Classic

This month marks 35 years since the passing of Steve McQueen – an actor whose light burned bright during a career cut short by cancer in 1980. Until then the “king of cool” as he came to be known, embodied the rebel, nonconformist, maverick leading man like no one perhaps before or since.

With the passing of one of Hollywood’s truly legendary leading ladies, the HFPA’s Phil Berk remembers a one-of-a-kind icon. Maureen O’Hara gave her last HFPA press conference in June of 1991.

Horror master Wes Craven died in his Los Angeles home this past Sunday August 30, 2015 after a long battle with brain cancer. He was 76.

HFPA archivist Elisa Leonelli investigates a little-known chapter in Golden Globes history. There has been some confusion about the Henrietta Awards, at times co-mingled with the Golden Globes, so we did archival research in the early history of the HFPA, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, to solve the mystery.

The HFPA’s resident musical historian Phil Berk uncovers a “lost” Fox gem scored by Kurt Weill As an avid collector of Broadway musical LPs, in 1955 I happened upon a rare recording of songs written by Kurt Weill for a long forgotten 20th Century Fox musical called Where Do we Go From Here? The recording boasted one unforgettable number entitled The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria. Not only were the lyrics (by Ira Gershwin) nimble and witty, but the melodies were instantly hummable.

The HFPA’s Jack Tewksbury compiles some of the choicest quotes from classic stars. New Quotes Daily!.

70 years to the date of the U. S.

Written by Graham Greene (possibly inspired by the adventures of his friend and double British agent Kim Philby) and directed by Carol Reed, The Third Man (1949) was a collaboration of two legendary producers: Alexander Korda and David O. Selznick.

Omar Sharif, three time Golden Globe winner, an Egyptian-born international star, has died in Cairo, age 83. The only Egyptian actor to have achieved Hollywood stardom, Sharif emerged as a star very much like the way his character in Lawrence of Arabia emerges on the screen, in a classic shot devised by triple Golden Globe winner director David Lean, and photographed by ace British cinematographer, Golden Globe winner Fred Young: In what is perhaps one of the most dramatic entrances recorded on film, Sharif plays an Arab tribal chief, who join Peter O'Toole's Lawrence of Arabia in his fight against the Turkish army.

HJ Park looks back at a movie tradition both dastardly and delicious. The latest Bond novel Trigger Mortis is written by British writer Anthony Horowitz.