The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (141 page)

At and past sixty, Finney was sailing along. He looked battered sometimes, but he had gusto and energy: very good as the romantic bus conductor in
A Man of No Importance
(94, Suri Krishnamma);
The Run of the Country
(95, Yates); doing Dennis Potter in
Karaoke
(96, Renny Rye) and
Cold Lazarus
(96, Rye); as Dr. Monygham in
Nostromo
(96, Alaistair Reid); as Dr. Sloper in
Washington Square
(97, Agnieszka Holland); with Tom Courtenay in
A Rather English Marriage
(98, Paul Seed); as Kilgore Trout in
Breakfast of Champions
(99, Alan Rudolph);
Simpatico
(99, Matthew Warchus); terrific support in
Erin Brockovich
(00, Steven Soderbergh);
Traffic
(00, Soderbergh);
Joan of Arc: The Virgin Warrior
(00, Ronald F. Maxwell);
Delivering Milo
(00, Nick Castle);
My Uncle Silas
(00, Philip Saville); rather bored as Churchill in
The Gathering Storm
(02, Richard Loncraine);
Big Fish
(03, Tim Burton).

He was there briefly in
Ocean’s Twelve
(04, Soderbergh); Uncle Henry in
A Good Year
(06, Scott); as John Newton in
Amazing Grace
(07, Michael Apted);
The Bourne Ultimatum
(07, Paul Greengrass); unduly neglected in
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
(07, Lumet).

Linda
(Clorinda)
Fiorentino
, b. Philadelphia, 1960
Fiorentino made a startling debut as the sexy, unpredictable cabaret performer in
After Hours
(85, Martin Scorsese)—she was a nymph who might have just got off the Buñuel bus. Thereafter, for a full decade, she seemed in decline or meandering, or too hard to cast:
Gotcha!
(85, Jeff Kanew);
Vision Quest
(85, Harold Becker); oddly gloomy until the end of
The Moderns
(88, Alan Rudolph);
Queens Logic
(91, Steven Rash);
Shout
(91, Jeffrey Hornaday);
Beyond the Law
(92, Larry Ferguson);
Chain of Desire
(92, Temistocles Lopez);
Acting on Impulse
(93, Sam Irvin);
Charlie’s Ghost Story
(94, Anthony Edwards);
The Desperate Trail
(94, P. J. Pesce).

Then, out of the blue, she was a ravishing and comic angel of death (and money) in
The Last Seduction
(94, John Dahl)—a film that, in hindsight, seems beyond her and her director. Once again, she had carried American noir idioms into a fascinating brush with surrealism.

But she then sank back into dismal films and a rather listless attitude—but the latter may have been prompted by the ridiculous
Jade
(95, William Friedkin);
Larger Than Life
(96, Howard Franklin);
Unforgettable
(96, Dahl)—in which she plays a professor!;
Men in Black
(97, Barry Sonnenfeld)—the story goes that she won the part playing poker with the director;
Kicked in the Head
(97, Matthew Harrison);
Body Count
(98, Robert Patton-Spruill);
Dogma
(99, Kevin Smith);
What Planet Are You From?
(00, Mike Nichols); rather nice with that other great sourpuss, Paul Newman, in
Where the Money Is
(00, Marek Kanievska);
Liberty Stands Still
(02, Kari Skogland).

Nothing since? Well, she seems to be tangentially involved in the Anthony Pellicano case—or perhaps she is living quietly in some small hinterland town.

Colin Firth
, b. Grayshott, Hampshire, England, 1960
Colin Firth has paid his dues and served his time: he was the nasty Lord Wessex while Joseph Fiennes was
Shakespeare in Love
(98, John Madden), and he was the ugly husband while Ralph Fiennes was taking Egyptian baths with Kristin Scott Thomas in
The English Patient
(96, Anthony Minghella). His very fine
Valmont
(89, Milos Forman) was nearly eclipsed by John Malkovich in a version of
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
that appeared first. And over the decades, Colin Firth has seemed a rather aloof or absentminded English knockout, the apple of
Bridget Jones’s Diary
and the dry plum in
Pride and Prejudice
. For at least twenty years, this Colin Firth was an available player, steady and serviceable. But by the time he reached fifty, and especially in
A Single Man
(09, Tom Ford), he began to reveal himself as a master actor, all the more alluring because of his determined restraint—if only the director had followed his lead. His Oscar nomination for that may start better parts.

So he had been not much better than a Richard Todd or an Ian Carmichael, while he is likely to become Trevor Howard or a Richard Burton.

The son of a teacher at Winchester College, he always had the look and the sound of public schools and Oxbridge: a debut in
Another Country
(84, Marek Kanievska);
1919
(85, Hugh Brody); shell-shocked in
A Month in the Country
(87, Pat O’Connor); the adult Colin on TV in
The Secret Garden
(87, Alan Grint); also on TV and impressive as the commanding officer in
Tumbledown
(88, Richard Eyre); in Buenos Aires in
Apartment Zero
(88, Martin Donovan);
Wings of Fame
(90, Otakar Votocek);
Femme Fatale
(91, Andre Guttfreund);
Out of the Blue
(91, Nick Hamm);
Hostages
(93, David Wheatley);
The Hour of the Pig
(93, Leslie Megahey);
Circle of Friends
(95, O’Connor).

His recognition factor with the public soared with his Darcy in
Pride and Prejudice
(95, Simon Langton). This was followed by
Nostromo
(96, Alastair Reid);
Fever Pitch
(97, David Evans);
A Thousand Acres
(97, Jocelyn Moorhouse);
Donovan Quick
(99, David Blair);
My Life So Far
(99, Hugh Hudson);
The Secret Laughter of Women
(99, Peter Schwabach); the Master in a TV version of
The Turn of the Screw
(99, Ben Bolt);
Relative Values
(00, Eric Styles); one of the more liberal figures at the table in
Conspiracy
(01, Frank Pierson); and as Mark Darcy in
Bridget Jones’s Diary
(01, Sharon Maguire).

He was Jack in
The Importance of Being Earnest
(02, Oliver Parker), with Rupert Everett as his Algernon—they had been in
Another County
together; with Heather Graham in
Hope Springs
(03, Mark Herman);
What a Girl Wants
(03, Dennie Gordon); as Vermeer, and dead right, in
Girl with a Pearl Earring
(03, Peter Webber);
Love Actually
(03, Richard Curtis);
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
(04, Beeban Kidron);
Where the Truth Lies
(05, Atom Egoyan); with Emma Thompson in
Nanny McPhee
(05, Kirk Jones);
The Last Legion
(07, Doug Lefler).

Even as a grown man, he has to be ready to move from gravity to English facetiousness, but he does it with a diplomatic grace—he is an actor Graham Greene would have appreciated:
And When Did You Last See Your Father?
(07, Anand Tucker);
Then She Found Me
(07, Helen Hunt), playing with Hunt and Bette Midler;
St Trinian’s
(07, Parker and Barnaby Thompson);
The Accidental Husband
(08, Griffin Dunne);
Mamma Mia!
(08, Phyllida Lloyd);
Genova
(08, Michael Winterbottom);
Easy Virtue
(08, Stephan Elliott);
Dorian Gray
(09, Parker); doing Christopher Isherwood in
A Single Man
(09, Tom Ford);
A Christmas Carol
(09, Robert Zemeckis).

He faces a great challenge in playing King George VI with his stammer in
The King’s Speech
(10, Tom Hooper).

Laurence/Larry Fishburne
, b. Georgia, 1961
The erstwhile “Larry” recently elected to become “Laurence”—no matter, there is hardly an actor of his age around who exhibits more flash, energy, and intelligence. Fishburne has had to play a lot of regulation black hoodlums and threats, but he is an actor who might get cast despite his color, and might carry a big film. His Ike Turner in
What’s Love Got to Do With It
(93, Brian Gibson) was a tour de force founded on Fishburne’s own reworking of a role that had been flattened in concept by Tina Turner’s angry stomping. As it was, the finished film left Angela Bassett’s Tina seeming just too good to be true, while Ike was the self-destructive force of his own charisma, and riveting. His Oscar nomination was a pleasant surprise.

Fishburne began very early. At age nine, he did several seasons on the TV soap opera
One Life to Live
. He was in the movie
Cornbread, Earl and Me
(75, Joe Manduke), and then, at fourteen, he went on location to the Philippines to play the young soldier in
Apocalypse Now
(79, Francis Coppola)—one of the best performances in that film. He was in
Willie & Phil
(80, Paul Mazursky);
Death Wish II
(82, Michael Winner);
Rumble Fish
(83, Coppola);
For Us the Living
(83, Michael Schultz);
The Cotton Club
(84, Coppola);
The Color Purple
(85, Steven Spielberg);
Band of the Hand
(86, Paul Michael Glaser);
Quicksilver
(86, Tom Donnelly);
Gardens of Stone
(87, Coppola);
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3
(87, Chuck Russell);
Red Heat
(88, Walter Hill);
School Daze
(88, Spike Lee);
King of New York
(90, Abel Ferrara);
Class Action
(91, Michael Apted); the father in
Boyz N the Hood
(91, John Singleton);
Deep Cover
(92, Bill Duke);
Searching for Bobby Fischer
(93, Steven Zaillian); and
The Tool Shed
(94, Damian Harris).

It was not easy to lay hands on real stardom:
Higher Learning
(95, Singleton);
Bad Company
(95, Damian Harris);
Just Cause
(95, Arne Glimcher);
The Tuskegee Airmen
(95, Robert Markowitz); as
Othello
(95, Oliver Parker);
Fled
(96, Kevin Hooks);
Miss Evers’ Boys
(97, Joseph Sargent);
Event Horizon
(97, Paul Anderson III);
Hoodlum
(97, Duke);
Always Outnumbered
(98, Apted); in the hit
The Matrix
(99, Andy and Larry Wachowski); writing and directing
Once in the Life
(00);
Osmosis Jones
(01, Bobby and Peter Farrelly).

He was in
Biker Boyz
(03, Reggie Rock Blythewood); back again in
The Matrix Reloaded
(03, Wachowski);
Mystic River
(03, Clint Eastwood);
The Matrix Revolution
(03, Wachowski);
Assault on Precinct 13
(05, Jean-François Richet);
Five Fingers
(06, Lawrence Malkin);
Akeelah and the Bee
(06, Doug Atchison);
Mission: Impossible III
(06, J. J. Abrams);
Bobby
(06, Emilio Estevez);
The Death and Life of Bobby Z
(07, John Herzfeld);
TMNT
(07, Kevin Munroe);
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
(07, Tim Story);
Tortured
(08, Nolan Lebovitz);
Days of Wrath
(08, Celia Fox);
Armored
(09, Nimród Antal).

Carrie Fisher
, b. Los Angeles, 1956
It’s nearly an insult to call Carrie Fisher a survivor. Yet she’s a mercurial gadfly, and so witty an observer, that there is a certain lack of center or self—as if only as a protective device. Say only that her parents were Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher and it’s hard to resist shuddering attacks of doom prediction. Fisher became a wreck, and then came through to write the witty novels (especially
Postcards from the Edge
) that tell a scary story while asserting her Teflon coating. And she is young enough, and surely smart enough, yet to write a book as good as
Haywire
, in which she might find the literary ease and peace that no longer needs to be hilarious.

Of course, no small part of her comic routine is that she also starred—with Emily Dickinson hairstyle and some of the strangest costumes—in three of the most successful films ever made, in the far distant past when Harrison Ford could still be fun. But so did Mark Hamill, and try finding him now.

In her teens, she was part of her mother’s Las Vegas act, and that led her into pictures: in tennis clothes, maneuvering Warren Beatty in
Shampoo
(75, Hal Ashby). Two years later, a grave-faced nineteen, she was Princess Leia in
Star Wars
(77, George Lucas). After that, the list is chaotic:
Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video
(79, Michael O’Donoghue);
The Empire Strikes Back
(80, Irvin Kershner);
The Blues Brothers
(80, John Landis);
Under the Rainbow
(81, Steve Rash);
Return of the Jedi
(83, Richard Marquand);
Garbo Talks
(84, Sidney Lumet);
The Man with One Red Shoe
(85, Stan Dragoti);
Hannah and Her Sisters
(86, Woody Allen);
Hollywood Vice Squad
(86, Penelope Spheeris);
Amazon Women on the Moon
(87, Joe Dante);
Appointment with Death
(88, Michael Winner);
The ’burbs
(89, Dante);
Loverboy
(89, Joan Micklin Silver);
When Harry Met Sally …
(89, Rob Reiner).