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Paparazzo Apologizes to Nicholson
17 December 2007 (WENN)
Jack Nicholson has received an apology from the paparazzo who tried to "run him off the road" and then sued him when the movie star attacked his car with a golf club. The Chinatown star still regrets losing his temper in the encounter and shattering the photographer's windscreen with his two-iron. Nicholson still can't go into details about the incident because there are legal issues attached to the settlement - but at least he's had a written apology from the snapper. He tells Men's Journal magazine, "After years and years, he wrote me a letter of apology, which speaks well for him... (but) he didn't give me the money back."

Producer Evans Divorcing for Seventh Time
21 June 2006 (WENN)
Legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans is getting divorced for the seventh time. Estranged wife Lady Victoria White filed papers on Friday seeking a divorce from the 75-year-old Chinatown producer, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple were married in July 2005 in Mexico and have no children together, according to website TMZ.com. Evans was previously married to actresses Ali McGraw and Catherine Oxenberg.

WGA Names Greatest Screenplays of All Time
7 April 2006 (StudioBriefing)
The greatest screenplay ever written was Casablanca, by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, according to a vote by the members of the Writers Guild of America. The WGA announced its results for the 101 best screenplays on Thursday with these films following Casablanca on the top-ten list: 2. The Godfather, by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola; 3. Chinatown, by Robert Towne; 4. Citizen Kane, by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles; 5. All About Eve, by Joseph Mankiewicz; 6. Annie Hall, by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman; 7. Sunset Boulevard, by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman Jr.; 8. Network, by Paddy Chayefsky; 9. Some Like It Hot, by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond; 10. The Godfather Part II, by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola.

Spike Lee To Film Documentary on Hurricane Aftermath
17 October 2005 (WENN)
Spike Lee is heading to New Orleans, Louisiana, to make a documentary examining whether race and politics played a role in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Do The Right Thing director watched television coverage of the disaster while he was in Venice, Italy, for the city's film festival, and he's since compared the New Orleans situation to the 1974 film Chinatown, which starts as a simple detective story, but becomes an intricate tale of corruption and greed. He says, "People could not believe, especially the residents of the Ninth Ward (in New Orleans), that there wasn't hanky-panky in the flooding. And what I thought about automatically was Chinatown, the great film by Roman Polanski. The whole subplot of the whole thing is about water in Southern California and how it was not delivered to the people who needed it." Lee, who insists he will use "factual journalism, not creative narrative" in the probe, plans to have the project ready for next year's one-year anniversary of the hurricane.

Robert Evans To Wed for Seventh Time?
4 August 2005 (WENN)
Legendary film producer Robert Evans is reportedly set to wed for the seventh time after a whirlwind courtship with socialite Lady Victoria White. The Chinatown producer, 75, and White, will tie the knot at the One & Only Palmilla hotel in the north Mexican resort of Cabo San Lucas on Saturday. A friend tells website PageSix.com, "He flew down to Mexico Tuesday morning with Victoria and his kids. His son, Josh, will give him away and her mother will give her away." Evans has previously been married to Sharon Hugueny, Camilla Sparv, Ali MacGraw, Phyllis George, Catherine Oxenberg and Leslie Ann Woodward.

Famed Movie Composer Jerry Goldsmith Dead at 75
22 July 2004 (StudioBriefing)
Film composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose score for the 1976 movie The Omen won him an Oscar, died of cancer Wednesday in Beverly Hills at the age of 75. Goldsmith was also nominated for Oscars for Mulan, L.A. Confidential, Hoosiers, Poltergeist, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Chinatown, Patton, and Planet of the Apes. In the early days of television, he wrote the music for such TV shows as The Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke and Dr. Kildare.

Jerry Goldsmith Dies at 75
22 July 2004 (IMDb News Flash)
Jerry Goldsmith, the legendary composer whose diverse, long, and prolific career included some of the most famous themes of the last fifty years, died in his sleep Wednesday night in Beverly Hills, after a long battle with cancer. He was 75.

Goldsmith was nominated for 17 Academy Awards, winning his sole Oscar for The Omen, as well as 5 Emmys, including the theme for Star Trek: Voyager.

Goldsmith's career began in the early 1950s with the nascent television medium and continued virtually non-stop, until his illness forced him to abandon appearances and offers for more work.

Born in 1929, Goldsmith was a classically trained musician, who learned from pianist Jakob Gimpel, as well as guitarist and film composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. With his diverse background Goldsmith wrote effectively for nearly every genre imaginable but seemed particularly adept at crafting original work for science fiction, suspense, and adventure films. That held true for both television and film.

His TV work included the themes to The Waltons, Dr. Kildaire, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and original music for The Twilight Zone and Gunsmoke.

Films afforded him a broader canvas and Goldsmith took advantage of it with his work on Freud (his first Oscar nomination), Lillies of the Field, Von Ryan's Express, and The Sand Pebbles. His garish, brassy score for Planets of the Apes, which he conducted at one point wearing an ape mask, earned him his fourth nomination.

His score for Patton, full of memorable marches, included the ingenious and indelible device of a short trumpet triplet to indicate the famous WWII general's recollection of his past lives as a warrior (it was also famously spoofed in a Simpsons episode). Roman Polanski's harsh city in Chinatown was given a smoky noir glow from Goldsmith's score.

It was for his work on The Omen, arguably one of the best horror scores ever written, that Goldsmith received his only Academy Award. Suffused with Latin chanting and fierce, driving themes, it is often repurposed or imitated today.

Goldsmith also liberated the "Star Trek" franchise from its small-set roots with his rapturous, almost nautical, score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The theme for the film became the new theme for the following films as well as Star Trek: The Next Generation. It will probably be the most lasting evidence of Jerry Goldsmith's long and successful career.

Goldsmith is survived by his wife, Carol; five children, six grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.

Dunaway Sued for Maid's Fall
11 May 2004 (WENN)
Movie legend Faye Dunaway is being sued by a former maid after she fell at the actress's home. Belveth Geron claims she was working at the Chinatown star's Hollywood home when she tripped and fell down a "defective outside stairway", according to court papers obtained by American scandal show Celebrity Justice. In the suit, Geron claims the fall "greatly impaired her health, strength and activity" and that it was "an extreme shock to her nervous system". Geron wants Dunaway to pay for all her lost wages and medical expenses. The maid even claims that she has been unable to perform "that special marital relationship" since her fall and she will be "unable to engage in said activities in the future".

'39 Steps' Reborn
8 January 2004 (WENN)
Hollywood bosses are planning to give Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1935 thriller The 39 Steps a modern makeover. Movie company Carlton America, which owns the rights to the film, has hired Robert Towne, writer of the much-vaunted 1974 Oscar-winner Chinatown, to script and direct the new version. Hitchcock's film, often included in Greatest Movie lists, starred Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll and Lucie Mannheim. Towne, who's also written blockbusters like Shampoo, Tequila Sunrise and the Mission: Impossible series, says, "It's not much of an exaggeration to say that all contemporary escapist entertainment begins with The 39 Steps. I look forward to having it in my future."

Author, Screenwriter Receive Joint Award
23 January 2003 (StudioBriefing)
Author Michael Cunningham and screenwriter David Hare (The Hours) were named winners of the 15th annual USC Scripter Award, which recognizes both the original author of a work that has been adapted for the screen and the screenwriter who has written the adaptation. The 56-member selection committee, which includes members of the Writers Guild of America, Oscar-winning and -nominated screenwriters, authors, film industry executives, and members of the USC faculty, was headed by screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown). In a statement, Towne thanked all of the nominees "for the intelligence, talent and, indeed, the originality that informed these adaptations."

Thriller?
13 June 2001 (StudioBriefing)
The American Film Institute released its list of the "100 Most Thrilling American Films" Tuesday, and, like similar lists the AFI has issued in recent years, this one drew immediate criticism. New York Daily News film critic Jack Mathews commented that the main problem with the list is its definition of "thriller." Although finding no fault with the list's top ten, Mathews questions the inclusion of such films as High Noon, Lawrence of Arabia and The Wizard of Oz in the top 100, noting that they should more reasonably be included in a list of the best Westerns, biographical dramas, and children's movies. "Essentially, the institute has redefined the thriller, broadened it and, in the process, made the term -- and the new list -- moot."

The top thirty films on the AFI's "thriller" list: 1. Psycho; 2. Jaws; 3. The Exorcist; 4. North by Northwest; 5. The Silence of the Lambs; 6. Alien; 7. The Birds; 8. The French Connection; 9. Rosemary's Baby; 10. Raiders of the Lost Ark; 11. The Godfather; 12. King Kong; 13. Bonnie and Clyde; 14. Rear Window; 15. Deliverance; 16. Chinatown; 17. The Manchurian Candidate; 18 Vertigo; 19. The Great Escape; 20. High Noon; 21. A Clockwork Orange; 22. Taxi Driver; 23. Lawrence of Arabia; 24. Double Indemnity; 25. Titanic; 26. The Maltese Falcon; 27. Star Wars; 28. Fatal Attraction; 29. The Shining; 30. The Deer Hunter.

Camera Great Alonzo Dead At 66
29 March 2001 (StudioBriefing)
Famed cinematographer John Alonzo, whose work was featured in everything from big budget blockbuster to nature documentaries to local TV news programs, died in Los Angeles on March 13 at the age of 66. Alonzo was nominated for an Oscar in 1975 for his work on Roman Polanski's Chinatown. Other credits include Harold and Maude, Norma Rae, and Star Trek: Generations.

Movie Reviews: The Ninth Gate
10 March 2000 (StudioBriefing)
As usual of late, Roman Polanski is receiving mixed notices for his newest film, Ninth Gate, The (1999) On the one hand, there is Carrie Rickey, who writes in today's Philadelphia Inquirer: "Leaping Lucifer! Is it possible that Polanski, the legendary director of Repulsion (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974), concocted this bloodless, soulless and airless affair?" Likewise Jonathan Foreman comments in the New York Post: "For admirers of the work of Roman Polanski Ninth Gate, The (1999) is a painful experience." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post calls the ocult-themed film something out of "the church of idiocy" and concludes: "Polanski, generally, has fallen farther than Lucifer, and into a more profoundly depressing hell, the hell of utter banality." On the other hand, Jan Stuart writes in Newsday that the film is the "equivalent of the comfort read: the overstuffed Gothic thriller one hunkers down with by the fireplace." Peter Howell, in the Toronto Star comments that Polanski is such a good director, "that even his minor works have their fascinations. This one's no exception." and Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News calls the film, a "sly and elegant detective story."

Raising Kane To The Top
17 June 1998 (StudioBriefing)
Orson Welles' critically acclaimed 1941 film Citizen Kane (1941), purportedly based on the life of publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst has been selected as the best American film of all time by a vote of 1, 500 persons selected by the American Film Institute. Their list of the top-100 films was unveiled during a three-hour CBS television special that aired Tuesday night. The top 25 films:1. Citizen Kane (1941); 2. Casablanca (1942); 3. Godfather, The (1972); 4. Gone with the Wind (1939); 5. Lawrence of Arabia (1962); 6. Wizard of Oz, The (1939); 7. Graduate, The (1967); 8. On the Waterfront (1954); 9. Schindler's List (1993); 10. Singin' in the Rain (1952); 11. It's a Wonderful Life (1946); 12. Sunset Boulevard (1950); 13. Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957); 14. Some Like It Hot (1959); 15. Star Wars (1977); 16. All About Eve (1950); 17. African Queen, The (1951); 18. Psycho (1960); 19. Chinatown (1974); 20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975); 21. Grapes of Wrath, The (1940); 22. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); 23. Maltese Falcon, The (1941); 24. Raging Bull (1980); 25. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Polanski Victim In Plea To Let Him Return
5 November 1997 (StudioBriefing)
Samantha Geimer, who as a 13-year-old, was seduced by director Roman Polanski (Chinatown (1974), Rosemary's Baby (1968)) -- an act that led to his conviction on charges of having unlawful sex with a minor and his subsequent flight to Europe -- has told Inside Edition that she was not raped or harmed by Polanski and that she hopes that Polanski can "reach agreement with the courts and no longer be a fugitive." Recent reports have indicating that Polanski has been negotiating with authorities so that he can return to the U.S. to resume filmmaking here. Today's (Wednesday) London Daily Telegraph quoted entertainment lawyer Eric Weissman as saying, "Every agent in town would love to represent him. ... I think directors who have scored great hits and are believed to have unusual talents are always in demand."

Will Polanski Be Welcomed Back With Open Arms?
3 October 1997 (StudioBriefing)
Word that director Roman Polanski (Chinatown (1974)) is cutting a deal with the Los Angeles District Attorney's office under which he will plead guilty to charges of engaging in sex with an underaged girl in return for a probationary sentence has set Hollywood abuzz with speculation about his returning to filmmaking in the U.S., the Los Angeles Times reported today (Friday). Entertainment attorney Eric Weissman told the newspaper, "Every agent in town would love to represent him." Another (unnamed) attorney remarked, "Great name, great films, great scandal -- it's got it all." Many suggested that, despite the scandal, most studios would hire him. Producer Marvin Worth told the Times, "He's considered a good director and had a good track record."

PBS Documentary Package To Include A Movie
18 July 1997 (StudioBriefing)
In an unusual bit of packaging, Home Vision is offering the four-part documentary Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature, airing on PBS this month, with Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) included as the fifth installment. Chinatown deals in part with the effort to bring Owens River water to Southern California. The package will retail for $99.95.