Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-7 of 7
- Lou Gish was a bright and sassy actress of natural poise and comic edge. The daughter of the actors Roland Curram and Sheila Gish, she demonstrated her range in her last two stage roles.
At the tiny Gate Theatre in Notting Hill, west London, in January last year, she played General Pinochet's Spanish lawyer in Thea Sharrock's riveting promenade production of Fermín Cabal's Tejas Verdas (Green Gables), a moving memorial to Chilean torture victims. Last summer she took on the role of Goneril in Steven Pimlott's lucid version of King Lear, starring David Warner, in the Minerva Theatre, Chichester.
In the first, she was sleek, reasonable, assured. In the second, she tore up the stage, dashing to the floor the Bible proffered by a distraught Albany (Raad Rawi) and channelling her evil complots through a serpentine presence beautifully contrasted with Zoe Waites's choleric Regan. Her younger sister, Kay Curram, played Cordelia.
Lou and Kay were returning to Chichester in part to memorialise their mother's last stage performance there - as Arkadina in The Seagull in 2003 (a production in which Kay played Nina) - but also to get over it. Typically, they arranged company visits to the local bowling alley and teased their leading man by calling him "Dave" - "He's so not a Dave," they said. Warner himself described Lou as "a wonderful, positive presence, a superb actress whose spirit remained with us for the entire run". She had been forced to leave the production when her illness took hold again.
Lou Gish was born and raised in London. After Macaulay church school, Alleyn's in Dulwich, and Furzedown school, Wandsworth, she took a degree at Camberwell School of Art. She first thought of going into journalism; as a student she won a prize for an article she wrote for Harper's magazine, and the then editor, Beatrix Miller, said she would take her on after graduation.
But Lou decided to change direction and took an office job with the actors' agent Jeremy Conway, where she answered the telephone and served the tea, sometimes jokingly dressed in a waitress uniform. A role in a fringe production in Paddington led to the acquisition of an agent of her own, and a notable cameo in Sean Mathias's 1994 revival of Noel Coward's Design for Living at the Donmar Warehouse. Rachel Weisz was a sensational, sulky Gilda in this production, and Gish, no way fazed, played Helen Carver as a screeching socialite in a glittering sheath.
When her parents first separated (Sheila Gish later married the actor and director Denis Lawson), Roland Curram sombrely announced to his daughters that he was coming out as gay. No big surprise there, said Lou, "as he had brought us up on a diet of Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbra Streisand." Gish and Curram had met while working on the film Darling in the mid-1960s. The star and the director, Julie Christie and the late John Schlesinger, were Lou's godparents - the coolest, she said, in the world.
In a second collaboration with Mathias, Lou played a mannish playwright and adoring assistant to Sian Phillips's Marlene Dietrich in Pam Gems's Marlene. She specialised in such strong, but marginalised, romantic figures: at the Watford Palace in 1998, in Phyllis Nagy's skilful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley, she played Marge as a hilarious piggy-in-the-middle. Later that year, she joined her stepfather Denis Lawson's production of Little Malcolm and his Struggle against the Eunuchs, starring Ewan McGregor, at the Hampstead Theatre, and subsequently in the West End. She played Ann, the object of the lads' fear and misogyny - and of a brutal attack - with devastating contempt.
In 1999, Michael Billington described how Lou - slim, green-eyed and dark-haired - lit up the Chichester stage as a rejected fiancée in Maria Aitken's revival of Noel Coward's underrated comedy Easy Virtue. She was the perfect, swish, middle-class Helena in Look Back in Anger at the Bristol Old Vic in 2001, and an effortlessly aristocratic Duchess of Malfi at the Salisbury Playhouse the following year. Of this latter performance, Alastair Macaulay wrote in the Financial Times that "she doesn't invite us into her tragedy; we are riveted by it from a distance."
Over the last 10 years of her life, Gish appeared regularly on television in such series as The Thin Blue Line (1995) EastEnders (1985), Casualty, Doctors (2000), Wire in the Blood, Coupling (2000) and Where the Heart Is.
She died of cancer at the age of 38 and was survived by her partner, the actor Nicholas Rowe, and her father, stepfather and sister. - Philippe Taccini was born on 28 August 1958 in Nogent-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne, France. He was an actor, known for The Key Is in the Door (1978), Art of Love (1983) and Les sous-doués (1980). He died on 20 February 2006 in Claye-Souilly, Seine-et-Marne, France.
- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Curt Gowdy was born on 31 July 1919 in Green River, Wyoming, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), Heaven Can Wait (1978) and BASEketball (1998). He was married to Geraldine Dawkins. He died on 20 February 2006 in Palm Beach, Florida, USA.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Catherine Binet was born on 13 March 1937 in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France. She was a director and writer, known for The Games of Countess Dolingen (1981), Spring (1971) and Trompe-l'oeil (1982). She died on 20 February 2006 in Paris, France.- Jack Goth was born on 23 May 1923 in Bolton, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Cool Runnings (1993), Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star (1986) and Rad (1986). He was married to Peggy. He died on 20 February 2006 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- Writer
- Director
Ihsan Sedat was born in 1928 in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a writer and director, known for O günden sonra (1958), Basmaci güzeli (1955) and Sepetçioglu (1961). He died on 20 February 2006 in Istanbul, Turkey.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Levan Namgalashvili was born and raised in Tbilisi, in the old district Sololaki. He was one of Eminent Persons in Georgian Cinematography, the winner of the USSR State Prize and the Prize of Shota Rustaveli, People's Artist of Georgia, prize of the Excellent cinematography, a talented operator, producer of many films entered in the history of Georgian and Soviet cinema. He was tied to the heart of Georgian culture, customs and urban values, the Georgian feast and emotional generosity. He moved to Israel in April 1991 and immediately became the envoy of the Georgian culture in this country, enjoyed great prestige and fully tried to help young cinematographers. Many of them were once his students in the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). Levan has done much to strengthen cultural relations of Georgia and Israel. He made a lot of great pictures - "Sea trail", "Father of soldier", "Someone is late for the bus", "Tariel Golua", "Old zurnachi", "Chiriquí and Chikotela", "Data Tutashhiya (State Prize of USSR - former Russian Oscar) "Klyatvennaya zapis" (Shota Rustaveli Prize"), and many other brilliant works included in the "golden fund" of Georgian cinema. Levan died 20 February, 2006 and was buried in Israel.