Italian American actor won herself iconic status with the 1959 film where she played a woman ‘passing’ as white
Lelia Goldoni, the actor best known as the female lead in John Cassavetes’ groundbreaking film Shadows, has died aged 86. The news was first reported by the Wrap, who said that her manager Jd Sobol announced that she died on Saturday at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey.
Goldoni had become involved with Shadows as a result of the acting workshop Cassavetes had started in 1956 – before which, according to Cassavetes, she had no professional acting experience. The film itself arose from an improvised audition sketch Cassavetes had performed for acting guru Lee Strasberg about two black siblings who “passed” for white. Having elaborated the idea into a full-length film, Cassavetes asked Goldoni to play the sister to brothers Hugh Hurd and Ben Carruthers; her character became the central figure of the film,...
Lelia Goldoni, the actor best known as the female lead in John Cassavetes’ groundbreaking film Shadows, has died aged 86. The news was first reported by the Wrap, who said that her manager Jd Sobol announced that she died on Saturday at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey.
Goldoni had become involved with Shadows as a result of the acting workshop Cassavetes had started in 1956 – before which, according to Cassavetes, she had no professional acting experience. The film itself arose from an improvised audition sketch Cassavetes had performed for acting guru Lee Strasberg about two black siblings who “passed” for white. Having elaborated the idea into a full-length film, Cassavetes asked Goldoni to play the sister to brothers Hugh Hurd and Ben Carruthers; her character became the central figure of the film,...
- 7/28/2023
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Lelia Goldoni, who was cast in the lead role for John Cassavette’s race-centered film “Shadows,” died over the weekend at the age of 86.
The actress died on Saturday at the Actors Fund Home in Engelwood, New Jersey, Goldoni’s friend, Jd Sobol, told TheWrap on Thursday.
The New York City native was born on Oct. 1, 1936, and got her start in the entertainment business during the 1940s, with one of her first roles being a cameo in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “House of Strangers” in 1949. That same year she also had a role in John Huston’s “We Were Strangers.”
Martin Scorsese later brought Goldoni on to star as a friend of Ellen Burnstyn’s character in his 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” Her resume also included performing in the original “The Italian Job” (1969), John Schlesinger’s “The Day of the Locust” (1975) and Robert Mulligan’s “Bloodbrothers.”
Goldoni, who...
The actress died on Saturday at the Actors Fund Home in Engelwood, New Jersey, Goldoni’s friend, Jd Sobol, told TheWrap on Thursday.
The New York City native was born on Oct. 1, 1936, and got her start in the entertainment business during the 1940s, with one of her first roles being a cameo in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “House of Strangers” in 1949. That same year she also had a role in John Huston’s “We Were Strangers.”
Martin Scorsese later brought Goldoni on to star as a friend of Ellen Burnstyn’s character in his 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” Her resume also included performing in the original “The Italian Job” (1969), John Schlesinger’s “The Day of the Locust” (1975) and Robert Mulligan’s “Bloodbrothers.”
Goldoni, who...
- 7/28/2023
- by Raquel "Rocky" Harris
- The Wrap
Lelia Goldoni, who sparkled as the lead in John Cassavettes’ Shadows and played a friend of Ellen Burstyn’s character in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, has died. She was 86.
Goldoni died Saturday at The Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey, her friend Jd Sobol announced.
Goldoni also appeared in the original The Italian Job (1969), in John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (1975), in Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and in Robert Mulligan’s Bloodbrothers (1978).
A second cousin of famed New York Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto, Lelia Vita Goldoni was born in New York on Oct. 1, 1936. She was raised in Los Angeles, where she was one of the Lester Horton Dancers alongside Alvin Ailey and Carmen de Lavallade.
Goldoni studied acting with Jeff Corey and at age 19 moved back to New York, where she became a student at a drama...
Goldoni died Saturday at The Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey, her friend Jd Sobol announced.
Goldoni also appeared in the original The Italian Job (1969), in John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (1975), in Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and in Robert Mulligan’s Bloodbrothers (1978).
A second cousin of famed New York Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto, Lelia Vita Goldoni was born in New York on Oct. 1, 1936. She was raised in Los Angeles, where she was one of the Lester Horton Dancers alongside Alvin Ailey and Carmen de Lavallade.
Goldoni studied acting with Jeff Corey and at age 19 moved back to New York, where she became a student at a drama...
- 7/27/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Unknown Man Of Shandigor (1967) Lands On Video-on-demand March 1St From Deaf Crocodile And Grasshopper Films
Long-Unseen 60s Swiss Black & White Cold War Spy Thriller Stars Marie-France Boyer, Ben Carruthers, Jacques Dufilho, Daniel Emilfork, and Famed Singer-Songwriter Serge Gainsbourg
Recently restored in 4K from the camera negative by the Cinémathèque suisse with additional digital restoration by Deaf Crocodile, Jean-Louis Roy’s visually stunning The Unknown Man Of Shandigor originally screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967 and stars legendary French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg and famed Chilean cult actor Daniel Emilfork. Deaf Crocodile Films and Grasshopper Films will be releasing the long-unseen 60s Cold War super-spy thriller on VOD on March 1st, 2022.
The Unknown Man Of Shandigor is a marvelous and surreal hall of mirrors, part-dr. Strangelove, part-Alphaville, with sly nods to British TV shows like “The Avengers” and “Doctor Who.” The film stars a who’s who of...
Long-Unseen 60s Swiss Black & White Cold War Spy Thriller Stars Marie-France Boyer, Ben Carruthers, Jacques Dufilho, Daniel Emilfork, and Famed Singer-Songwriter Serge Gainsbourg
Recently restored in 4K from the camera negative by the Cinémathèque suisse with additional digital restoration by Deaf Crocodile, Jean-Louis Roy’s visually stunning The Unknown Man Of Shandigor originally screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967 and stars legendary French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg and famed Chilean cult actor Daniel Emilfork. Deaf Crocodile Films and Grasshopper Films will be releasing the long-unseen 60s Cold War super-spy thriller on VOD on March 1st, 2022.
The Unknown Man Of Shandigor is a marvelous and surreal hall of mirrors, part-dr. Strangelove, part-Alphaville, with sly nods to British TV shows like “The Avengers” and “Doctor Who.” The film stars a who’s who of...
- 2/15/2022
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
It’s something completely different . . . a genuine obscurity, a Swiss spy fantasy from the 1960s with major appeal to fans keen on (not in this order) art cinema, Fritz Lang, superspy romps, surreal silent serials, Eurocult actors, and visuals with a New Wave-ish flair. Teams of assassins vie for an atom secret held by mad scientist Daniel Emilfork. The spies target his gorgeous, innocent daughter Marie-France Boyer, but she’s obsessed with a romantic memory from ‘last summer in Shandigor.’ Jean-Louis Roy’s unique, precision-crafted gem evokes the graphic-novel pulp appeal of Dr. Mabuse, Alphaville, Judex or Diabolik — yet it is unlike any of them. It’s comic nonsense, but also earnest and original.
The Unknown Man of Shandigor
Blu-ray
Deaf Crocodile Films
1967 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date January 22, 2022 / L’inconnu de Shandigor / Available through Vinegar Syndrome / 34.98
Starring: Marie-France Boyer, Ben Carruthers, Daniel Emilfork, Jacques Dufilho, Serge Gainsbourg,...
The Unknown Man of Shandigor
Blu-ray
Deaf Crocodile Films
1967 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date January 22, 2022 / L’inconnu de Shandigor / Available through Vinegar Syndrome / 34.98
Starring: Marie-France Boyer, Ben Carruthers, Daniel Emilfork, Jacques Dufilho, Serge Gainsbourg,...
- 2/8/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Often for children of a similar vintage, the Saturday matinee was where our movie memories began and then flourished; we were shown sword-fighting skeletons, one-eyed ogres and metallic barn fowl, pretty girls in peril and giants with a grudge. Fantasy adventure was a familiar label to us afternoon filmgoers, and the more absurd the flick, the better. The Lost Continent (1968) didn’t cross my path as a kid, but it certainly would have fit right in with our weird fiction viewing habits at the time. Watching it as a significantly aged and occasionally cynical movie lover, one can see that love of pulp on display, with one important difference: this was made by Hammer Films.
Pulp? Without question. But filtered through Hammer’s latter day approach of looser morals and giddy blood spraying, The Lost Continent seems to be made for adults who missed the experience the first time around,...
Pulp? Without question. But filtered through Hammer’s latter day approach of looser morals and giddy blood spraying, The Lost Continent seems to be made for adults who missed the experience the first time around,...
- 10/31/2020
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
Jacques Rivette's Out 1, Noli Me Tangere (1971) is showing on Mubi in the United States.There’s a lot of confusion about what improvisation in movies consists of—when it is or isn’t used, and sometimes what it means when it is used. Those who think that the dialogue in Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind is improvised don’t realize that the screenplay by Welles and Oja Kodar with that dialogue was published years ago, long before the film’s posthumous completion. It’s worth adding, however, that the film’s mise en scène was improvised by Welles on a daily basis. Similarly, those misled by director Robert Altman’s dreamy pans and seemingly random zooms in The Long Goodbye into concluding that the actors must be inventing their own lines are ignoring the careful work done by screenwriter Leigh Brackett, not to mention Raymond Chandler.
- 6/21/2020
- MUBI
In a letter dated June 1, 1962, the newly formed Film-Makers’ Cooperative offered their first list of films that were available to rent. Fourteen filmmakers were represented.
The need to form a cooperative distribution center for what were then called “independent filmmakers” was made in a series of meetings in the autumn of 1960. The meetings were organized by Jonas Mekas and Lew Allen; and included New York City-based filmmakers such as Robert Frank, Shirley Clarke, Adolfas Mekas, Ben Carruthers, Peter Bogdanovich and others. These informal meetings would eventually coalesce into the formation of the New American Cinema Group.
On September 30, 1960, Jonas Mekas presented The First Statement of the New American Cinema Group manifesto. One of the items in the manifesto stated that filmmaker Emile de Antonio was entrusted with the task of forming the distribution center, although there’s no record of de Antonio’s actual involvement beyond that.
The distribution center...
The need to form a cooperative distribution center for what were then called “independent filmmakers” was made in a series of meetings in the autumn of 1960. The meetings were organized by Jonas Mekas and Lew Allen; and included New York City-based filmmakers such as Robert Frank, Shirley Clarke, Adolfas Mekas, Ben Carruthers, Peter Bogdanovich and others. These informal meetings would eventually coalesce into the formation of the New American Cinema Group.
On September 30, 1960, Jonas Mekas presented The First Statement of the New American Cinema Group manifesto. One of the items in the manifesto stated that filmmaker Emile de Antonio was entrusted with the task of forming the distribution center, although there’s no record of de Antonio’s actual involvement beyond that.
The distribution center...
- 4/1/2018
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Riot (1969) Direction: Buzz Kulik Cast: Jim Brown, Gene Hackman, Mike Kellin, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Clifford David, Ben Carruthers, Frank Eyman Screenplay: James Poe; from Frank Elli's novel "A protest, a riot, I don't care what you call it," says Red (Gene Hackman), the mastermind of an audacious plan to break out of an Arizona prison in the 1969 release Riot, produced by William Castle, directed by Buzz Kulik (Brian's Song), and adapted by James Poe (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?) from Frank Elli's novel. [Note: Spoilers ahead.] Red and a small crew of fellow criminals — an ad hoc and suitably diverse bunch from the solitary confinement wing, including wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time protagonist Cully Briston (Jim Brown) — instigate an uprising among the other inmates, hoping to distract the authorities with their seemingly serious demands while they plot to sneak out through a tunnel under the prison auditorium. This line seems to betray a [...]...
- 3/2/2011
- by Dan Erdman
- Alt Film Guide
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