The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (29 page)

Alan Bates
(1934–2003), Allestree, England
Did Alan Bates ever hope to make it as a universal male comforter? In
An Unmarried Woman
(77, Paul Mazursky), he’s a bearded English abstract expressionist, whimsical but reliable, who eats eggs out of the frying pan, lives in Vermont, and gives Jill Clayburgh a healing screw on the floor and the freedom to decline further risk. He’s about as believable as daytime TV, but much drier and far more charming. Looking less than forty-three, Bates suddenly emerged as an old-fashioned romantic: brooding and touchy, but full of inner calm, unneurotic talent, and well-done orgasms. He was something like a cultivated Gable who’d been a Rhodes scholar, or a Dirk Bogarde with more meat on him. An unexpectedly casual stardom lay around the set, like clothes ardently discarded.

But for most of the seventies, Bates had looked less than ever interested in films. There were long gaps between jobs, and several parts that proved greater allegiance to the theatre. Indeed, onstage, in
Butley
, he showed a self-destructive humor and gentlemanly malice that no movie has thought to uncover. He seems determined not to be glamorous, or to lose sight of the better, more rewarding work he can find onstage. Perhaps
An Unmarried Woman
was a fling?

Still, in the sixties, especially, he managed to get his self-effacing presence into several successful pictures, none of which ever depended on him:
The Entertainer
(60, Tony Richardson);
Whistle Down the Wind
(61, Bryan Forbes);
A Kind of Loving
(62, John Schlesinger); the suburban straight breaking out of his rut in
The Running Man
(63, Carol Reed);
The Caretaker
(63, Clive Donner); excellent in
Nothing but the Best
(64, Donner); another cautious witness of the exotic in
Zorba the Greek
(64, Michael Cacoyannis);
Georgy Girl
(66, Silvio Narizzano);
King of Hearts
(66, Philippe de Broca);
Far from the Madding Crowd
(67, Schlesinger);
The Fixer
(68, John Frankenheimer);
Women in Love
(69, Ken Russell);
The Three Sisters
(70, Laurence Olivier);
The GoBetween
(71, Joseph Losey);
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
(71, Peter Medak);
Impossible Object
(73, John Frankenheimer);
Butley
(73, Harold Pinter);
In Celebration
(74, Lindsay Anderson);
Royal Flash
(75, Richard Lester);
The Shout
(78, Jerzy Skolimowski); never better than as Henchard in a TV
The Mayor of Casterbridge
(78, David Giles); and
The Rose
(79, Mark Rydell).

As he grew older, Bates found some fascinating eccentric roles, yet he remains an actor whose outbursts never quite lose control: as Diaghilev in
Nijinsky
(80, Herbert Ross); as the Ford Madox Ford figure in
Quartet
(81, James Ivory);
The Return of the Soldier
(81, Alan Bridges);
Britannia Hospital
(82, Anderson); as the John Mortimer figure in
A Voyage Round My Father
(82, Alvin Rakoff), for TV; in the old James Mason role in
The Wicked Lady
(83, Michael Winner); brilliant as Guy Burgess in
An Englishman Abroad
(83, Schlesinger);
Dr. Fischer of Geneva
(83, Michael Lindsay-Hogg);
Separate Tables
(84, Schlesinger), for TV; the husband in
Duet for One
(86, Andrei Konchalovsky);
A Prayer for the Dying
(87, Mike Hodges); as the man from MI5 in
Pack of Lies
(87, Anthony Page);
Force Majeure
(88, Pierre Jolivet);
We Think the World of You
(88, Colin Gregg);
Docteur M
(89, Claude Chabrol);
Mister Frost
(90, Philip Setbon); as Claudius in
Hamlet
(90, Franco Zeffirelli); as Proust in
102 Boulevard Haussmann
(90, Udayan Prasad); and
Secret Friends
(91, Dennis Potter).

He was a character actor by then, at his best for the BBC, but drawn into airier international ventures:
Silent Tongue
(93, Sam Shepard); as Bounderby in
Hard Times
(94, Peter Barnes);
The Grotesque
(95, John-Paul Davidson);
Oliver’s Travels
(95, Giles Foster);
Nicholas’ Gift
(98, Robert Markowitz); as Gayev in
Varya
(99, Cacoyannis);
St. Patrick: The Irish Legend
(00, Robert Hughes and Robert C. Hughes); the Storyteller in
Arabian Nights
(00, Steve Barron);
In the Beginning
(00, Kevin Connor); Henry VIII in
The Prince and the Pauper
(00, Foster);
Love in a Cold Climate
(01, Tom Hooper);
Gosford Park
(01, Robert Altman);
Salem Witch Trials
(01, Joseph Sargent);
The Sum of All Fears
(02, Phil Alden Robinson);
Evelyn
(02, Bruce Beresford);
The Mothman Prophecies
(02, Mark Pellington);
Hollywood North
(03, Peter O’Brian);
The Statement
(03, Norman Jewison); and Lentulas Agrippa in
Spartacus
(04, Robert Schenkkan).

Kathy
(Kathleen)
Bates
, b. Memphis, Tennessee, 1948
It says something important about Kathy Bates, and actresses like her, that while she won awards for her lead role on stage in
Frankie and Johnny at the Clair de Lune
, when that play came to be filmed Michelle Pfeiffer was offered as the retiring waitress. In other words, to look and be as millions are is no way to get yourself into pictures. Yet Kathy Bates has won one Oscar and been nominated for another, and she has been the framework for several other pictures. She has insisted on herself, without being strident or monotonous. And we are all better off because of her. Even so, an actress like this needs the extraordinary opportunity of a
Misery
(90, Rob Reiner) to prove herself, and parts like that are not commonplace.

She attended Southern Methodist University, she was a singing waitress in the Catskills, and a regular on stage for many years—her work includes the daughter in
’night, Mother
(a role that went to Sissy Spacek in the movie).

After a tiny part in
Taking Off
(71, Milos Forman), her film work began properly with
Straight Time
(78, Ulu Grosbard);
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
(82, Robert Altman);
Johnny Bull
(86, Claudia Weill);
Summer Heat
(87, Michie Gleason);
Arthur 2: On the Rocks
(88, Bud Yorkin); on TV in
Roe v. Wade
(89, Gregory Hoblit);
Signs of Life
(89, John David Coles);
Men Don’t Leave
(90, Paul Brickman);
Dick Tracy
(90, Warren Beatty);
White Palace
(90, Luis Mandoki).

In truth, those parts had been small, but the role of the avid reader who gets her own
auteur
in
Misery
was served up on a plate. (Her rivals for the Oscar that year included Meryl Streep, Anjelica Huston, and Julia Roberts.) And now her roles grew larger and richer:
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
(91, Hector Babenco);
Fried Green Tomatoes
(91, Jon Avnet);
Shadows and Fog
(92, Woody Allen);
Prelude to a Kiss
(92, Norman René);
Used People
(92, Beeban Kidron);
Hostages
(93, David Wheatley), for TV; a single mother with six kids in
A Home of Our Own
(93, Tony Bill);
North
(94, Reiner);
Curse of the Starving Class
(95, J. Michael McClary); excellent as the mother in
Dolores Claiborne
(95, Taylor Hackford), like
Misery
from a Stephen King novel; a bag lady in
The West Side Waltz
(95, Ernest Thompson);
Angus
(95, Patrick Read Johnson); the cop in
Diabolique
(96, Jeremiah Chechik); outstanding in
The War at Home
(96, Emilio Estevez); as Molly Brown in
Titanic
(97, James Cameron); followed by
Swept from the Sea
(98, Kidron); very funny as the agent (and nominated) in
Primary Colors
(98, Mike Nichols);
The Waterboy
(98, Frank Coraci); unbilled in
A Civil Action
(98, Steven Zaillian); on TV as Miss Hannigan in
Annie
(99, Rob Marshall).

She played a mother superior in
Bruno
(00, Shirley MacLaine); Ma James in
American Outlaws
(01, Les Mayfield); cheerfully nude in
About Schmidt
(02, Alexander Payne).

In addition to some TV directing (
Homicide, Oz
, and
Six Feet Under
), she directed
Dash and Lily
in 1999. Then she was in
Dragonfly
(02, Tom Shadyac);
Unconditional Love
(02, P. J. Hogan);
The Tulse Luper Suitcases: The Moab Story
(03, Peter Greenaway); as Queen Victoria in
Around the World in 80 Days
(04, Coraci);
Little Black Book
(04, Nick Hurran);
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
(04, Mary McGuckian);
Rumor Has It …
(05 Rob Reiner);
Warm Springs
(05, Joseph Sargent);
Failure to Launch
(06, Tom Dey); she directed and acted in
Ambulance Girl
(06);
Relative Strangers
(06, Greg Glienna);
Bonneville
(06, Christopher N. Rowley);
Fred Claus
(07, David Dobkin);
The Golden Compass
(07, Chris Weitz);
P.S. I Love You
(07, Richard LaGravenese);
The Family That Preys
(08, Tyler Perry); as Secretary of State in
The Day the Earth Stood Still
(08, Scott Derrickson);
Revolutionary Road
(08, Sam Mendes);
Chéri
(09, Stephen Frears);
Personal Effects
(09, David Hollander);
The Blind Side
(09, John Lee Hancock). Is this work? She is also a survivor of ovarian cancer.

Noah Baumbach
, b. Brooklyn, New York, 1969
1995:
Kicking and Screaming
(s). 1997:
Mr. Jealousy
(s);
Highball
(s) (under the name Ernie Fusco). 2005:
The Squid and the Whale
. 2007:
Margot at the Wedding
. 2010:
Greenberg
.

His parents were
Village Voice
critic Georgia Brown and Jonathan Baumbach—film critic, novelist and teacher. So it’s hardly surprising what happened. Graduating from Vassar, Noah went straight into independent filmmaking and he is now a key member of the smart indie set in America—through his friendship with Wes Anderson (they cowrote
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
and
Fantastic Mr. Fox
) and his marriage to Jennifer Jason Leigh, which began in 2005.

It seems clear that Baumbach’s films are rather more linear and humanistic than those he writes with Wes Anderson, and I’m inclined to think this is Anderson’s problem or blind spot. Baumbach is deeply concerned with family, even if his families are crowded out with vain, insecure, and vaguely creative types.
The Squid and the Whale
got a screenplay nomination and it had deeply felt performances from Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, and Anna Paquin. Equally,
Margot at the Wedding
was a fine comedy about warring sisters (played by Leigh and Nicole Kidman). I realize that Wes Anderson has the bigger reputation still, but I know whose future films I look forward to seeing the most.

Harry Baur
(1880–1943), b. Montrouge, France
One-volume histories of world film must omit so many important figures. (I know how many deserving cases are left out of this book.) Read any history and you will find that French film in the 1930s is treated as Renoir, Clair, Carné, Vigo, and Pagnol. But that survey is bound never to encounter Harry Baur—a great, noble actor—for he never worked with any of the “saved.”

Baur was at least as good and as central to France in the thirties as Michel Simon or Louis Jouvet. Moreover, Baur’s story is the more memorable because of his tragic end. His wife was Jewish, and when Baur went to Germany to make his last film,
Symphonie eines Lebens
(41, Hans Bertram), he was arrested and tortured. He was released, but shortly thereafter he was found dead.

He made some silent pictures, and he was always a force on the stage. But for ten years, he was a dominating figure in French movies, larger than life yet naturalistic:
David Golden
(30, Julien Duvivier);
Les Cinq Gentlemen Maudits
(32, Duvivier);
Poil de Carotte
(32, Duvivier);
La Tête d’un Homme
(33, Duvivier); as Jean Valjean in
Les Misérables
(34, Raymond Bernard);
Golgotha
(35, Duvivier);
Moscow Nights
(35, Anthony Asquith);
Les Hommes Nouveaux
(35, Marcel L’Herbier);
Crime and Punishment
(35, Pierre Chenal);
Le Golem
(36, Duvivier);
Samson
(36, Maurice Tourneur); as the composer in
Un Grand Amour de Beethoven
(36, Abel Gance);
Nitchevo
(37, Jacques de Baroncelli);
Un Carnet de Bal
(37, Duvivier); as Rasputin in
La Tragédie Imperiale
(38, L’Herbier);
Mollenard
(38, Robert Siodmak);
La Patriote
(38, Tourneur);
L’Homme de Niger
(40, de Baroncelli); with Jouvet in
Volpone
(40, Tourneur); and
L’Assassinat de Père Noel
(41, Christian-Jaque).