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Post by petrolino on May 24, 2020 22:52:34 GMT
George Dzundza's been a lifelong activist. His work in theatre, television and cinema has sometimes reflected this.
George Dzundza in the sitcom 'Open All Night'
Last year, Dzundza directed Doug Wright's Pulitzer Prize-winning play 'I Am My Own Wife' (2003) in Oregon. It's about German antiquarian Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf, born Lothar Berfelde, who survived the Nazi and Communist regimes in East Berlin as a transgender woman. Dzundza himself was born in Rosenheim, Germany, to a Polish mother and Ukrainian father, and spent his early years in displacement camps.
George Dzundza in Oregon
Staging John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play 'Doubt : Parable' (2004)
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Post by bravomailer on May 24, 2020 23:00:52 GMT
He was excellent as the tavern owner in The Deer Hunter.   |
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Post by petrolino on May 24, 2020 23:23:23 GMT
He was excellent as the tavern owner in The Deer Hunter.
Did you ever wonder about the other main ensemble actor in 'The Deer Hunter', Chuck Aspegren? He played Axel ("f*cking A"). He was always high in my "where are they now?" list. Turned out he was an actual steelworker from Indiana. As far as I'm aware, it's his only film.
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Post by politicidal on May 24, 2020 23:45:50 GMT
Egh, if I'm being honest, he's one of those actors who's just there.
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Post by bravomailer on May 25, 2020 0:07:35 GMT
He was excellent as the tavern owner in The Deer Hunter. Did you ever wonder about the other main ensemble actor in 'The Deer Hunter', Chuck Aspegren? He played Axel ("f*cking A"). He was always high in my "where are they now?" list. Turned out he was an actual steelworker from Indiana. As far as I'm aware, it's his only film.
I've read that De Niro helped him through financial difficulties a while back. I think the priest, bandleader, and a few others were locals.
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Post by BATouttaheck on May 25, 2020 0:14:55 GMT
George isn't big on my "character radar" .. he reminds me a little of Charles Durning. Have not seen him in many things . I liked him in The Butcher's Wife  |
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Post by petrolino on May 25, 2020 0:37:45 GMT
George isn't big on my "character radar" .. he reminds me a little of Charles Durning ...No wonder I'm a fan! I always cry at 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1975) and 'The Deer Hunter' (1978), two of four films that have always brought tears to my eyes since seeing them as a teenager - the others being 'The Last House On The Left' (1972) and 'Platoon' (1986). Dzundza almost brought me to tears in 'Basic Instinct' (1992).
I adore 'The Butcher's Wife' (1991) and have it on dvd. It has the spirit of the great comic fantasies Hollywood produced for fun back in the 1940s. For me, it's a neglected gem in Demi Moore's filmography and a film that displays her ample comic abilities (there's a reason Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase and John Candy wanted her for their 1991 comic fantasy feature 'Nothing But Trouble').
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Post by BATouttaheck on May 25, 2020 0:45:14 GMT
petrolinoFunny thing ... I had to go to the IMDb filmography to check on George ... I was surprised to find that it was George and Not Charles as the Butcher ! I also watch the 'Burbs and and surprised each time that it is Hanks and Not Keaton ! Memory does weird and wonderful things to cast lists ! 
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Post by petrolino on May 25, 2020 5:04:51 GMT
I just saw him and Fred Willard last night in Salem's Lot. He wasn't a happy camper. Open All Night is a good show.
Fred Willard, Ohio legend. Sad to see him go. Dude was funny as all get-out.
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Post by mattgarth on May 25, 2020 10:55:15 GMT
Fave role -- the wheelchair-bound Pentagon computer whiz assisting Costner in finding the mole 'Yuri' while Kevin dodges the hunt for the killer of his girlfriend in NO WAY OUT.
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Post by petrolino on May 28, 2020 19:57:30 GMT
petrolino Funny thing ... I had to go to the IMDb filmography to check on George ... I was surprised to find that it was George and Not Charles as the Butcher ! I also watch the 'Burbs and and surprised each time that it is Hanks and Not Keaton ! Memory does weird and wonderful things to cast lists !
I mentioned that George Dzundza has been a theatre director, and he has, for much of his life. His first feature film was part of the "massage parlor" craze that swept across American drive-ins in the mid-1970s, 'Massage Parlor Murders' (1973), in which he played Mr. Creepy. Some people might not be aware that he was also assistant director on this film. He got to work on scenes with actresses like Sandra Peabody (from Wes Craven & Sean Cunningham's stock company), Chris Jordan (from Joseph Sarno's stock company) and dancer Anne Gaybis, as well as Brother Theodore.
Brother Theodore Gottlieb is also in 'The 'Burbs' (1989).
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Post by petrolino on May 28, 2020 20:12:31 GMT
Did you ever wonder about the other main ensemble actor in 'The Deer Hunter', Chuck Aspegren? He played Axel ("f*cking A"). He was always high in my "where are they now?" list. Turned out he was an actual steelworker from Indiana. As far as I'm aware, it's his only film.
I've read that De Niro helped him through financial difficulties a while back. I think the priest, bandleader, and a few others were locals.
Director Michael Cimino's mother was a costume designer and his father was a music publisher. Cimino was in the U.S. Army Reserve in the 1960s. Francis Coppola visited Cimino to compliment him on 'The Deer Hunter', a year before the release of 'Apocalypse Now' (1979).
"Mr. Cimino joined the Army about the time of the Tet offensive in 1968 and was assigned as a medic to a Green Beret unit training in Texas, but was never sent to Vietnam. After the Army, he studied acting and ballet."
- Leticia Kent, The New York Times
“Look, the film is not realistic — it's surrealistic. Even the landscape is surreal. For example, the little steel town we called Clairton is composed of eight different towns in four states. You can't find that town anywhere — it doesn't exist. And time is compressed. In trying to compress the experience of the war into a film, even as long as this one [184 minutes], I had to deal with it in a non‐literal way. You're right, I used events from '68 [My Lai] and '75 [the fall of Saigon] as reference points rather than as fact. But if you attack the film on its facts, then you're fighting a phantom, because literal accuracy was never intended.”
- Michael Cimino, The New York Times
Here's George Dzundza playing a piece by one of my 3 favourite classical composers, Frederic Chopin (the others are Antonin Dvorak and Franz Liszt); he stops these steel workers in their tracks :
"Mr. Cimino also insisted that much of the picture's 70‐minute tour‐de‐force music track be recorded liVe in the advanced Dolby system. All of the music in the Russian Orthodox church wedding at the beginning of the film was captured live, and the Chopin piano nocturne played by George Dzundza in Welch's Bar was actually performed by the actor, though Mr. Dzunda, not a pianist, had to “practice for months.”
- Leticia Kent
George Dzundza
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Post by BATouttaheck on May 28, 2020 20:18:06 GMT
petrolinoRe: Brother Theodore. I went to a couple of Theodore Bikel concerts in NYC at a theater called Town Hall and by some kind of coincidence, the next scheduled performer each time was "Brother Theodore" and they handed out a pamphlet advertising this someone "odd" (to put it kindly) performer. I never did actually see him until The 'Burbs. Now I almost wish that I had !  some quotes from Brother T.
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Post by petrolino on May 28, 2020 20:26:39 GMT
petrolino Re: Brother Theodore. I went to a couple of Theodore Bikel concerts in NYC at a theater called Town Hall and by some kind of coincidence, the next scheduled performer each time was "Brother Theodore" and they handed out a pamphlet advertising this someone "odd" (to put it kindly) performer. I never did actually see him until The 'Burbs. Now I almost wish that I had ! some quotes from Brother T.
You had these odd comedians in the 1970s who worked their way into odd pictures, here and there, as well as major comics of the time, like Richard Pryor. Even a legend like Professor Irwin Corey worked on small independent pictures in the 1970s that played at drive-in movie theatres. I've seen Brother Theodore with David Letterman who was always good for giving unusual comedy and musical acts exposure through his chat show.
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