Byron Janis, the celebrated classical pianist who studied with Vladimir Horowitz, recorded previously unknown Chopin waltzes from manuscripts he unearthed and became a cultural hero in the U.S. after performing in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has died. He was 95.
Janis died Thursday at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, his wife, Maria Cooper Janis, daughter of two-time Oscar-winning actor Gary Cooper, announced.
“I have been blessed with the privilege for 58 years of loving and being loved by not only one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, but by an exceptional human being who took his talents to their highest pinnacle,” she said in a statement.
During his 85-year career, Janis covered composers from Bach to David W. Guion and performed major piano concertos from Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and Prokofiev. He occupied two volumes of the 1999 Mercury Philips series Great Pianists of the...
Janis died Thursday at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, his wife, Maria Cooper Janis, daughter of two-time Oscar-winning actor Gary Cooper, announced.
“I have been blessed with the privilege for 58 years of loving and being loved by not only one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, but by an exceptional human being who took his talents to their highest pinnacle,” she said in a statement.
During his 85-year career, Janis covered composers from Bach to David W. Guion and performed major piano concertos from Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and Prokofiev. He occupied two volumes of the 1999 Mercury Philips series Great Pianists of the...
- 3/17/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
So much classic Western iconography comes directly from the images of Fred Zinneman's 1952 film "High Noon." The ticking clocks awaiting the arrival of a dangerous train, the lone figures in a dusty town square, and Gary Cooper's sweaty, sickly close-ups are unforgettable. His desperate, acclaimed performance in the movie effectively resurrected a floundering career.
His appeal, one of ordinary heroism, was frequently wasted on movies that didn't know how to use him. Like many actors whose rise to fame preceded World War II, he struggled with changing audience expectations – there was little room anymore for the optimism of Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" or the tough patriotism of Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York," the latter of which proved enormously influential for Clint Eastwood.
He was in high-profile flops like the Ayn Rand-scripted 1949 adaptation of her own novel "The Fountainhead," an ultimately dramatically inert film that demonstrated his limitations.
His appeal, one of ordinary heroism, was frequently wasted on movies that didn't know how to use him. Like many actors whose rise to fame preceded World War II, he struggled with changing audience expectations – there was little room anymore for the optimism of Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" or the tough patriotism of Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York," the latter of which proved enormously influential for Clint Eastwood.
He was in high-profile flops like the Ayn Rand-scripted 1949 adaptation of her own novel "The Fountainhead," an ultimately dramatically inert film that demonstrated his limitations.
- 11/14/2022
- by Anthony Crislip
- Slash Film
Vincent Lindon with Anne-Katrin Titze, on Robert Mitchum: "He is my favorite one." Photo: Ed Bahlman
Vincent Lindon, who took home the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a César for his performance in Stéphane Brizé‘s The Measure Of A Man (La Loi Du Marché) co-written with Olivier Gorce, had recently starred in Alice Winocour's enticing and spirited Augustine and Claire Denis' sinister and irradiating Bastards (Les Salauds).
Vincent Lindon as Thierry: "By Skype, it's the most humiliating way of finding a job."
Gary Cooper's style by G. Bruce Boyer and Maria Cooper Janis, Michael Almereyda's Milgram Experimenter, the Hays Code, Frank Capra, Robert Mitchum and Raoul Walsh, a scene with Karine de Mirbeck and Matthieu Schaller, interviews by Skype and what it means to be able to look at oneself in the mirror in life and as an actor, are weighed with Vincent Lindon,...
Vincent Lindon, who took home the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a César for his performance in Stéphane Brizé‘s The Measure Of A Man (La Loi Du Marché) co-written with Olivier Gorce, had recently starred in Alice Winocour's enticing and spirited Augustine and Claire Denis' sinister and irradiating Bastards (Les Salauds).
Vincent Lindon as Thierry: "By Skype, it's the most humiliating way of finding a job."
Gary Cooper's style by G. Bruce Boyer and Maria Cooper Janis, Michael Almereyda's Milgram Experimenter, the Hays Code, Frank Capra, Robert Mitchum and Raoul Walsh, a scene with Karine de Mirbeck and Matthieu Schaller, interviews by Skype and what it means to be able to look at oneself in the mirror in life and as an actor, are weighed with Vincent Lindon,...
- 4/22/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
By Lauren Markoe
Religion News Service
Washington (Rns) The way fans reacted to Dolores Hart’s decision to become a cloistered nun, you might have thought the movie star had announced her intention to kill herself.
Even close friends and family could not fathom why this Grace Kelly look-alike, who gave Elvis his first on-screen kiss and had her pick of acting jobs, would stow herself away in a nunnery for the rest of her life.
As if to test her resolve in those weeks before she left Hollywood, Universal Studios offered her a role opposite Marlon Brando, a role she turned down shortly after she broke off her engagement to Don Robinson, a kind and handsome businessman who loved her intensely.
“Even my best friend, who was a priest, Father Doody, said, ‘You’re crazy. This is absolutely insane to do this,’” Mother Delores Hart remembered in a recent interview,...
Religion News Service
Washington (Rns) The way fans reacted to Dolores Hart’s decision to become a cloistered nun, you might have thought the movie star had announced her intention to kill herself.
Even close friends and family could not fathom why this Grace Kelly look-alike, who gave Elvis his first on-screen kiss and had her pick of acting jobs, would stow herself away in a nunnery for the rest of her life.
As if to test her resolve in those weeks before she left Hollywood, Universal Studios offered her a role opposite Marlon Brando, a role she turned down shortly after she broke off her engagement to Don Robinson, a kind and handsome businessman who loved her intensely.
“Even my best friend, who was a priest, Father Doody, said, ‘You’re crazy. This is absolutely insane to do this,’” Mother Delores Hart remembered in a recent interview,...
- 6/18/2013
- by Religion News Service
- Huffington Post
HollywoodNews.com: Jane Fonda‘s biographer, Patricia Bosworth, was saluted last night by Broadway producer Judy Gordon on the Upper East Side. Patti’s book, “Jane Fonda: The Public Life of a Private Woman,” is a New York Times bestseller, the latest of Bosworth’s many terrific tomes (do read her much acclaimed bios of Montgomery Clift, Diane Arbus, and of her own father, the lawyer for the Hollywood Ten).
Gordon’s A list guests included famed actor Michael Murphy, Kathryn Altman (widow of famed director Robert Altman), author Stephen Schlesinger and his legendary mom Alexandra, former French Vogue editor Joan Juliet Buck, Olympic champ and sports analyst Dick Button, writer David Black, famed director (and yes, the father) Robert Downey Sr., legendary Broadway and “Saturday Night Live” choreographer Pat Birch, producer Dennis Grimaldi, and writer-producer Maria Cooper Janis (who also happens to be the lovely daughter of Gary Cooper). After the party,...
Gordon’s A list guests included famed actor Michael Murphy, Kathryn Altman (widow of famed director Robert Altman), author Stephen Schlesinger and his legendary mom Alexandra, former French Vogue editor Joan Juliet Buck, Olympic champ and sports analyst Dick Button, writer David Black, famed director (and yes, the father) Robert Downey Sr., legendary Broadway and “Saturday Night Live” choreographer Pat Birch, producer Dennis Grimaldi, and writer-producer Maria Cooper Janis (who also happens to be the lovely daughter of Gary Cooper). After the party,...
- 9/29/2011
- by Roger Friedman
- Hollywoodnews.com
Renowned concert pianist Byron Janis—the first student of Vladimir Horowitz at age 16—has had quite a remarkable career, making headlines around the world when he discovered two long–lost original Chopin manuscripts. In his new autobiography, Chopin and Beyond: My Extraordinary Life in Music and the Paranormal (Wiley; November 1), Janis and his wife Maria Cooper Janis (the daughter of actor Gary Cooper) chronicle his struggle to overcome severe arthritis and retrace his profound—and paranormal—relationship with Chopin. Below, Janis recalls the first of many unexpected events linked to the great composer and the secret scores he left behind. Listen to the podcast after the jump.
- 10/25/2010
- Vanity Fair
The daughter of late movie legend Gary Cooper is writing a new novel about her piano prodigy husband Byron Janis.
Maria Cooper Janis will tell the story of how her spouse became a child star, despite losing feeling in a finger after a car crash when he was 11.
The book will also document Janis' battle with arthritis and experiences with the paranormal, according to the New York Post.
The as-yet-unnamed book will be released alongside a U.S. TV documentary about Janis' life.
Cooper Janis is Gary Cooper's only child from his marriage to actress Veronica Balfe.
Maria Cooper Janis will tell the story of how her spouse became a child star, despite losing feeling in a finger after a car crash when he was 11.
The book will also document Janis' battle with arthritis and experiences with the paranormal, according to the New York Post.
The as-yet-unnamed book will be released alongside a U.S. TV documentary about Janis' life.
Cooper Janis is Gary Cooper's only child from his marriage to actress Veronica Balfe.
- 8/18/2009
- WENN
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