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Italian actress Elsa Martinelli, known to U.S. audiences her breakout role in 1955’s The Indian Fighter opposite Kirk Douglas, died Saturday in Rome at the age of 82, according to Italian media.

Born in Tuscany, Martinelli began her career as a model — appearing in the pages of Vogue and on the cover of Life. She then began taking on smaller roles in films, becoming one of the first models to make the crossover into film and paving the way for stars like Cameron Diaz, Sofia Vergara, and Charlize Theron.

A role in 1954’s Le Rouge et le Noir — the French...

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs The Museum of Modern Art Through February 8, 2015

In the early months of 1945, Matisse wrote to his daughter that he had gone as far as he could with painting in oil, intending instead to focus his efforts on a large-scale decorative project using the cut-out paper technique he had employed to make sketches and maquettes for his mural and theater projects in the early Thirties ("Red Dancer" [1937-38], and "Two Dancers" [1937–38] for Diaghilev's Rouge et Noir). "Painting seems to be finished for me for now… I'm for decoration -- there I give myself everything I can. I put into it all the efforts of my life." Although he had already been employing this technique for years as an adjunct to his paintings, it was not until the mid-Forties that he turned almost exclusively to cut paper as his primary medium, introducing a radically new operation that came to be called a cut-out.

Danielle Darrieux turns 97: Darrieux has probably enjoyed the longest film star career in history (photo: Danielle Darrieux in ‘La Ronde’) Screen legend Danielle Darrieux is turning 97 today, May 1, 2014. In all likelihood, the Bordeaux-born (1917) Darrieux has enjoyed the longest "movie star" career ever: eight decades, from Wilhelm Thiele’s Le Bal (1931) to Denys Granier-Deferre’s The Wedding Cake / Pièce montée (2010). (Mickey Rooney has had a longer film career — nearly nine decades — but mostly as a supporting player in minor roles.) Absurdly, despite a prestigious career consisting of more than 100 movie roles, Danielle Darrieux — delightful in Club de femmes, superb in The Earrings of Madame De…, alternately hilarious and heartbreaking in 8 Women — has never won an Honorary Oscar. But then again, very few women have. At least, the French Academy did award her an Honorary César back in 1985; additionally, in 2002 Darrieux and her fellow 8 Women / 8 femmes co-stars shared Best Actress honors...

Mathieu Amalric is set to take the helm of the big screen adaptation of The Red and the Black written by Stendhal. Variety reports that Amalric is reteaming with Les Films du Poisson's Yael Fogiel and Laetitia Gonzalez for the film which tells of an ambitious young teacher whose liaison with a married, wealthy woman, ends up leading to his downfall. This is the second time The Red and the Black has been made into a movie; the last was 1954's Claude Autant-Lara pic Rouge et noir, starring Gérard Philipe, Daniellle Darrieux, Antonella Lauldi and Jean Mercure. Amalric is busy on the script at this point. The actor and director has an abundance of acting credits since 1985 including more recently David Cronenberg's upcoming Cosmopolis starring Robert Pattinson, and prior to that James Bond pic Quantum of Solace...

Mathieu Amalric is set to take the helm of the big screen adaptation of The Red and the Black written by Stendhal. Variety reports that Amalric is reteaming with Les Films du Poisson's Yael Fogiel and Laetitia Gonzalez for the film which tells of an ambitious young teacher whose liaison with a married, wealthy woman, ends up leading to his downfall. This is the second time The Red and the Black has been made into a movie; the last was 1954's Claude Autant-Lara pic Rouge et noir, starring Gérard Philipe, Daniellle Darrieux, Antonella Lauldi and Jean Mercure. Amalric is busy on the script at this point. The actor and director has an abundance of acting credits since 1985 including more recently David Cronenberg's upcoming Cosmopolis starring Robert Pattinson, and prior to that James Bond pic Quantum of Solace...