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I'll always remember Zsa Zsa Gabor for her role in the incredibly silly (even by the bar set by other 50s B-movie sci-fis) Queen of Outer Space. It was so bizarrely terrible that even the wholesale loving spoofing of the film that happens throughout Amazon Women On The Moon isn't as funny as Queen of Outer Space already was!

The later appearances were more based on her celebrity persona, with the two standouts being her brief cameo in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and at the end of Naked Gun 2 1/2's opening title sequence!

colinr0380 wrote:The later appearances were more based on her celebrity persona, with the two standouts being her brief cameo in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and at the end of Naked Gun 2 1/2's opening title sequence!

She also appeared in A Very Brady Sequel, making light of the publicity she received after slapping that police officer in 1989, prompting Rosie O'Donnell to say, "Maybe I should slap somebody."

Wow I had no idea she was still around!

domino harvey wrote:Wow I had no idea she was still around!

This here http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2015/ ... -note.html is a rather useful resource though there are obviously always always gaps, for Germany e.g. Anneliese Uhlig born 1918 as the last surviving leading lady from Third Reich cinema would be missing.

Wow, Michelle Morgan is death. With those eyes. Even my mother knows her.

I've lived a long night without sleeping thinking... and don't laugh, in the Gabor's death because on my mind was always the same question: how they could leave Hungary in WW2? Were they German spies? I've read the wikipedia and looked youtube and I discovered they were Jewish in origin. No matter how or who, they arrive to USA and as Mae West said: bad girls go everywhere. Impressive, how to escape or just how to travel in WW2 has always interests me.

Does anyone know a good book about 'travelling during WWII' ?

I can't help you with a book, but I can give some info on the Gabor sisters: Zsa Zsa and Eva emigrated before the war—Zsa Zsa married a Turkish diplomat and moved to Ankara in 1937, and Eva married a Swedish osteopath in London that same year. Eva and her husband moved to Los Angeles in 1939 and Zsa Zsa followed (after divorcing her husband) in 1941. (Turkey was neutral until the very late stages of the war.) Magda stayed in Hungary and had some sort of relationship with the Portuguese ambassador, who helped her (and some other family members, including mother Jolie) escape to Portugal after the Nazis occupied Hungary in '44. Jolie Gabor incidentally lived to 100, outliving Eva and passing away only two months before Magda.

Thanks. Turkey, several diplomats, the mother was a Jeweller, they knew how to survive well.

Probably there was any boat from Turkey to the (West) States, Pacific was on calm until december 41.

I've got a friend, she's a multi exile survivor and they don't know how but her Grandfather could escape from Auswitz (or similar) to Budapest in 44 and then arrived to Buenos Aires but they don't know why or how.

Philip Saville, one of the most important and innovative British TV directors.

The Alexandrov Red Army Choir, as featured in Ali Kaurismäki's Total Balalaika Show, amongst others.

(UPDATE: It seems that 64 of the 180-strong ensemble died in the Black Sea plane crash, although this included all but three of the singers - there were only 14 dancers and instrumentalists because the Syrian event they were scheduled to perform at was primarily a cappella. The Russian Ministry of Culture has said that they'll spare no expense in trying to reconstruct the band. More details here, in an article that also acknowledges the importance of the concert that Kaurismäki filmed in bringing them a new post-Soviet audience.)

Liz Smith at 95 on Christmas Eve. While she is being celebrated for her long running roles in The Royle Family and The Vicar of Dibley she was really popping up all over British television series for decades - I most remember her for turning up in the BBC sitcom 2point4 Children! And also as the Grandma in Channel 4's short-lived Crapston Villas. (By the way Crapston Villas features quite a few Mike Leigh actors with Jane Horrocks and Alison Steadman in the cast!) And Liz Smith did voice work in the Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit film.

After an early role in Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments she appeared in an eclectic range of films in small roles - Lindsay Anderson's Britannia Hospital, John Schlesinger's adaptation of Separate Tables, The French Lieutenant's Woman, the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol, Roman Polanski's version of Oliver Twist, Secrets & Lies, the late 90s adaptations of George Orwell's Keep The Aspidistra Flying and Alan Ayckbourn's Revengers' Comedies, in the adaptation of James Herbert's Haunted, and so on.

She even turns up playing Peter O'Toole's mother in Neil Jordan's film High Spirits!

The parts that I find most interesting though were as the rather out of it mother of the boorish gangster in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover. And she was excellent as a double act with Dora Bryan as a couple of dotty old ladies in an Argentinian apartment building run by Colin Firth(!) in Apartment Zero!

George Michael discussion moved here

Decorator Gil Parrondo, Spaniard who won 2 Oscar (Patton, Nicholas and Alexandra)

Argentinian Eliseo Subiela, film maker, famous for El lado oscuro del corazón / The Dark Side of the Heart. How beautiful this movie is.

Carrie Fisher discussion here

Ricky Harris, who I fondly remember from the underseen Thick as Thieves

Was also in a rather memorable scene with Al Pacino in Heat

Vera Rubin, astronomer who discovered dark matter

Joachim Calmeyer passed away two days ago. In Norway he was best known for his stage work (he's done more Ibsen than anyone else in Norwegian theatre), but he also did some notable films - he was the observed bachelor in Kitchen Stories and he was in Liv Ullman's Kristin Lavransdatter.

Disney legend Tyrus Wong at 106.

John Chelew. Famed booker for McCabe's Guitar Shop, he became a producer when he pushed a newly-sober John Hiatt to record an impressive batch of new songs even though he was no longer on a label. That album, Bring the Family, turned everything around for Hiatt.