, Stephen Elliott), in which he was faultless as the transsexual;
Mindbender
(95, Ken Russell); the sex guru of all time in
Bliss
(97, Lance Young);
Kiss the Sky
(98, Roger Young);
Love Walked In
(98, Juan José Campanella).

In 1999, reviving footage from
Poor Cow
, he had a great personal success in
The Limey
(99, Steven Soderbergh)—it was the same territory as
The Hit
, but neither as sharp nor as cerebral. Still, the world was ready to acclaim him at last. He was also in
Bowfinger
(99, Frank Oz);
Red Planet
(00, Antony Hoffman);
Ma Femme Est une Actrice
(01, Yvan Attal);
Revelation
(01, Stuart Urban);
Full Frontal
(02, Soderbergh);
My Boss’s Daughter
(03, David Zucker);
The Haunted Mansion
(03, Rob Minkoff);
Dead Fish
(04, Charley Stadler);
Elektra
(05, Rob Bowman);
These Foolish Things
(05, Julia Taylor-Stanley); as Brigham Young in
September Dawn
(07, Christopher Cain);
Wanted
(08, Timur Bekmambetov);
Get Smart
(08, Peter Segal);
Yes Man
(08, Peyton Reed); as General Beck in
Valkyrie
(08, Bryan Singer).

Harry Dean Stanton
, b. West Irvine, Kentucky, 1926
When Harry Dean arrived at last at his first great and surely last romantic leading part—in
Paris
,
Texas
(84, Wim Wenders)—he was fifty-eight, while his bride (Nastassja Kinski) was twenty-four. Yet Harry had looked gaunt and timeless for years, and he scarcely looks older now as he goes past eighty. Everyone rejoiced at
Paris, Texas
—whatever they thought of the film—to see Stanton rewarded. And it was only proper that his Travis in that film was just another of Harry Dean’s wolf-faced loners writ large. He is among the last of the great supporting actors, as unfailing and visually eloquent as Anthony Mann’s trees or “Mexico” in a Peckinpah film. Long ago, a French enthusiast said that Charlton Heston was “axiomatic.” He might want that
pensée
back now. But Stanton is at least emblematic of sad films of action and travel. His face is like the road in the West.

He saw navy service in the Second World War, and then attended the University of Kentucky at Lexington and the Pasadena Playhouse. There is nothing to add, except the list (knowing that it leaves out a lot, to say nothing of TV work in Westerns):
Revolt at Fort Laramie
(57, Lesley Selander);
Tomahawk Trail
(57, Robert Parry);
The Proud Rebel
(58, Michael Curtiz);
Pork Chop Hill
(59, Lewis Milestone);
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(60, Curtiz);
Hero’s Island
(62, Leslie Stevens);
The Man from the Diner’s Club
(63, Frank Tashlin);
Ride in the Whirlwind
(66, Monte Hellman);
Cool Hand Luke
(67, Stuart Rosenberg);
A Time for Killing
(67, Phil Karlson);
Day of the Evil Gun
(68, Jerry Thorpe);
The Miniskirt Mob
(68, Maury Dexter);
Cisco Pike
(71, B. W. L. Norton); and
Two-Lane Blacktop
(71, Hellman).

He was Homer Van Meter in
Dillinger
(73, John Milius); a sidekick in a silly hat in
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
(73, Peckinpah);
Where the Lillies Bloom
(74, William A. Graham);
Cockfighter
(74, Hellman) with fellow-Kentuckian, Warren Oates; an FBI man guarding Frankie Pentangeli in
The Godfather, Part II
(74, Francis Ford Coppola);
Rancho Deluxe
(74, Frank Perry);
Zandy’s Bride
(74, Jan Troell);
92 in the Shade
(75, Thomas McGuane); and
Farewell, My Lovely
(75, Dick Richards).

He had a lovely twilight talk with Jack Nicholson in
The Missouri Breaks
(76, Arthur Penn);
Renaldo & Clara
(77, Bob Dylan);
Straight Time
(78, Ulu Grosbard);
Alien
(79, Ridley Scott);
The Black Marble
(80, Harold Becker);
Deathwatch
(80, Bertrand Tavernier), as a villainous mastermind; briefly superb in
The Rose
(79, Mark Rydell); seriously brilliant in
Wise Blood
(79, John Huston);
Private Benjamin
(80, Howard Zieff);
UFOria
(80, John Binder);
Escape from New York
(81, John Carpenter); funny, casual, and quietly disintegrating in
One from the Heart
(82, Coppola);
Young Doctors in Love
(82, Garry Marshall);
Christine
(83, Carpenter); and
The Bear
(84, Richard Sarafian).

In
Paris, Texas
, he was as good walking, stiff-legged, across the desert as he was talking to his son and his wife—so many films should really have supporting actors as their central characters. He was in
Red Dawn
(84, Milius); he won a youthful cult following in
Repo Man
(84, Alex Cox); he seemed lost in
Fool for Love
(85, Robert Altman); he was a guardian angel with a satanic countenance in
One Magic Christmas
(85, Philip Borsos);
Pretty in Pink
(86, Howard Deutsch);
Slam Dance
(87, Wayne Wang);
The Last Temptation of Christ
(88, Martin Scorsese);
Mr. North
(88, Danny Huston);
Stars and Bars
(88, Pat O’Connor);
Dream a Little Dream
(89, Marc Rocco);
Twister
(89, Michael Almereyda);
The Fourth War
(90, John Frankenheimer);
Wild at Heart
(90, David Lynch);
Man Trouble
(92, Bob Rafelson);
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
(92, Lynch); and
Hostages
(93, David Wheatley).

In his seventies, he played smaller parts, often in minor films:
Blue Tiger
(94, Norberto Babu);
Never Talk to Strangers
(95, Peter Hall);
Play-back
(95, Oley Sassone);
Midnight Blue
(96, Skott Snider);
She’s So Lovely
(97, Nick Cassavetes); a judge in
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
(98, Terry Gilliam); still striking and iconic as the brother in
The Straight Story
(99, Lynch);
The Green Mile
(99, Frank Darabont);
The Man Who Cried
(00, Sally Potter);
Cadillac Tramps
(00, Thomas Sjolund);
The Pledge
(01, Sean Penn).

He is by now as old as he looks:
The Man Who Cried
(01, Sally Potter);
The Big Bounce
(04, George Armitage);
The Wendell Baker Story
(05, Luke and Andrew Wilson);
Inland Empire
(06, Lynch);
Alpha Dog
(07, Cassavetes);
The Good Life
(07, Stephen Berra);
The Open Road
(08, Michael Meredith); and in a recurring role in
Big Love
.

Barbara Stanwyck
(Ruby Stevens) (1907–90), b. Brooklyn, New York
So much of her character lay in the distance between the real and the professional names. If “Barbara Stanwyck” was the woman of the world, sophisticated, ruthless, and a fierce careerist, the lady generally smothering the moll in herself, then “Ruby Stevens” was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, hard outside and soft inside, generous but ambitious: the girl in burlesque who can masquerade as a lady when the chance offers. Time and again, her best work fell within this range, displaying her on sliding emotional, social, and moral scales.

Stanwyck was more intelligent, warmer, and a good deal tougher than Joan Crawford, whose work showed certain similarities to hers, and she was always more interesting and entertaining to watch. The manner of her survival, no matter if often undercutting melodramatic and romantic material, was a vindication of the personality and attitude she accumulated in her films. There is not a more credible portrait in the cinema of a worldly, attractive, and independent woman in a man’s world than Stanwyck’s career revealed. In middle and old age, her looks distilled into narrowed eyes and silver hair; thus it is worth insisting that in the 1930s and 1940s she was delectable, a stirring mixture of toughness and sentiment, a creatively two-faced woman.

Orphaned when young, Ruby was brought up by an older sister who was a dancer. She had a tough life. Inevitably, she began working in the same world, in speakeasies and eventually on Broadway in
The Noose
and as the star of
Burlesque
in 1926. She was a dancer in her first movie,
Broadway Nights
(27, Joseph C. Boyle) for First National, and in 1929 she played in George Fitzmaurice’s
The Locked Door
. Stanwyck’s own talent, her husky speaking voice, and the managerial efforts of her husband, comedian Frank Fay, soon made her a star of the early sound cinema. She managed, with varying success, to play Warners and Columbia off against each other and was never tied exclusively to one studio:
Mexicali Rose
(30, Erle C. Kenton);
Ten Cents a Dance
(31, Lionel Barrymore); and
The Secret Bride
(34, William Dieterle).