Silent but Sexy, a Shadow and a Czech Visionary
By
Ed Garea
Although
the big news was the untimely death of Garry Shandling, three other
notable people in the world of film also passed away.
Rita
Gam
Rita
Gam, a breakout star of the 1950s who went on to a lengthy career in
film and television, died on March 22. Nancy Willen, Gam’s
publicist, said the actress passed away in Los Angeles of respiratory
failure. She was 88.
Gam
was born Rita Eleanore Mackay in Pittsburgh on April 2, 1927, to
Milton A. Mackay, an immigrant from Alsace-Lorraine who died when she
was four, and Belle (Fately) Mackay, who was born in Romania.
She
took her stage name from her stepfather, Benjamin J. Gam, a dress
manufacturer who was born in Russia who her mother married in 1932.
She was raised in Manhattan and attended the private Fieldston School
in the Bronx. At the age of 17 she “ran away” from home –
actually about 25 blocks – to a Midtown hotel, and found work
modeling hats and selling stuffed pandas while pursuing an acting
career in her spare time.
A
founding member of The Actor’s Studio, she made her Broadway debut
in Ben Hecht’s 1946 play A Flag Is Born alongside
future husband Sidney Lumet. She appeared in three more productions
before turning to television, where she guest starred in several
series.
In
1952, she was signed by Clarence Greene, a producer for Harry Popkin,
for the lead opposite Ray Milland in The Thief. The film
was a slow-moving noir about a nuclear physicist in Washington who is
also working as a spy for an unnamed foreign country. It was unique
in that it was filmed without dialogue.
Gam’s
performance caught the eye of Life magazine, which
featured her on its September 1952 cover, describing Gam as a “silent
and sexy” actress who “can express herself eloquently without
words.” In just a few moments on the screen, the magazine noted,
Gam “makes a striking movie debut without uttering a word.”
The
publicity also caught the eye of MGM, which signed her to a long-term
contract in October 1952. After serving a brief suspension in October
1953 for refusing a loan-out to Paramount to star in the Martin-Lewis
comedy Living It Up (a remake of Nothing
Sacred), she starred with Cornel Wilde in the exotic Saadia.
While
working for MGM, she shared an apartment with fellow newcomer Grace
Kelly. They developed a close friendship that later led to Gam’s
serving as a bridesmaid at the wedding of Kelly to Prince Rainier of
Monaco in 1956.
Other
notable movie roles were Night People (1954) with
Gregory Peck; Sign of the Pagan (1954) with Jack
Palance and Jeff Chandler; Hannibal (1959) with
Victor Mature; King of Kings (1961), as Queen Hernias;
and Klute (1971) with Jane Fonda. Interestingly, she
was offered a leading role in The Ten Commandments (1956),
but during her interview with director Cecil B. DeMille, she confided
that she was not religious, so he died not hire her.
At
the 1962 Berlin Film Festival, she shared a Silver Bear award as Best
Actress with Viveca Lindfors for her performance as Estelle in Tad
Danielewski’s adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No
Exit (aka Sinners
Go To Hell ). Lindfors
was also in the film as Inez.
Besides
her work in film and television, she also played a leading role,
along with Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Zoe Caldwell and others, with
the Minnesota Theater Company in 1963 during the opening season of
the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
She
also became a producer (with two documentary series, World of
Film and World of Beauty, to her credit) and an
author. She write two books: Actress to Actress (1986),
and Actors: A Celebration (1988).
Gam
was married and divorced twice, to director Sidney Lumet (1949-1955),
and book publisher and co-founder of The
Paris Review,
Thomas Guinzburg (1956-63). She is survived by daughter, Kate
Guinzburg, a film producer, who worked in Michelle Pfeiffer’s Vin
Rosa Productions; son, Michael Guinzburg, a novelist; and three
granddaughters.
Ken
Howard
Ken
Howard, who earned acclaim for his role in the television series The
White Shadow, and as Thomas Jefferson in both the Broadway and
film versions of 1776, died on March 23 at his home
near Los Angeles. No cause of death was given. He was 71.
Howard
was also was the sitting president of SAG-Aftra, Hollywood’s
largest union, which he helped form in 2012.
During
the course of a 47-year career, Mr. Howard appeared in more than 100
movies and television series, including the previously mentioned The
White Shadow, a critically lauded drama that ran on CBS from 1978
to 1981 when it was cut for low ratings. One of its problems with
ratings was it aired at least two years opposite Happy Days
and Laverne and Shirley, typically the top two rated shows on
the air at the time. Howard starred as a retired
professional basketball player who becomes a coach at an urban high
school.
A
stockbroker’s son, he was born Kenneth Joseph Howard in
El Centro, Calif., on March 28, 1944. His family moved to Manhasset,
on Long Island, where he starred on the high school basketball team.
At Amherst College, he captained the basketball team and was a member
of an a cappella group, the Zumbyes. He later
studied at the Yale School of Drama, but left before graduation for
the lights of Broadway, making his debut in 1968 in the original
production of Neil Simon’s Promises, Promises with
Jerry Orbach.
In
1969, he originated the role of Thomas Jefferson in the Tony-winning
musical 1776, a role that he repeated in the film version
made the same year. In 1970, he won a Tony Award as Best Supporting
or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for his role as a young gym coach at a
Catholic boys’ school in Child’s Play. His other
Broadway appearances include Seesaw (1973), The
Norman Conquests (1975), 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue (1976), and Rumors (1988). He also
starred as Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill in According to Tip
(2008).
Howard
made his film debut in Otto Preminger’s Tell Me That You
Love Me, Junie Moon (1970), co-starring with Liza Minelli.
Other noted films were Such Good Friends (1971), The
Strange Vengeance of Rosalie (1972), Second
Thoughts (1983), Oscar (1991, with
Sylvester Stallone), Ulterior Motives (1991), Clear
and Present Danger (1994, with Harrison Ford), The
Net (1995, with Sandra Bullock), Tactical
Assault (2005), In Her Shoes (2005),
Michael Clayton (2007), Rambo (also
known as Rambo IV) (2008), A Numbers Game (2010),
and J. Edgar (2010).
He
received an Emmy Award for his performance Phelan Beale in the HBO
production of Grey Gardens (2009). His last films
were Better Living Through Chemistry (2013), The
Judge (2014), The Wedding Ringer (2015),
and Joy (2015).
But
it was television where he was best known, primarily for his work as
coach Ken Reeves on The White Shadow, which took its name
from a nickname given to him by the Long Island Press, as
he was the only Caucasian starter on the Manhasset High School
varsity basketball team.
He
co-starred on the series Adam’s Rib (1973), The
Manhunter (1974-75), It’s Not Easy (1983), The
Colbys (1985) and Dynasty (1981), Melrose
Place (1994-98 as George Andrews), Crossing
Jordan (2001 where he played Jill Hennessy’s
father), Cane (2007), and as Hank Hooper on 30
Rock (2011-13). He also guest starred six times on Murder,
She Wrote (1985-94).
Notable
miniseries include The Thorn Birds (1983), Rage
of Angels (1983), The Country Girl (1982), Murder
in New Hampshire: The Pamela Rojas Smart Story (1991), Memories
of Midnight (1991), Mastergate (1992), OP Center
(1995), and Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenet and the
City of Boulder (2000). He also won a Daytime Emmy Award for
the 1980 TV documentary,The Body Human: Facts for Boys.
A
working member of SAG for over 40 years, he was first elected
National President beginning September 24, 2009. He inherited a union
suffering the effects of a strike by the Writers Guild of America and
anxiety over shrinking pay as studios and television networks were
tightening their belts.
His
notable achievement was in negotiating the merger of SAG with the
competing American Federation of Radio and Television Artists,
significantly bolstering actors’ bargaining power and creating a
union 160,000 members strong. He then won re-election campaigns in
August 2013 and August 2015.
In
addition to his acting and union work, Howard also served as National
Spokesperson and Executive Board Member of the Onyx and Breezy
Foundation (which grants financial aid to individuals and qualified
rescues that benefit the welfare of animals), The National Kidney
Foundation (Chancellor), and was a member, along with his wife Linda,
on the Board of the Los Angeles Alzheimer's Committee.
He
also authored a book, Act Natural: How to Speak to Any
Audience (2003), and has lent his voice to more than 30
best-selling books on tape.
Howard
was married three times, to actress Louise Sorel (1973-75), Margo
Howard, the daughter of advice columnist Ann Landers (1977-91), and
retired stuntwoman Linda Fetters (1992-2016). He is survived by Linda
and three stepchildren.
Jan
Nemec
A
Czech director whose surreal, parable-like films made him one of the
leaders, along with Miloš Forman, Jirí Menzel, and Vera Chytilová,
of the Czech New Wave movement in the 1960s, died on March 18 in
Prague. His death was announced by wife Iva Ruszelakova in the
newspaper Dnes (Today). She did not give the cause
of death. He was 79.
He
was born in Prague on July 12, 1936. Proficient on the piano and
clarinet, he thought about becoming a jazz musician until dissuades
by his father, who thought that filmmaking was a more practical
profession. He enrolled in 1956 at the Film and Television School of
the Academy of Performing Arts (also known as FAMU), where he was
mentored by revered filmmaker Vaclav Krska.
For
graduation in 1960, Nemec adapted an autobiographical short story by
Arnost Lustig into the film A Piece of Bread about three
prisoners who plot their escape while being transported by train from
one concentration camp to another. While trying to steal a loaf of
bread, they find themselves at one another’s throats.
Nemec’s
first film was Diamonds of the Night (1964), an
adaptation of Lustig’s wartime novel. Using a hand-held camera,
Nemec spins a story of two young men who escape from a Nazi prison
train and wander across a bleak landscape. Using such devices as
flashbacks and simulated hallucinations, their thoughts and fantasies
play out on the screen as they encounter strange scenes and even
stranger people, resulting in an ending that leaves the viewer in
doubt as to their fate.
It
was all part of a style he invented and called “dream realism.”
He relied on haunting imagery, flashbacks, using hallucinations and
other dislocating devices to bend the narratives in directions
viewers were not expecting.
His
next film Report on the Party and the Guests (1966)
is considered by many to be his masterpiece. A Buñuelesque allegory
about a party that degenerates into a sinister game, the film drew
the ire of the Communist authorities, in part because the sadistic
host of the party resembled Lenin. The result was that the film ended
up on the censor’s shelf for the next 20 years though it was
available to be shown at the 1968 New York Film Festival.
He
also contributed a segment to Pearls of the Deep, an
anthology showcasing up-and-coming Czech directors, with all stories
being based on the writings of author Bohumil Hrabal. Nemec's
segment, The Poseurs, concerns two elderly residents at a
clinic who spend their days bragging about their glamorous pasts, but
later turn out to be nonentities.
He
next completed Martyrs of Love (1967), a feature
consisting of three love stories, each with a surreal overtone. The
resulting furor from the censors forced Nemec to work outside the
government-approved system. His next production, the short Mother
and Son (Mutter und Sohn) in 1967, was shot while
attending a student film festival in Amsterdam. The fact that it was
made with financing from West German television and a Dutch film
company further strained his relations with the Czech government.
But
it was the documentary, Oratorio for Prague (1968),
that ultimately forced him to leave Czechoslovakia. The film,
intended as praise for the new artistic freedoms under the reformist
government of Alexander Dubcek, ended with scenes of Russian tanks
rolling through the streets of Prague.
The
film was smuggled out of the country and served as proof that the
Soviet invasion was not by invitation of the Czech people, as was
claimed. In addition, news programs worldwide broadcast the footage,
and in 1988, Philip Kaufman even included it in his adaptation of
Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of
Being. Nemec served as an adviser and appeared in a cameo as
a documentarian interrogated for filming the invasion.
Nemec
attempted to leave the country soon after it was completed, but he
was held until 1974, when he was able to leave for Germany, where he
made several films for television, including an adaptation of
Kafka’s Metamorphosis (1975). From 1974 to 1989,
he traveled to Germany, Paris, Holland, Sweden and the United States,
staying in the latter for 12 years. Unable
to work in traditional cinema, he pioneered the use of video cameras
to record weddings, including documenting the nuptials of the Swedish
royal family.
He
returned to the Czech Republic in 1989 after democracy was restored
by the “Velvet Revolution.” He accepted a job teaching film at
his alma mater. He also made the features In
the Light
of the King’s Love (1991);
Jmeno
kodu: Rubin
(Code
Name: Ruby,
1997), a combination of documentary, fiction, and the supernatural
that creates a collage of his country’s past, present, and future;
the documentaries, Late
Night Talks With My Mother (2001)
and Landscape
of My Heart (2004); Toyen (2005),
a biopic of the Czech surrealistic painter; and The
Ferrari Dino Girl (2010).
Right before his death, he completed filming The
Wolf of Royal Vineyard Street,
a comedy based on his life. It will premiere in the Czech Republic on
July 1.
Nemec
married four times: to costume designer and screenwriter Ester
Krumbachova (1963-68), singer Marta Kubisova (1970-73), Czech
language teacher Veronica Baumann (1984-2003), and film editor Iva
Ruszelakova in 2003. In addition to his wife, Nemec is survived by a
daughter, Arleta Nemcova.
Nemec
was an uncompromising visionary. His vision was not only limited to
cinema. In 2014, he protested against the president of the Czech
Republic, Milos Zeman, by returning the medals given to him by the
first president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel (who happened to
be Nemec’s cousin).