Post by petrolino on Mar 26, 2017 3:41:45 GMT
The Carradine Family
"Move aside, Fondas. The first family of the American screen is now the gaunt, deep-eyed Carradine clan. The patriarch is John Carradine, an American Shakespearean trouper who went on, by his own count, to play in 430 films and is still active at 68, mostly in television. Three of his sons—David, Keith and Robert—are burgeoning stars, and a fourth, Bruce, finds occasional acting work when he wants it (usually on his siblings’ TV series)—which is more than the majority of the members of the Screen Actors’ Guild can boast. Character actor John lends distinction to television in late show classics like Stagecoach and even in his embarrassments like Fiend with the Electronic Brain. But it is David, 37, who is the prime-time idol of the family with his high-rated Kung Fu series on ABC. Off the set, David lives in studiously nonconformist and spartan fashion with actress Barbara (Last Summer) Seagull, who changed her name from Hershey after she accidentally killed a seagull while making a film. Their out-of-wedlock son, now 2, is called Free Seagull Carradine.
Keith, 24, has gotten smash notices in two Robert Altman films, McCabe & Mrs. Miller and the new Thieves Like Us. Wrote the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael: “Keith Carradine takes the screen the way a star does, by talent and natural right.”
Robert, 19, has just begun a featured role on ABC’s new winter replacement series, The Cowboys, a spin-(some would say, rip-) off from the John Wayne movie, in which Robert also appeared. His ambitions, at least, exceed his father’s. “I don’t want to be a character actor,” he says. “I want to play leads.” Finally, there is Bruce, 40, who makes his living as a contractor in San Francisco but has appeared with David in a Kung Fu episode.
In fact, all of the acting Carradines have appeared in at least one Kung Fu segment, and some have already been in Cowboys. David has produced three still unreleased films with the clan including Ms. Seagull. The nepotistic casting is more than self-indulgence; it reflects the emotional closeness of the Carradines, though several were raised apart in their early years.
David and Bruce were born to the first of John Carradine’s three wives, Ardanelle Cosner, while Keith and Robert, along with a fifth son, Christopher, 27, a nonacting architect, were the sons of Sonia Sorel Carradine.
Though he was usually physically separated from his sons, John still tried to make his imprint. “The first thing I always told them when they said they were thinking of going into acting was ‘Don’t. It’s the most insecure profession there is. There were many times when I didn’t have a bean.’ ” In 1960, in fact, John filed for bankruptcy.
“Whenever one of my friends asks me what movies my father was in,” Keith says, “I only mention the ones like Captains Courageous, or The Grapes of Wrath, even though I know they’d remember him right away if I mentioned one of those horror films. I know the sadness it cost him to have to go down and wallow in that kind of crap. I remember when I told him I was leaving college to act full time, he finally said, ‘What the hell; it’s in your blood. Just make sure that if you’ve got to do a role you don’t like, it makes you a lot of money.’ "
- Excerpt from People Magazine
John Carradine :
David Carradine :
Keith Carradine :
Robert Carradine :
"Well, when I was a little kid, I didn't even know he was an actor. I thought he was a sea captain. He always dressed like that. That's all he talked about, his schooner. He was a master sailor. It seemed to me that that was all he cared about. The show-business people he knew, I suppose I met them all. John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, and all those cats—to me, they were just old guys, and drunk most of the time, too, probably. Then, later on, I lived with my father in New York. He was on Broadway. That's when I became totally aware that he was an actor."
- David Carradine, The A V Club
"We put on this Western gear, strapped on our six-shooters, and went out and played cowboy all day! It wasn’t an easy shoot. It was hard work, and there were a lot of challenges to it, but to be able to work that way with your brothers… You know, when you step up and play a scene with your brothers, you can’t get away with anything. [Laughs.] They’ve known you forever! So all of that gets stripped away, and if there’s even a hint of B.S., you’re gonna get called on it. So it was a great experience in that way, and I think that the film still resonates, because there’s just something that you can’t fake about those kinds of relationships. When you see James and Stacy Keach on the screen together, they’re brothers! You see me and David and Robert, we’re brothers! You see Christopher and Nicholas Guest, or Randy and Dennis Quaid… I mean, there’s a wonderful texture to that, one that’s really unique, and I don’t think it’s been done quite as well since. I know the Bridges did The Fabulous Baker Boys. That’s the only time they’ve worked together, and that worked wonderfully. But you don’t often see that. So I think The Long Riders was a unique opportunity, and I think Walter [Hill] made a hell of a movie. He’s a really first-rate director. He’s one of our directing heroes, I think, in this country, and unsung to some extent. I know he’s had a wonderful, successful career, but I don’t think Walter gets the credit he deserves for the filmmaker that he is."
- Keith Carradine, The A V Club
“I had done a play with my father called Tobacco Road. I was only supposed to be the understudy. They were heading down to Florida for the end of the summer stock season and took me along as the understudy and my dad and I drove his 1965 Cadillac across country to Jacksonville, Florida. It was a dinner theater production. I didn’t even know what an understudy was. I thought it was pretty swell that I could go to the dinner theater any time that I wanted to and help myself to the kitchen. Basically just to hang out. The run started and Keith got a job in the film (McCabe & Mrs. Miller) with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. I had a week of rehearsal and then I did the show for a week. It was really great. This was 1971 and I made $125/week. Two weeks guaranteed and I made a fortune for a kid my age. It was really great! I thought I was rich! Acting didn’t seem like such a bad choice”
- Robert Carradine, Positive Entertainment
The Carradine Brothers :
"Those boys were wired." - Harry Dean Stanton
Keith, 24, has gotten smash notices in two Robert Altman films, McCabe & Mrs. Miller and the new Thieves Like Us. Wrote the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael: “Keith Carradine takes the screen the way a star does, by talent and natural right.”
Robert, 19, has just begun a featured role on ABC’s new winter replacement series, The Cowboys, a spin-(some would say, rip-) off from the John Wayne movie, in which Robert also appeared. His ambitions, at least, exceed his father’s. “I don’t want to be a character actor,” he says. “I want to play leads.” Finally, there is Bruce, 40, who makes his living as a contractor in San Francisco but has appeared with David in a Kung Fu episode.
In fact, all of the acting Carradines have appeared in at least one Kung Fu segment, and some have already been in Cowboys. David has produced three still unreleased films with the clan including Ms. Seagull. The nepotistic casting is more than self-indulgence; it reflects the emotional closeness of the Carradines, though several were raised apart in their early years.
David and Bruce were born to the first of John Carradine’s three wives, Ardanelle Cosner, while Keith and Robert, along with a fifth son, Christopher, 27, a nonacting architect, were the sons of Sonia Sorel Carradine.
Though he was usually physically separated from his sons, John still tried to make his imprint. “The first thing I always told them when they said they were thinking of going into acting was ‘Don’t. It’s the most insecure profession there is. There were many times when I didn’t have a bean.’ ” In 1960, in fact, John filed for bankruptcy.
“Whenever one of my friends asks me what movies my father was in,” Keith says, “I only mention the ones like Captains Courageous, or The Grapes of Wrath, even though I know they’d remember him right away if I mentioned one of those horror films. I know the sadness it cost him to have to go down and wallow in that kind of crap. I remember when I told him I was leaving college to act full time, he finally said, ‘What the hell; it’s in your blood. Just make sure that if you’ve got to do a role you don’t like, it makes you a lot of money.’ "
- Excerpt from People Magazine
John Carradine :
David Carradine :
Keith Carradine :
Robert Carradine :
"Well, when I was a little kid, I didn't even know he was an actor. I thought he was a sea captain. He always dressed like that. That's all he talked about, his schooner. He was a master sailor. It seemed to me that that was all he cared about. The show-business people he knew, I suppose I met them all. John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, and all those cats—to me, they were just old guys, and drunk most of the time, too, probably. Then, later on, I lived with my father in New York. He was on Broadway. That's when I became totally aware that he was an actor."
- David Carradine, The A V Club
"We put on this Western gear, strapped on our six-shooters, and went out and played cowboy all day! It wasn’t an easy shoot. It was hard work, and there were a lot of challenges to it, but to be able to work that way with your brothers… You know, when you step up and play a scene with your brothers, you can’t get away with anything. [Laughs.] They’ve known you forever! So all of that gets stripped away, and if there’s even a hint of B.S., you’re gonna get called on it. So it was a great experience in that way, and I think that the film still resonates, because there’s just something that you can’t fake about those kinds of relationships. When you see James and Stacy Keach on the screen together, they’re brothers! You see me and David and Robert, we’re brothers! You see Christopher and Nicholas Guest, or Randy and Dennis Quaid… I mean, there’s a wonderful texture to that, one that’s really unique, and I don’t think it’s been done quite as well since. I know the Bridges did The Fabulous Baker Boys. That’s the only time they’ve worked together, and that worked wonderfully. But you don’t often see that. So I think The Long Riders was a unique opportunity, and I think Walter [Hill] made a hell of a movie. He’s a really first-rate director. He’s one of our directing heroes, I think, in this country, and unsung to some extent. I know he’s had a wonderful, successful career, but I don’t think Walter gets the credit he deserves for the filmmaker that he is."
- Keith Carradine, The A V Club
“I had done a play with my father called Tobacco Road. I was only supposed to be the understudy. They were heading down to Florida for the end of the summer stock season and took me along as the understudy and my dad and I drove his 1965 Cadillac across country to Jacksonville, Florida. It was a dinner theater production. I didn’t even know what an understudy was. I thought it was pretty swell that I could go to the dinner theater any time that I wanted to and help myself to the kitchen. Basically just to hang out. The run started and Keith got a job in the film (McCabe & Mrs. Miller) with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. I had a week of rehearsal and then I did the show for a week. It was really great. This was 1971 and I made $125/week. Two weeks guaranteed and I made a fortune for a kid my age. It was really great! I thought I was rich! Acting didn’t seem like such a bad choice”
- Robert Carradine, Positive Entertainment
The Carradine Brothers :
"Those boys were wired." - Harry Dean Stanton
Charlie and Syd Chaplin ..A Dogs Life (1918)
