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Yaphet Kotto, the New York-born actor known for his memorable characters in numerous film and television productions, has died at the age of 81, His widow Sinahon Thessa, who announced his death on Facebook, said Kotto died in the Philippines. "You played a villain on some of your movies but for me you’re a real hero and to a lot of people also," she wrote. "A good man, a good father, a good husband and a decent human being, very rare to find." Kotto and Anthony Quinn played veteran New York City police officer determined to keep the peace after a trio of Black men from Harlem pull off a bold heist of $300,000 in mob money. Directed by Barry Shear, the film -- which also starred Anthony Franciosa, Paul Benjamin, Ed Bernard and Antonio Fargas -- is remembered for its soundtrack that included songs written and performed by Bobby Womack. In the 1973 James Bond thriller "Live and Let Die" -- Sir Roger Moore's debut appearance as 007 -- Kotto played the sinister Dr. Kananga (a.k.a. the international crime kingpin Mr. Big), who menaced the British superspy and a once-trusted adviser named Solitaire (Jane Seymour). Kotto received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of the Ugandan strongman Idi Amin Dada in the 1976 made-for-television movie "Raid on Entebbe," He was nominated in the category of Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Drama Special. The production, which also starred Peter Finch, Charles Bronson, Martin Balsam, Horst Buchholz, John Saxon and Jack Warden, was based on the real-life 1976 Israeli rescue of hostages held captive by terrorists at the Ugandan airport in Entebbe. Raid on Entebbe (1976) Co-written and directed by Paul Schrader -- who wrote the screenplay for "Taxi Driver" -- the 1978 drama "Blue Collar" teamed Kotto with Harvey Keitel and Richard Pryor. They played Detroit auto plant workers who hatched a plan to steal the contents of a safe at their union's headquarters. Kotto appeared as Parker -- one of the doomed crew members of the 22nd century starfreighter Nostromo -- in Sir Ridley Scott's classic space thriller "Alien." The film, which won the 1979 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, also starred Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Sir John Hurt, Sir Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton and Veronica Cartwright. After "Alien," Kotto reportedly turned down the roles of Lando Calrissian in "Star Wars: Episode V -- The Empire Strikes Back" and Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in TV's "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The reason: He did not want to be typecast in sci-fi productions. In the 1988 comedy/drama "Midnight Run," Kotto appeared as an FBI agent who complicated the plans of a bounty hunter (Robert De Niro) to bring in a shady mob accountant (Charles Grodin). From 1993 to 1999, Kotto was a regular in the Emmy Award-winning NBC drama series "Homicide: Life on the Street" as the demanding Lt. Al Giardello, Sr. of the Baltimore Police Department. "Giardello is one of the few characters on television that presented a positive Black man in a positive role with strengths and weaknesses and all the rest," Kotto said. "When they created Giardello, they created a bigger-than-life character. Consequently, people who grew up on John Wayne and the kind of bigger-than-life characters like Clark Gable that Hollywood used to give us, saw Giardello as a father figure or maybe an uncle. I know this because of the way people reacted to me and the character publicly and privately." Ben Mankiewicz @BenMank77 If Yaphet Kotto was in it, it was better. Sometimes much better. From Blue Collar to Midnight Run; from Nothing But a Man to Across 110th St; from Alien to Homicide: Life on the Street. He made Live and Let Die memorable, yet the studio didn’t want him promoting the film. Damn. 2:33 AM · Mar 16, 2021·Twitter for iPhone David Simon @AoDespair Memories and respect for Yaphet Kotto, whose film career was legend even before he came to Baltimore to grace our television drama. But for me, he'll always be Al Giardello, the unlikeliest Sicilian, gently pulling down the office blinds to glower at detectives in his squadroom. 10:15 AM · Mar 16, 2021·Twitter Web App Mark Harris @MarkHarrisNYC RIP Yaphet Kotto. So good in so many 1970s movies, from Alien to Blue Collar to Across 110th Street, and then indelible in the great '90s series Homicide: Life on the Street, which does not stream and is worth buying a DVD player for. 12:51 AM · Mar 16, 2021·Twitter Web App Ava DuVernay @ava Yaphet Kotto. My Mom’s favorite. He’s one of those actors who deserved more than the parts he got. But he took those parts and made them wonderful all the same. A star. Rest well, sir. 2:11 AM · Mar 16, 2021·Twitter for iPhone Larry Karaszewski @Karaszewski Here’s an interview Roger Ebert did with Yaphet Kotto discussing his amazing performance in “Blue Collar” https://rogerebert.com/interviews/yaphet-kotto-blue-collar… 2:40 AM · Mar 16, 2021·Twitter for iPad

Actor Yaphet Kotto died on March 15th. He was 81. variety.com yaphet-kotto-dead-dies-alien-bond-villain-

The Trial of the Chicago 7--Since I have only seen one of the Oscar nominated films (Mank), I thought I'd try another. Well....I thought it was more interesting as a inner look at how the defendants interacted away from the courtroom. The case itself would seem interesting enough without Hollywoodizing it...and yet some of the big dramatic moments were altered--the release of Bobby Seale didn't happen immediately after he was bound and gagged...evidently he had to sit that way for days...were these just days of outrage by the attorneys? And I'm a bit put off by the addition of a wily female agent invented for...what purpose? Just to add a female role? To illustrate how some poor slob can be duped by a pretty face? Whatever...The performances were good, and I was surprised by Sacha Baron Cohen's Abbie Hoffman (I normally write him off as the Borat/Bruno flake), but the academy overlooked Frank Langella's convincing portrayal of the judge...tyrannical and not playing with a full deck. Eddie Redmayne is top billed, but honestly, the Tom Hayden character is the least interesting in the bunch. I'd say it's a good film, but I wouldn't call it great (funny...I thought the same of Mank..)

Colleen Moore

In the Good Old Summertime (1949) The Harvey Girls (1946)

Some more-- CENTENNIAL SUMMER (1946) MOTHER WORE TIGHTS (1947) STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER (1952)

On The Town Gypsy Mame (though film was pretty bad) Brigadoon? The Band Wagon

Certainly an actor with a commanding presence. Became a big fan of his during the time he played the chief of detectives on the terrific 1990's television series, Homicide: Life on the Street. (...R.I.P. Mr. Kotto)

I saw all three of the city symphonies, nicely introduced by Jacqueline Stewart. The first and longest, Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927), was much the most interesting. Some of the scenes appear to be staged (the suicide attempt, the fight on the street), as is often the case with supposed "documentaries." These scenes added for dramatic emphasis were less compelling than some of the other, quieter images. The real documentary interest is seeing what Berlin and its people looked like in 1927, nine years after WWI but before Hitler's rise to power. Karl Freund's images are often lovely. There's a great deal of Eisenstein-style montage, sometimes effective, occasionally dated. The film is divided into five acts. It loses focus a bit during the fourth act (afternoon), but recovers during the last act with its clips of Berlin nightlife. Timothy Brock's score appropriately echoes composers active at that time (Shostakovitch, Hindemith, Prokofiev) and does not overpower the images. I wonder what Edmund Meisel's original score sounded like. The primary interest of A propos de Nice (1930) is that Jean Vigo and cameraman Boris Kaufman would go on to make the beautiful L'Atalante four years later. This was mostly a dud, as far as I'm concerned. Getting to see Nice was nice, but the "satire" on the richer classes was crude and obvious. Show rich person and cut to animal in zoo. Show rich person and cut to papier-mache Carnival image. These tricks of montage were fresh for only a nanosecond in the 1920s and were cliches long before A propos de Nice. Berlin uses some of these cliches as well, but fewer of them and with less importance in the longer scheme of things. The score by Marc Peronne was briefly effective, but annoying if it lingered. Manhatta (1921), only eleven minutes long, was less ambitious, primarily a collection of images of New York's architecture and harbor, some of them inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman. The painter Charles Sheeler and and the photographer Paul Strand put the film together. There are some beautiful aerial shots. The Coplandesque musical score worked well and did not intrude.

Davis, Megan -- played by Barbara Stanwyck in THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN (1933)

LITTLE NELLIE KELLY (1941)

THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS (1989)

I do it too to FAT ARSED GOP pols!

ps- of course I can afford to THROW ALL THE STONES because we know DISPARAGING SOMEONE'S LOOKS or pointing out LARGE APPENDAGES is something I would never ever ever do.... BESIDES the whole thing about George Brent's behind....

1936

Toy Tiger

Susan Sullivan

Just shows you how long she went Oscarless between the first win and the second one. She lost eight times before winning for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." After that, she never lost again.

Oakley, Annie, played by Barbara Stanwyck in "Annie Oakley"

The Rainmaker (1956)

Good News Bye Bye Birdie Thoroughly Modern Millie Grease

Woman of the Year (the toaster) Film You Would Run on TCM Prime Time with an Irish Theme

Probably based on some writer's ex-wife or producer's ex-wife who won a large alimony settlement!

I just posted a picture of him yesterday in one of the Games & Trivia threads. He's great in LIVE AND LET DIE (1973) with Roger Moore & Jane Seymour.

I'll take this bedroom eyes glamour: What IS glamour to you? Sparkley dress? Shiny hair & footwear? Or is it an attitude?

Wednesday, March 17 Here we go again. St. Patrick’s day. But no St. David’s day, Robbie Burns day or even Canada day for TCM’s subscribers north of the border! Well, it figures because as Orson Welles said, St. Patrick’s Day as we know it was invented by the Americans. 12:30 a.m. Odd Man Out (1947). Brilliant sound track (not the music) by one of the best, Harry Miller.

hwww.nytimes.comFsally-grossman-dead Sally Grossman died on March 10th, she was on the cover of the classic Bob Dylan album' Bringing it all back home. She was the widow of Albert Grossman who managed Dylan many years.

Jessup - Harry Davenport in As Good as Married

Tovarich Next: Frank Morgan, Margaret Hamilton & Hattie McDaniel

The Whole Nine Yards (2000) This is a silly little movie! The new neighbor of a harassed dentist is a contract killer hiding from the mob after turning state's evidence. The dentist's money-hungry wife wants him to inform the mob of the man's location and collect a reward. It would not break her heart if the mob killed also the dentist. Hilarity ensues. There are no Oscar-worthy performances, no enduring social message and no tugs at the heartstrings. It is a good time. I am not a fan of either Bruce Willis or Matthew Perry who play killer and dentist. I felt that they both overacted a bit more than was necessary but it remained enjoyable. Rosanna Arquette as the wife was very much typecast as a cheap bimbo. It seems to be a role in which she specializes because she can simply be herself. I loved both Michael Clarke Duncan and Amanda Peet! He played a mob enforcer and she was the dentist's playfully ditzy assistant. All others in the cast acquitted themselves adequately for the depth of the story. 7/9.3 The movie is available with ads on: TubiTV and available with no extra fee to subscribers to: Amazon Prime Video.

No. Ship of Fools is based on a novel by Katherine Anne Porter and is about a group of people who are going to Germany. Voyage of the Damned is based on the true story of people fleeing from Germany but unable to find a country to accept them.

My parents had a recording of the Third Man Theme, so I knew the music long before I had seen the movie. For me the music adds a pleasant memory to the multiple pleasures of the film itself.

About that zither music, and my apologies to those who have read this before from me. I know that zither music can be a bit of a turnoff for some viewers, such as Hoganman. But I look at it this way, Holly Martins is a naive American in a dark foreign land far from American soil. That zither music, unusual to say the least, has a foreign sound to American ears and, thus, serves as a constant reminder that Martins is a fish out of water in a foreign land where a man can suddenly turn up very dead. The zither music, not unlike a more conventional musical score, is also used to underline certain actions or statements in the film, almost like a cynical commentator. Nah, Dargo, I'm with you. To me The Third Man is a great film that has no flaws.

You know, Dargo, in some circles having an inflated opinion of oneself constitutes a character flaw. Not that that applies to you, of course. You're just being brutally honest about your wonderfulness.

Grant, Ginger was played by Tina Louise in Gilligan's Island

Earle, Roy, played by Jack Palance in "I Died a Thousand Times"

China Seas (1935) Next: Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, Ginger Rogers

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1952)

WINE OF YOUTH

I love everything Danny Kaye has appeared in, but I can only watch one film per week or so. I think his energy starts to overwhelm me! 😄 Some of my favorites are the films he did with Vera-Ellen, Virginia Mayo and Steve Cochran (WONDER MAN, THE KID FROM BROOKLYN.) KNOCK ON WOOD is another favorite of mine, but absolutely THE COURT JESTER is my favorite. Everyone is terrific in it and so many hilarious scenes! My favorite scene: 😄

Actually the film has no more reality to it today than it did in 1967. The Sidney Poitier character is so unrealistically perfect (honourable, wealthy, a great career, handsome, well bred) that the film stacks any decision about rejecting him so that to do so it has to be strictly based upon his race. In the real world the Poitier character would have had a few human flaws like the rest of us to make the decision involving an interracial marriage more complicated. The screenwriters decided to keep it as simple as possible (reject him strictly because of his race or not). Now you might counter that by saying, "Well, race is what the film is about" but that doesn't absolve the film from its unreality.

It's Kay Francis in Mandalay (1934). Yesterday's lineup featured three of her best.

How about this:

MEET THE STEWARTS (1942)

Even Taking into Account and Consideration the .. .... ..Subjectivity of a "Quality" Performance .. It is Highly Unfortunate that (more often than not, it seems); the academy is (by and large) more interested in genre belly rubbing instead of actual grand slam, royal flush Performances .. -D.. 👎

1. The Twilight Zone. "After Hours" episode with Anne Francis set in a department store

I thought Sal Mineo was fantastic in THE GENE KRUPA STORY. I also liked him in GIANT and again he was fantastic in EXODUS. I think he would have transitioned into a busy character actor if he had not been killed so young.

Hayley Mills was in Pollyanna with Reta Shaw.