2009 Strikes With Vengence...

Khan died???? ugh!!!

he will be missed

lestat666 wrote:Khan died???? ugh!!!

he will be missed

Too Funny, that's how I knew him best too, but he had a very long and distinguished career...

KAAAAAAAAHHHHHHNNNN! NOOOOOOOOOO! That sucks, I know he's been unable to walk for a while so I am assuming he's been going for a good while. I also liked him as the villain in Naked Gun. Classic.

At first I thought...Who's Ricardo Montalban? And then it hit me. Vincent Ludwig, the arch-nemesis of Frank Drebin.

Or...

I watched The Naked Gun over a dozen times. I watched...Star Trek 3? Which one was Khan in? Yeah it had to be three. I think. Or it could have been two. I'm sleepy right now. Either way, I watched that only once.

Kahn was in an Episode of Star Trek back in the late 60s and he was in Star Trek 2: The Wrath Of Kahn... And Yes Richardo played both parts, even though they were 20 years apart... And he played it very well too...

Yes Naked Gun: Files From Police Squad, a classic indeed... I love the scene with the Fish and the Pen, too funny...

Here it is too... You only need to watch the first Minute and a half of the clip for the Fish scene...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3M3qMMd ... 1&index=40



Leslie Nelson never planned on being a Comic Actor, he use to do mostly series stuff... He comical days started with Airplane... Both him and the Pilot from Airplane turned down the first offer to be in Airplane, because it wasn't their type of movie, but it turned out to be a Classic and the launch of Nelson's Funny Movies Career, even though he had a very good career before that... His career goes all the way back to 1950... He has had the White hair since he was about 35... Born in 1926, that puts him up there in age, just a couple of years younger than Richardo, he would have been 89 come November, Nelson will be 83 next month...

2008 ended horribly. New Years Eve claimed the life of writer Donald Westlake probably the most prolific writer of his time (since 1963 there are over 100 published books and 200 short stories RECOGNIZED as his writing, but the man had more pen names than you could imagine and it's hard to know just how many of his alter egos were never "found.") and he was known to have created the "comic caper," genre of books as well as being infamous for his writings under the pen name Richard Stark.

I was about to work with him on a project and being introduced to the man lead me to read a lot of his books. He was simply amazing. In the 60s and 70s it was considered that any writer that wrote more than 1 book a year wasn't a "good," author. So Donald made up pen names and those pen names all got agents and published. At one point in his career he was juggling over 8 different "personas." He had hinted to me that "the majority of pen names I used were never found out." Since the public knows of something like 6 of them that is just stunning.

His Dortmunder books and Parker novels (the Richard Stark books) are amazingly well written crime books. The crimes that Dortmunder and Parker are able to pull off are believable and intricate. The fact that the Dortmunder books are funny without making the crimes themselves funny is an interesting feat that he was able to reproduce repeatedly with each new Dortmunder novel. Meanwhile there is nothing "funny," about Parker. Parker novels are some of the most intense novels ever written. The movies HOT ROCK were based on Dortmunder, and PAY BACK and POINT BLANK were based on Parker.

He also wrote a screenplay for "Tomorrow Never Dies," the Bond film that was scrapped and never used. Pierce Bronsan supposedly loved the script because it returned Bond to the character Fleming had written and was a "serious film." When "Casino Royale," was made the producers made a lot of references to Westlake's script.

In the last 20 years he is most recognized for writing the novel THE AX, which as time passes grows more and more disturbing and its description of society more accurate. 30 years from now it may be considered a classic example of "true horror." The novel depicts the workings of a serial killer. However this serial killer is very different from others. He does it for survival. You see he worked in the paper industry as a manager. He specializes in the production runs of a certain type of paper. Downsizing lead to him losing his job. With so few jobs remaining in the field his chances of getting a job were slim. So he comes up with the perfect plan. He runs an advertisement in the major industry magazine saying his made up company is looking for an expert just like him. He gets a lot of resumes sent to his POB. Then he sets out to kill anyone with a better resume than him. It's a chilling read and amusing in a sickly twisted kind of way. The book not so shockingly made it onto some top 100 books written in the last century lists.

His last book written and set to be published before his death is "GET REAL," which will be coming out this April. It will also be the last Dortmunder book. The idea is that Dortmunder is approached by a Reality TV show about thieves which leads to him pulling off a real crime under their noses.

To me losing a writer of such ability who went on to inspire other writers from Stephen King to Elmore Leonard is far more a tragedy than Ricardo Montalban. From Fantasy Island, Khan, Naked Gun, and the Planet of the Apes sequels his life work was entertaining but to me the writings of a man like Westlake are a much larger loss.

I know from emails that CJ was a big fan of THE HOT ROCK growing up. So in that way it ties to this site.

lotus_j wrote:To me losing a writer of such ability who went on to inspire other writers from Stephen King to Elmore Leonard is far more a tragedy than Ricardo Montalban. From Fantasy Island, Khan, Naked Gun, and the Planet of the Apes sequels his life work was entertaining but to me the writings of a man like Westlake are a much larger loss.

Okay so make a Thread about it, I hadn't heard of Westlake's death...
You don't need to make a comment like this and piss all over a well accomplished actor/entertainer days after his death...

Any loss to the entertainment industry is felt by many, no matter if its an actor, a writer, director, or what have you... And the Writings of Westlake have not been lost, his writings are still very much available... His talent has been lost, that much is agreeable...

Your entire post should have been the start of a Thread for Westlake, not turned into the bashing of recently passed well known and appreciate actor...

The man did say but to me the writings of a man like Westlake are a much larger loss.

I don't follow how he pissed all over anybody.

-Fred

Don't start, you two. =P

I must say though that I think anyones death is tragic reguardless of who it is.

A loss is a loss.

Ditto.

-Fred

Bafitis wrote:Your entire post should have been the start of a Thread for Westlake, not turned into the bashing of recently passed well known and appreciate actor...

Dude, you need to relax. I never bashed anyone. I just stated that 2008 ended horribly with what was likely the most PROLIFIC writer of the last 30 years passing on. He inspired many, many writers. Stephen King wrote The Dark Half in tribute and Elmore Leonard and others have written books they say never would have been written without Westlake. The man's writings affected many including affecting Chris Jones who as a kid loved watching THE HOT ROCK.

Should I start a thread 16 days after his death? That seems like an insult. Saying 2008 strikes with a vengeance is imho ignoring the great losses of 2008. Paul Newman and Donald Westlake were massive titans of their fields, while Ricardo Montalban was an inspiration to the Latin community. Bringing up that 2008 ended with a true pioneer of his field dying is in no way an attack on Montalban. To me though losing Newman and Westlake in the same year was massive. For the title of the thread mentioning that 2008 ended in its last hours with a huge death is definitely to me not off topic.

The Axe was rather recently adapted to the screen for a French movie. Really good movie slightly adapted to the French context.

Frank wrote:The Axe was rather recently adapted to the screen for a French movie. Really good movie slightly adapted to the French context.

Yeah it was a big movie in France too getting nominated for awards. He was also Oscar nominated for his screenplay of "THE GRIFTERS," as well as being infamous in Hollywood for his screenplay contract for THE STEPFATHER (the contract is the only one known of that gave 100% complete creative control of a project to a screenplay author, although since JK Rowlings has that in her contract but hers is because of her books, there was no STEPFATHER book).

In the literary world Westlake was able to destroy the concept that "good authors," could only write one book a year. Without his pen names and him being found out in the late 70s the publisher likely would have kept their incredibly stupid idea that an author writing more than one book wasn't writing "well."

To keep Bafitis happy it was much like Montalban pioneered the way for Mexican Actors forming Nosotros with Henry Darrow and being the first President of the foundation. He lost a lot of jobs from 1970 to 1975 due to being labeled a trouble maker by trying to get Mexicans portrayed better in films. I think this was around the time when the best work he could get was in the not so great but not horrible sequels to the PLANET OF THE APES movies.

For the Latin community losing Montalban was much bigger than losing Khan or "the grandpa from Spy Kids," or the guy from Naked Gun. He was huge for the Latin community.