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Actress and international sex symbol of the ’60s and ’70s Raquel Welch, who died on Feb. 15 at age 82, first gained notice for her stunning physique, but proved her acting chops during her long career. Her films included “Fantastic Voyage,” “100 Rifles,” “Myra Breckinridge,” “Bedazzled,” “Tortilla Soup” and “Legally Blonde.” Her fans included painter Salvador Dali: He painted this abstract portrait of her in 1965.

Raquel turned heads as a scantily clad prehistoric hottie in 1966’s “One Million Years B.C.”

One of her first films was the 1966 sci-fi adventure “Fantastic Voyage” with Stephen Boyd in which they’re shrunk to microscopic size to go inside the body of an injured scientist.

She proved she was more than a just pretty face as a roller derby star in 1972’s “Kansas City Bomber.”...

Raquel Welch, the electric, multi-talented superstar of culture-rocking films like "One Million Years B.C.," "Myra Breckinridge," and "The Three Musketeers" has died. We're only 46 days into 2023, and it seems like the death of a major star has rocked almost every one of them. Burt Bacharach, Carlos Saura, David Crosby, Lisa Marie Presley, Ruggero Deodato, Cindy Williams — the list, unfortunately, goes on and on.

There's something particularly painful about Welch's death. She was best known in her time as a sex symbol. Parts like the role in "One Million Years B.C." which gave her such cultural latitude also hemmed her into a kind of straitjacket, in terms of roles she'd later be asked to play. But Welch soldiered on, delivering dynamic yet precise performances in everything from whodunnits like "The Last of Sheila" and social thrillers like "Bluebeard."

Her brilliant sense of timing regarding line delivery — comic and otherwise — is still deeply,...

It's not a secret that Hollywood has a really sordid history with the way transgender characters have been presented on film. While bigoted pundits like to pretend that trans people and trans representation in entertainment is somehow a new concept, films like "Myra Breckinridge" were shocking and subverting audience expectations over half a century ago. Unlike the transgender media of our current era that often put cis men like Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne, and Jeffrey Tambor in drag, "Myra Breckinridge" instead chose to cast Raquel Welch, an international sex symbol at the time, in the titular role.

The film was an adaptation of Gore Vidal's controversial book of the same name, a title that was equal parts bestseller and banned text. It's one of the earliest known novels to feature a protagonist who has undergone gender affirmation surgery and dissects themes of feminism, gender performance, America's unhealthy relationship with toxic masculinity,...

Raquel Welch, the American actress known for her role in One Million Years B.C. that made her a 1960s pin-up icon and later made a memorable guest appearance on Seinfeld, has died at 82.

Welch’s son Damon Welch confirmed his mother’s death (via The New York Times), although no cause was given.

Welch was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5th, 1940 in Chicago, and expressed interest in entertainment and performing at an early age. She studied ballet and won numerous beauty pageants in her youth, enrolling in a theater program at San Diego State College after graduating high school.

Following a series of one-off television appearances, Welch made her first leading feature film appearance in 1966 starring in Richard Fleischer’s sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage, which was a commercial success and quickly secured her star status. The following year, she appeared in Don Chaffey’s One Million Years B.C.; her...

Raquel Welch, the big-screen star of the 1960s and ’70s who gained fame in movies including Fantastic Voyage, One Million Years B.C., Myra Breckinridge and many others, died today after a brief illness. She was 82.

Her death was confirmed by her reps at Media 4 Management.

Related: Raquel Welch: A Career In Photos

Welch’s career spanned more than 50 years, 30 films and scores of TV series and appearances, including about a dozen visits to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson spanning two decades. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Imagen Foundation in 2001.

From left: Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence in ‘Fantastic Voyage’ (Everett Collection)

Born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Welch’s family moved to San Diego when she was a toddler. She attended San Diego State on a theater arts scholarship and got her start as a local TV weathercaster before starting to...

Giler was also a screenwriter on films including ‘Alien3’ and ‘The Money Pit’.

David Giler, a producer and writer on the Alien franchise, has died aged 77. He had been suffering from cancer and died at his home in Bangkok on December 19.

Walter Hill, his long-time producing partner with whom he co-wrote the story for Aliens and screenplay for Alien3, said: “If you knew David, you knew he was special.

“The magic of his personality is hard to describe: funny, angry, extremely knowledgeable, extremely well read; it was my privilege to write and produce with him, and more importantly, to have...

“Goddamned disgrace, Buck. Man can’t take his family to the movies without seeing some kind of filth!” – Dialogue from “Myra Breckinridge” (1970)

There’s a scene about midway through Russ Meyer’s “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” (1970) in which our heroine Kelly Mac Namara (Dolly Read) tries to show Porter Hall (Duncan McLeod), an aging, sleazy attorney, how to get high.

Continue reading ‘Myra Breckinridge’ & ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls’: 20th Century Fox’s (Brief) Foray Into The X-Rated Movie Business at The Playlist.

Editors’ Note: Todd McCarthy recently wrote about his layoff from The Hollywood Reporter. To commemorate the sense of collective loss we all feel for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival that would have started tomorrow but had to be scratched for safety reasons like everything else because of the Covid-19 pandemic, McCarthy writes about his long love affair for the singular event, and reveals what movies we would have seen and how, with theatrical moviegoing an uncertainty, some might wait to get their red carpet moment at the Palais in 2021 when Cannes comes roaring back.

I can feel it in my bones. When the pages of the year’s calendar fly off as in an old Hollywood montage to finally arrive at the beginning of May, I know it’s time to get ready for my annual date with the grande dame of all film festivals, the one that requires you—in...

Variety recently announced that Kevin Spacey is to bring Gore Vidal to our screens in a Netflix original film. Directed by Michael Hoffman (dir. The Last Station), Spacey might be the most perfect casting, and judging by some coded, jovial remarks at the Tony Awards this year, may relish a role like this.

Vidal's life has previously been on screen in documentaries: Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia and Best of Enemies, about his combative relationship with William F. Buckley.

Vidal: Writer, bon vivant, public intellectual and unapologetic homosexual has a rich, albeit chequered history in cinema. Screenwriter for the frenzied Suddenly, Last Summer, debauched bloodbath Caligula and his own notorious novel Myra Breckinridge was adapted into X-rated 1970 film.

And as uncredited writer of Ben-Hur, he was responsible for those lingering glances between Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston - not that Heston ever knew that...

The New York Observer has laid off longtime film critic Rex Reed, in addition to several other members of its entertainment staff, in the latest cutbacks to the newspaper since owner Jared Kushner divested from the paper after the 2016 presidential election.

Reed was notified of the decision last week, he said, concluding a career at the paper that lasted more than 25 years. His last reviews, for “Alien: Covenant” and “Wakefield,” ran May 19. Reed’s editor at the Observer did not return a request for comment.

“The shocking truth is that the Observer has been going down the drain financially for quite some time,” Reed said via email, adding that he felt the future of the paper was thrown into doubt after investment banker Arthur Carter sold it to 25-year-old Kushner in 2006. The young mogul left the paper after his father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, was elected President of the United States last fall.

The director of Jeune et Jolie returns with another slice of erotica-lite, in this tale of an ex-model in therapy who ends up with two lovers – who are twins

The softcore silliness and lite-erotic stylings of François Ozon’s horribly middleweight psycho-suspense thriller may yet give it camp classic status, like a super-porny version of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected.

There’s admittedly a cheeky wit to the opening visual gag, which converts a gynaecological image into a crying eye. And it has what future cultural historians may come to think of as the best female strap-on scene since Myra Breckinridge. Who knows?

Continue reading...

High camp or just plain trash? A cultural-cinematic swamp in perfectly rotten taste, this adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's supermarket 'dirty book' seeks out tawdry sleaze like no American movie had before. Junk beyond belief, and great entertainment if you're in a sick frame of mind. Valley of the Dolls Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 835 1967 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 123 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 27, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Paul Burke, Sharon Tate, Susan Hayward, Tony Scotti, Martin Milner, Charles Drake, Alexander Davion, Lee Grant, Naomi Stevens, Robert H. Harris, Jacqueline Susann, Robert Viharo, Joey Bishop, George Jessel, Dionne Warwick, Sherry Alberoni, Margaret Whiting, Richard Angarola, Richard Dreyfuss, Marvin Hamlisch, Judith Lowry. Cinematography William H. Daniels Film Editor Dorothy Spencer Conductor / Music Adaptor John Williams Written by Helen Deutsch, Dorothy Kingsley Jacqueline Susann Produced by Mark Robson, David Weisbart Directed by Mark Robson

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I...

The recent box office success of The Boss firmly establishes Melissa McCarthy as the current queen of movie comedies (Amy Schumer could be a new contender after an impressive debut last Summer with Trainwreck), but let us think back about those other funny ladies of filmdom. So while we’re enjoying the female reboot/re-imagining of Ghostbusters and those Bad Moms, here’s a top ten list that will hopefully inspire lots of laughter and cause you to search out some classic comedies. It’s tough to narrow them down to ten, but we’ll do our best, beginning with… 10. Eve Arden The droll Ms. Arden represents the comic sidekicks who will attempt to puncture the pomposity of the leading ladies with a well-placed wisecrack (see also the great Thelma Ritter in Rear Window). Her career began in the early 1930’s with great bit roles in Stage Door and Dancing Lady.

The dirty book of the '60s became an all-star dirty movie with Brando, Burton, Starr, Coburn, Matthau, Astin, Aznavour and Huston all wanting a taste of the Swedish nymphet Ewa Aulin. Camerawork by Rotunno, designs by Dean Tavoularis, effects by Doug Trumbull -- and the best material is Marlon Brando making goofy faces as a sub-Sellers Indian guru. Candy Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1968 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 124 min. /Candy e il suo pazzo mondo / Street Date May 17, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Ewa Aulin, Charles Aznavour, Marlon Brando, James Coburn, Richard Burton, John Astin, John Huston, Walter Matthau, Ringo Starr, Anita Pallenberg, Elsa Martinelli. Cinematography Giuseppe Rotunno Production Designer Dean Tavoularis Opening and closing designed by Douglas Trumbull Film Editor Giancarlo Cappelli, Frank Santillo Original Music Dave Grusin Writing credits Buck Henry from the book by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg Produced by Robert Haggiag Directed by Christian Marquand

Reviewed...

“Well, the end of another busy day. I can’t wait till I get back to bed. If that don’t work I’ll try to sleep!”

Myra Breckinridge screens Wednesday night December 2nd at Schlafly Bottleworks at 8pm

You never know what’s brewing at Webster University’s Strange Brew Film series, and there’s nothing stranger than this month’s entry, Myra Breckinridge. Gore Vidal’s 1968 satirical novel Myra Breckinridge was considered un-filmable to begin with. That’s probably true. There’s no way that this story about a sex change operation could have ever become a classic mainstream movie. But the 1970 film version is not all that bad, In fact, thanks mostly to some really clever casting (bringing Mae West into the film was a stroke of genius and a young Farrah Fawcett is quite a sight) and a wonderful, bitingly funny and dead-on performance by a young Raquel Welch,...

“I don’t need this. I already got trouble with my kids, my wife, my business, my secretary, the bums… the runaways, the roaches, prickly heat, and a homo dog. This just ain’t my day!”

Street Trash screens midnights this Friday and Saturday Night (August 7th and 8th) at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave, St. Louis) as part of Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Night Grindhouse

Vintage Vinyl, the used record store on the Loop in U City, is housed in the same building that used to be the Varsity Theater. The Varsity is where The Rocky Horror Picture Show played midnights to sold-out crowds throughout much of the ‘70s and -80s. The theater definitely catered to the cult and college crowd, presenting counterculture film programming, mostly for the students at nearby Washington University and for years was the only place in town to catch 3-D movies.

The intense 1968 TV debates between Gore Vidal and William F Buckley are preserved forever in a film that shows up the moronic TV screamers of today

Outside in Grant Park, the Chicago Police Department’s “Blue Riot” at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention: an orgy of nightsticks and cracked student skulls, blood on the streets, and the effective demise of the Democratic party for a generation. Inside the sweltering convention hall, two nationally esteemed American public intellectuals – one right, one left – going at it hammer and tongs on national TV at prime time, trading homophobic insults (“Now listen, you queer...”) for accusations of fascism (“Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi...”) and threats of violence (“Or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face!”). As het-up moderator Howard J Smith said: “Now gentlemen, let’s not call names!”

Those words were snarled during live TV news coverage by William F Buckley, founder of postwar Us conservatism,...

Best Of Enemies dinner at Le Cirque celebrating directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

An invited screening of Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's Best Of Enemies on William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal, hosted by Participant Media and Magnolia Pictures was followed by a dinner organised beautifully by Peggy Siegal at Le Cirque. I caught up with the Oscar winning director of 20 Feet From Stardom over wild mushroom risotto for a conversation on his latest documentary, Christopher Hitchens, Myra Breckinridge, Caligula, waltzes, and fact checking. Best Of Enemies features the off-camera voices of John Lithgow as Vidal and Kelsey Grammer as Buckley, with interviews of Dick Cavett, Noam Chomsky, Matt Tyrnauer, Brooke Gladstone, Sam Tanenhaus and Ginia Bellafante.

Morgan, when he heard the news on Albert Maysles, sent a tribute from the True/False Documentary Film Festival where he was presenting Best Of Enemies last month.

It's been five years since Farrah Fawcett died of cancer at the age of 62, but the actress's memory remains with us. Fawcett's famous blond curls and Texas tan made her a '70s icon, but her glamour was truly timeless. Join us in remembering Fawcett's legacy through five of our favorite clips from her decades-long career. The Dating Game, 1969 One of Farrah's first TV appearances saw the former beauty queen take part in this late-'60s dating show. (If you're unfamiliar, it was essentially The Voice, but for making out.) Interestingly enough, the man she would choose bears a striking resemblance to her future partner,...

Wheeler Winston Dixon’s Cinema at the Margins is an enlightening collection of essays and interviews. Wearing his encyclopedic knowledge lightly, Dixon shares his expert insights and research in an eloquent, eminently readable style. I chose to review his new book because its reference to the ‘margins’ held the enticing promise of new discoveries, and a brief survey of its table of contents confirmed that, alongside well-known and much-loved names, there were also unfamiliar ones. The volume covers an early film by Peter Bogdanovich, the horror movies of Lucio Fulci, American 1930s and 40s science fiction serials, the TV series Dragnet, the brief career of Argentine director Fabián Bielinsky and the long one of Hollywood director Sam Newfield, Robert Bresson’s Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945), U.S. 1960s experimental cinema, Dixon’s own meditation on the shift to digital, and interviews with music video director Dale “Rage” Resteghini,...

Alien 3

Directed by David Fincher

Written by Larry Ferguson, David Giler & Walter Hill

USA, 1992

It’s a classic chapter of Hollywood lore, one of those great cautionary tales of executive mismanagement and shattered dreams. With behind-the-scenes chaos in both the boardroom and editing suites following up on indecisive strategizing and constant creative overhauls, 20th Century Fox’s hotly anticipated third installment in the Alien franchise was always set up to fail. You could argue that the writing was on the wall when the marketing department jumped the gun by releasing an infamous teaser trailer with the quickly irrelevant tagline “On Earth, everybody can hear you scream”. Half of the industry’s writing population seemed to have a go on spec, from William Gibson (with what was ostensibly an Aliens screenplay) to David Twohy (featuring a Ripley-less premise), $7 million was wasted on rejected sets and the film spent a year in editing,...

A Conversation with Edith Head will be held at The Sheldon Ballroom in St. Louis on December 6th and 7th

All About Eve, Roman Holiday, The Ten Commandments, A Place In The Sun, The Sting. These great films and hundreds more have one thing in common: costume designer Edith Head (1897–1981). The small woman with the familiar straight bangs, black-rimmed saucer glasses, and unsmiling countenance racked up an unprecedented 35 Oscar nods and 400 film credits over the course of a sixty-year career. The golden age of Hollywood sparkled with extravagant cinematic productions and stars such as Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Mae West, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Redford were made even more glamorous by donning the costumes designed by incredibly talented Ms Head.

Theater director Susan Claassen, a New Jersey native got the idea for a project based on Edith Head several years ago after...

All About Eve, Roman Holiday, The Ten Commandments, A Place In The Sun, The Sting. These great films and hundreds more have one thing in common: costume designer Edith Head (1897–1981). The small woman with the familiar straight bangs, black-rimmed saucer glasses, and unsmiling countenance racked up an unprecedented 35 Oscar nods and 400 film credits over the course of a sixty-year career. The golden age of Hollywood sparkled with extravagant cinematic productions and stars such as Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Mae West, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Redford were made even more glamorous by donning the costumes designed by the incredibly talented Mrs. Head.

Theater director Susan Claassen, a New Jersey native, got the idea for a project based on Edith Head several years ago after she watched a televised biography of the designer. She realized that her physical resemblance to the designer was uncanny,...

Birthday shoutouts go to Chris Evans (above), who is 32, out Olympian Blake Skjellerup is 28 (and we’ll have more with Blake in next week’s Briefs), and Kat Dennings is 27.

Smash star Megan Hilty has joined the cast of Sean Saves The World, in which she’ll play Sean Hayes‘ Bff.

I give it six months

Wait! So Playgirl was a … women’s magazine?

Jazz composer Terence Blanchard’s new opera Champion is inspired by gay boxer Emile Griffith.

Melissa McCarthy has responded to Myra Breckinridge star Rex Reed: “I felt really bad for someone who is swimming in so much hate. I just thought, that’s someone who’s in a really bad spot, and I am in such a happy spot. I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids who are mooning me and singing me songs.”

Dan Savage on “ex-gay” camps.

With the words, "I never play over twenty-eight," Mae West supposedly ruled herself out of consideration for the role of Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. It's hard to work out why she was considered, since she had no associating with silent cinema, but perhaps at that stage the character was pre-Code rather than pre-sound. At any rate, Gloria Swanson took the role and enjoyed a renaissance, in the process obscuring the fact that she had enjoyed some brief success in early talkies (including one co-written by Wilder).

Maybe West just seemed like someone who wouldn't be shy about playing love scenes with a younger man. Much, much younger. She got her chance to prove this in Myra Breckinridge (1970), at the age of at least seventy-six. It's a moronic adaptation of Gore Vidal, directed by a British actor whose big idea was to make the whole thing a dream sequence.

PBS is now showing the American Masters' documentary, The Education of Gore Vidal (2003). Gore Vidal was a novelist, essayist, playwright, and social commentator whose career saw seven novels about American history, including satirical novels as Myra Breckinridge and Duluth. Vidal penned television plays, film scripts, and even three mystery novels written under a pseudonym. He was one of the most eclectic intellectuals in literature, writing cautionary tales about politics, sex, art, and philosophy. At the same time, he was a contrarian, a wise man and a realist. He was also wickedly funny. Director Deborah Dickson spent hours with Vidal at his cliff-side villa in Italy and used the Ravello interviews as a thread, leading viewers through a...

Broadway producers have announced a tribute to the late Gore Vidal. The Myra Breckinridge author died at his Hollywood Hills home on Tuesday (July 31) due to complications from pneumonia. Vidal penned the noted Broadway plays Visit to a Small Planet and The Best Man, which was recently revived on the New York stage by Eric McCormack. The Broadway League has now confirmed that New York City theatres will dim their lights at 8pm Et on Friday (August 3) to honor Vidal. Charlotte St Martin of the Broadway League shared his thoughts on Vidal's legacy in a press release. (more)...

By Stephen Vittoria

With apologies to Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn.

When I decided to make the film “One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern,” the person to interview at the top of my list was Gore Vidal – for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, he knew McGovern very well and one could always count on Gore to bring his razor sharp wit, his intellectual wherewithal, and his brutal honesty to any situation. For our session in his backyard in the Hollywood Hills, he was on, very on. In fact, to this day, right to a screening last night, his interview clips elicited more great responses from the audience than anyone else in the film. It was the same at almost every screening. Here’s a sample of classic Gore Vidal from the film:

“Well, now, you know, I was brought up in the ruling class…...

Novelist, playwright and essayist with a complete mastery of the scene he described

Gore Vidal, the American writer, controversialist and politician manqué, who has died aged 86, was celebrated both for his caustic wit and his mandarin's poise. His public career spanned seven decades and included 25 novels, numerous collections of essays on literature and politics, a volume of short stories, five Broadway plays, dozens of television plays and film scripts, and even three mystery novels written under the pseudonym Edgar Box. After 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, he returned to centre stage with a series of blistering pamphlets and public pronouncements that led many, including his former friend Christopher Hitchens, to pounce on him. But Vidal never looked back.

Despite his output as a novelist and playwright, many critics considered Vidal's witty and acerbic essays his best work. Often published first in such journals as the New York Review...

Los Angeles, California (X17online) - Gore Vidal was best known for his works "Myra Breckinridge" and "The City and the Pillar." Vidal died at the age of 86 from complications of pneumonia. In addition to being a playwright and novelist, Vidal was also a screenwriter, essayist and political activist. Vidal, who was once a writer for MGM studios, also ran for Congress in New York back in 1960. In 1982, he also ran for the U.S. Senate in California. His works were deemed controversial in the 1960's for carrying transsexual and homosexual themes.

Gore Vidal passed away on Tuesday at the age of 86 after succumbing to complications from pneumonia. Vidal was best known as an acclaimed author, playwright and essayist, but he also wrote some iconic Hollywood screenplays. As the New York Times noted, Vidal was even a contract writer for MGM.

It was there that he contributed to his most famous film, 1959's "Ben Hur." Directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston, won 11 Academy Awards -- tied for the most ever with "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King." Vidal isn't a credited screenwriter on the film -- according to Vidal, 12 versions of the script were written; he called it "gorgeously junky"-- but he gave the film a homoerotic subtext.

"I said, 'Look, let me try something. Let's say these two guys when they were 15 or 16 -- they had been lovers. Now, they are meeting again, and...

Gore Vidal truly was one of the last of his kind. The prolific author, essayist and writer for stage and screen died Tuesday at his Hollywood Hills home due to complications of pneumonia, nephew Burr Steers told the Los Angeles Times. His most well-known novels include Myra Breckinridge, Two Sisters and Lincoln, but he had already broken ground decades beforehand with 1948's The City and the Pillar, which features a main character who is in the process of coming out as gay—a plot deemed scandalous and pornographic at the time. "Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality," Vidal said in an interview with Esquire in 1969. "Notice I use the word 'natural,' not...

Gore Vidal, the literary titan and quintessential American essayist, has died. He was 86. Vidal died from complications of pneumonia at home in Los Angeles, a family member told the media. He was one of the 20th century's foremost authors, writing 25 novels in his lifetime including "Burr," "Myra Breckinridge" and "Lincoln." But he was also a critic of American politics, an iconoclast unafraid of bucking mainstream political views and a sharp-witted, prolific essayist. Also read: Notable Celebrity Deaths of 2012 Vidal's productivity was prodigious, and his status as a figure on the landscape of American...

Gore Vidal has died at the age of 86, his nephew Burr Steers has confirmed. Vidal passed away on Tuesday evening (July 31) at his home in the Hollywood Hills as a result of complications from pneumonia. Born Eugene Luther Gore Vidal on October 3, 1925 in New York, Vidal was raised in Washington, DC and briefly joined the Us Army in 1943 following his graduation from high school, serving in the Aleutian Islands. During his literary career, he penned over 20 novels including The City and the Pillar (1948), Myra Breckinridge (1968), Creation (1981) and Duluth (1983). Vidal also wrote numerous short stories, essays, screenplays and works for the stage. His 1960 political satire The Best Man was recently revived on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, featuring an all-star cast including James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, Kristin Davis, (more)...

Gore Vidal, a literary powerhouse, essayist, screenwriter and political activist, has died. Vidal passed away today at his home from complications of pneumonia, his nephew tells the Los Angeles Times. Vidal wrote 25 novels, including the groundbreaking The City and the Pillar,among the first novels about openly gay characters, and the Tony-nominated play The Best Man, revived on Broadway in 2012. His hundreds of satires included Myra Breckinridge and Duluth. His pieces on politics, religion, sexuality and literature drew praise as well as criticism. He won a National Book Award in 1993 for his United States Essays, 1952-1992. Woven throughout his works were anecdotes from his famous friends, including Hollywood stars Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and Kennedy family. His screenplay credits include Suddenly Last Summer, Ben Hur, and Billy The Kidd. He also played himself in Fellini’s Roma, and a Us senator in Bob Roberts. He made two unsuccessful political runs,...

Raquel Welch quotes on Mae West: A few years ago, Raquel Welch reminisced about Mae West (photo), with whom she co-starred in 20th Century Fox’s 1970 epic disaster Myra Breckinridge. "I found her surreal,” Welch recalled. “Here was this star from the ’30s who had this unbelievably different way of doing things. Now she’s doing this movie in 1969/70, and she’s never made a color movie before in her life. I wouldn’t want to undertake that at 77. I thought, She’s got a lot of chutzpah and she’s completely bonkers. Mae was one of those people I always felt had a distinctly masculine vibration [...]...

School's out today, and that means the kids are ready for summer fun. Alamo Drafthouse is offering several family-friendly events, including Alamo Kids Camp at several Austin locations. Iron Giant began a two-week run at Alamo South Lamar today. From Saturday through Thursday, June 7, Alamo Slaughter is offering Fantastic Mr. Fox, Alamo Village hosts The Corpse Bride, and the Lake Creek location features How to Train Your Dragon. Check the Drafthouse calendar for times, and be sure to arrive extra early for these free screenings -- seating is limited and first come, first served.

On Thursday, Rolling Roadshow invades Austin's Park for a special screening of Pixar's Toy Story. Ticket purchase is only for the movie itself, and tickets must be picked up at Alamo South Lamar prior to the show. Don't forget to bring extra money for arcade games, miniature golf, and pizza before the screening. 

For more mature audiences,...

Movie beauty Raquel Welch still has her suspicions that Mae West was a male drag queen after getting up close and personal to the silver screen icon during one of her final films, Myra Breckinridge.

The two goddesses spent a lot of time in each other's company on the set of the 1970 film - and Welch admits she started to think there was something more than a little odd about her co-star.

During a Raquel Welch film retrospective in New York at the weekend (11-12Feb12), the still-stunning actress explained, "She never worked before 5pm and... she also never moved by herself, so the limo that took her to the studio, to her dressing room, also brought her onto the set. So they had to open the huge door where they load in scenery. She was kind of like a piece of scenery!

"When I went over to say hello to her (one day) I said, 'Hi, it's Raquel, remember?' She sort of extended her hand to me and I went to kiss the ring and one false fingernail painted silver fell to the floor. I looked at the hand and I thought, 'Oh, I'm getting a vibe'. I really think she's a man!

"At this point in her life all bets are off and you're not going to be able to doll it (appearance) up that much. I would say it's pretty accurate that she resembled a dock worker in drag."

Welch admitted it was a thrill to work with West - but she took away a very bad memory from their time together: "I had this beautiful dress and it was black with a big white ruffle around the neck and a black velvet hat, based on a costume that was worn by Greta Garbo. It was very chic and I couldn't wait to wear it. (Costume designer) Theodora Van Runkle designed it for the scene with Mae West because she was wearing all white with black trim, so this would be perfect.

"Apparently Mae got wind of the fact that I was wearing this exquisite dress and I went to the studio that day for our scene together. I got coiffed, got my hair done and went to the closet to get the dress and it wasn't there. I asked my dresser what happened to the dress and she said, 'It's been confiscated. Mae does not want you to wear that dress. You can wear the red dress that you wore in the last scene!'

"Mae had approval over everything that was worn on the set... The producer said, 'It's (dress) a non-colour and nobody gets to wear non-colours in the movie but Mae.'"

Welch was so outraged, she stormed off the set and refused to return until the dress was back in her closet.

She recalled, "For the scene, we never appeared in a two-shot together. She left after she did her lines and I had someone off-camera reading her lines and I had to pretend she was there."...

Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist has won just about every BAFTA Award it was nominated for — and it was nominated for plenty, including Best Film, Best Director, Leading Actor (Jean Dujardin) and more. We've got the complete list of all the winners and nominees right here.

More awards. "Rodrigo García's Albert Nobbs and John Michael McDonagh's The Guard were the big winners at the 9th annual Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs), winning four recognitions each," reports Naman Ramachandran for Cineuropa.

New York. Miriam Bale introduces an interview for GQ: "Raquel Welch was a singing and dancing bombshell and one of the last in a long line of actresses piped through the studio's star-making system before she was thrust into 1970s New Hollywood. Thanks to that revolution, the bombshell became a trailblazer, starring in some of the more fascinating and unlikely cult hits of the era." Cinematic Goddess:...

The Film Doctor makes a passionate case for Hawaii and The Descendants... but I'm still having trouble. I just don't think it's very good. And also it's hard to be receptive to the arguments when they start by dissing The Artist. 'Can't we all just get along?' That said I do agree that the final shot is pretty wonderful. Just wish the rest of the movie was.

They Live By Night Awww, there was an Amadeus Blog-a-Thon and I didn't even know about it. Blog-a-thons just don't have as much outreach as they used to. Totally would've done that one.

The Awl  (speaking of the 80s...) remembers The Thorn Birds in a funny piece. Omg. I was so into priestly Richard Chamberlain when I was a wee boy. 

Cineuropa Iceland's Volcano didn't go the distant with Oscar this year in the Best Foreign Film Category but it's doing very...

The Tuesday before Halloween is bound to have a lot of genre titles. There are some good ones too like Attack the Block, Blue Underground releases Fulci in High-Definition with Zombie and The House by the Cemetery, also Criterion releases The Island of Lost Souls on DVD & Blu-Ray and the most talked about film of last year, A Serbian Film finally hits the shelves. Read below, if you dare, for all your DVD and Blu-Ray releases for this week and if you plan on purchasing any films through Amazon, click on the buttons provided as they help us out with paying the bills around here.

Animal Attack Two Pack (Maneaters Are Loose/ Shark Kill)

Two savage and rare TV movies in the 1970s “Animal Attack” genre that have rarely been seen since their initial release, now back in print and together at last on DVD.

Buy the DVD @ Amazon.

Cinema Retro reader Harvey Chartrand has a bone to pick with Cinema Retro's Dean Brierly regarding his cover story in our latest issue:

Dean Brierly has an obvious hate-on for Candy which is unwarranted. His critique is unbalanced and excessively negative. I do not consider Candy an “all-star fiasco” or one of the worst movies ever made. Far from it. If you want to see a bad movie, check out Otto Preminger’s Middle East “thriller” Rosebud with Peter O’Toole (who looks like a dying man in this picture). Sure, Candy isn’t as good as the book, but so what? Neither was Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, now acknowledged to be superior to the more faithful Stephen King-scripted TV-movie adaptation with Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay.

I do recall enjoying Candy as a cultural artifact of its era (and I saw it quite recently). It’s emblematic of the swinging sixties.

It was colourful, it made the city look beautiful, and included plenty of sex – Mike Sarne's film about one girl's lovelife in the capital defines the swinging 60s better than any other

No matter what you accomplish in life, a novelty hit casts a long shadow. David Bowie manages to get through most days without people shouting "laughing gnome" at him, but Mike Sarne is certainly best remembered for his No 1 single, Come Outside, a record that also introduced us to his (vinyl only) girlfriend, Wendy Richard. History is less quick to recall that he became a photographer of note, dated Brigitte Bardot and directed a film that competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

That film, Joanna, may be the ultimate swinging London film: it's colourful, makes the city look beautiful, includes plenty of sex and is even fairly believable. "I pitched it as the female Alfie," recalls Sarne,...

Though Farrah Fawcett's main claim to fame was television, the decision to leave her out of the "In Memoriam" segment of the Oscars has caused quite a stir. Fawcett appeared in 14 feature films in her lifetime. Although she was first featured as eye candy in box-office bombs like "Myra Breckinridge" (1970), she went on to earn a Golden Globe nom for her starring role in "Extremities" (1986) and reap an Indie Spirit bid for her performance opposite Oscar nominee Robert Duvall in "The Apostle" (1997). One of her final film roles was as the estranged wife of Richard Gere in Robert Altman's "Dr. T and the Women" (2000). Among those overlooked by the academy...

Veteran actress Raquel Welch turned heads at a U.S. airport security checkpoint last week - after her bustier set off metal detectors.

The former Hollywood pin-up activated alarms after arriving at Chicago's O'Hare International airport, and held up the security checkpoint line while a Transportation Security Administration (Tsa) agent patted down her garments in full view of waiting passengers.

According to the New York Post, the agent blamed the problem on the boning in Welch's bustier. But a spokesperson for Welch has laughed off the incident, adding, "She probably isn't going to fly in a bustier anymore."

Raquel Welch made her big break in Hollywood through the role in "Fantastic Voyage". She also cemented her presence in controversial movie "Myra Breckinridge" about a transsexual who wants to be taken seriously as an actress, although it was panned by critics.

Fans and celebrities were perplexed why the late Farrah Fawcett was left out of the "in memoriam" segment of the Oscars on Sunday. The TV icon was noticeably missing from the tribute on the awards show.

Patrick Swayze, Brittany Murphy, Natasha Richardson, David Carradine, Jean Simmons, Ed McMahon, and Michael Jackson were all included in the memorial tribute among with other movie industry players. However, Fawcett, who had been nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in the 1986 film "Extremities," was not mentioned.

Although the actress was better known for her TV work, she also starred in classic films like "The Cannonball Run," "The Apostle," "Logan's Run" and "Myra Breckinridge."

Stars tweeted their outrage over the apparent snub, with film critic Roger Ebert among those who noticed the omission.

Fans and celebrities were perplexed why the late Farrah Fawcett was left out of the "in memoriam" segment of the Oscars on Sunday. The TV icon was noticeably missing from the tribute on the awards show.

Patrick Swayze, Brittany Murphy, Natasha Richardson, David Carradine, Jean Simmons, Ed McMahon, and Michael Jackson were all included in the memorial tribute among with other movie industry players. However, Fawcett, who had been nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in the 1986 film "Extremities," was not mentioned.

Although the actress was better known for her TV work, she also starred in classic films like "The Cannonball Run," "The Apostle," "Logan's Run" and "Myra Breckinridge."

Stars tweeted their outrage over the apparent snub, with film critic Roger Ebert among those who noticed the omission.

After a long, highly-publicized battle, Farrah Fawcett has succumbed to cancer at the age of 62. Though unquestionably better known for her tabloid-fodder love life and five-decade-spanning career in TV, Fawcett's filmography includes a remarkable number of camp and cult classics. See clips of her work in Logan's Run, Myra Breckinridge and Stanley Donen's Saturn 3 after the jump.

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Farrah Fawcett, who skyrocketed to fame as one of a trio of impossibly glamorous private eyes on TV's Charlie's Angels, has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 62. Fawcett died at 9:28 a.m. PST on Thursday at St. John's Heath Center in Santa Monica, Calif. She was with longtime partner Ryan O'Neal, friend Alana Stewart, friend and hairdresser Mela Murphy and her doctor Lawrence Piro. She had recently returned to St. John's for treatment of complications from anal cancer, first diagnosed three years ago. "She's gone. She now belongs to the ages," O'Neal tells People, also confirming...