Spirit Of '75 : 5 Actors Trying To Catch A Break ...
Nov 6, 2022 3:06:12 GMT
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Post by petrolino on Nov 6, 2022 3:06:12 GMT
'5 Of '75' : Nick Nolte, Tom Berenger, Brad Dourif, Treat Williams & John Travolta
These five actors brought some valuable experience gained working in indoor and outdoor theatre in the early 1970s to the realms of television and cinema. Each man finally made his mark in 1975. Interestingly, a case can be made that each of them went on to become a powerhouse player within the crime genre. For some fans of American crime cinema, they are firm "crime film favourites".
# Some (if not all) of these actors are friends who have worked together in film, television or theatre across the years. They cover a 13 year age gap which I believe demonstrates just how tough it could be for an American actor to break in to the movie business back in the 1970s.
'Everyone's Gone To The Movies' - Steely Dan
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Nick Nolte (born February 8, 1941, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.)
He's rumoured to have made his official film debut in Stan Dragoti's western 'Dirty Little Billy' (1972) having found work as an extra. This is possible as he can be glimpsed the following year portraying a random hippie in James William Guercio's influential crime picture 'Electra Glide In Blue' (1973). It set a ball in motion as he secured his first major speaking role three years later when he was cast in Richard Compton's crime movie 'Return To Macon County' (1975).
"There used to be a casting director that would come and see this repertory theater company I was in, and he would cast me right out of the show. And they’d be smaller roles, but there was Death Valley Days, there was Electra Glide In Blue, there was Riot… I’m one of those extra reporters in Riot going, “Hey, Red! Red! Over here, Red! I’ve got a question!” And [Gene] Hackman goes, “Wait a second! Cut, cut, cut! These guys are talking over my line! Why don’t they just be quiet, I’ll pretend like I’m listening to ’em, and then I’ll say my line so they can go to lunch?” So they sent me to lunch! [Laughs]"
- Nick Nolte, The A.V. Club
10 Crime Films
01. 'Return To Macon County' (1975 - Richard Compton)
02. '48 Hrs.' (1982 - Walter Hill)
03. 'Extreme Prejudice' (1987 - Walter Hill)
04. 'Another 48 Hrs.' (1990 - Walter Hill)
05. 'Q&A' (1990 - Sidney Lumet)
06. 'Mulholland Falls' (1996 - Lee Tamahori)
07. 'Affliction' (1997 - Paul Schrader)
08. 'Nightwatch' (1997 - Ole Bornedal)
09. 'U Turn' (1997 - Oliver Stone)
10. 'Gangster Squad' (2013 - Ruben Fleischer)
'She Never Sleeps Beside Me' - Zager & Evans
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Tom Berenger (born May 31, 1949, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.)
His first screen acting role came in 1975 when he was cast in the popular soap opera 'One Life To Live', becoming the third actor to portray the character Tim Siegel following Bill Fowler (1969) and William Cox (1970-1971). He'd have to wait just a little longer to make his mark in movies when Richard Brooks cast him in the educational drama 'Looking For Mr. Goodbar' (1977).
"There’s not many Oliver Stones, that’s for sure. Even cop films, my favorite cop film was done by Sidney Lumet, 'Prince of the City'. It’s like two hours and 30 minutes long. It doesn’t have an intermission because it’s not long enough to have an intermission but it’s long. When I watched it, it was in a theater in Queens, I said, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom. Maybe I’ll get a bag of popcorn on the way back but I don’t want to leave because if I do I’m going to miss a scene.”
It was a huge ensemble cast with all these subplots. It was real, based on real life situations, by a guy named Robert Daley who wrote for the New York Daily News. There were all these characters and all these subplots and it worked. They just used them all, put them all together and everybody from the federal prosecutors to the New York State prosecutors to the U.S. Marshals to all the cops to the bad cops, the good cops, the bosses. It was pretty good.
If you were going to play a cop, besides reading the books that you should read, you should see that movie too. That nails it. That is the best cop film. Unfortunately it’s about some crooked cops but it was right on."
- Tom Berenger, Mandatory
10 Crime Films
01. 'Fear City' (1984 - Abel Ferrara)
02. 'Shoot To Kill' (1988 - Roger Spottiswoode)
03. Sliver' (1993 - Phillip Noyce)
04. 'Chasers' (1994 - Dennis Hopper)
05. 'An Occasional Hell' (1996 - Salome Breziner)
06. 'The Substitute' (1996 - Robert Mandel)
07. 'Training Day' (2001 - Antoine Fuqua)
08. 'True Blue' (2001 - J.S. Cardone)
09. 'D-Tox' (2002 - Jim Gillespie)
10. 'Inception' (2010 - Christopher Nolan)
'What Else Can I Say' - Chicago
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Brad Dourif (born March 18, 1950, Huntington, West Virginia, U.S.)
He made his screen debut when he was cast in a key role in Milos Forman's medical drama 'One Flew Over The Cusckoo's Nest' (1975). Yet, according to movie legend, he'd already worked on a movie called 'Split' that nobody seems to have seen as it apparently went unreleased.
# He's been so prolific within the fields of crime, fantasy, horror and science-fiction, I could only just about narrow it down to 12 selections!
"I don’t want to be full of myself. I really have fun when I’m working, and I don’t want to not have fun when I’m working, because I’m trying to convince myself that I’m ‘somebody’. I don’t like it, and I don’t enjoy other people who are like that. And that’s one of the reasons why doing smaller-budget stuff is really good. You don’t run into that so much."
- Brad Dourif, Den Of Geek
12 Crime Films
01. 'Eyes Of Laura Mars' (1978 - Irvin Kershner)
02. 'Blue Velvet' (1986 - David Lynch)
03. 'Fatal Beauty' (1987 - Tom Holland)
04. 'Mississippi Burning' (1988 - Alan Parker)
05. 'Sonny Boy' (1989 - Robert Martin Carroll)
06. 'Amos & Andrew' (1993 - E. Max Frye)
07. 'Color Of Night' (1994 - Richard Rush)
08. 'Murder In The First' (1995 - Marc Rocco)
09. 'Sworn To Justice' (1996 - Paul Maslak)
10. 'Nightwatch' (1997 - Ole Bornedal)
11. 'The Box' (2003 - Richard Pepin)
12. 'Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans' (2009 - Werner Herzog)
'Offertory (Sunday Christian)' - Mind Garage
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Treat Williams (born December 1, 1951, Rowayton, Connecticut, U.S.)
He struck it lucky with his first film role when Ivan Nagy cast him to play a detective in the crime thriller 'Deadly Hero' (1975). More recently, he's gone on Twitter to say neither he nor Bebe Neuwirth appear in John Schlesinger's crime thriller 'The Marathon Man' (1976), though he continues to be credited as having played "the park jogger" at various online sources.
# He was a promising football player who chose to work in theatre where he developed his craft. His casting-call buddy Kurt Russell had been a promising baseball player, though as a successful child actor active in Hollywood, Russell was already something of a veteran when he gained his breakthrough adult role portraying serial shooter Charles Whitman in the television movie 'The Deadly Tower' (1975).
"Your big break is always your first job, which in my case was 'Our Man Higgins'. I had a chance at Disney, when I went over there to do 'Follow Me, Boys!', that was the motion picture break. And working with Elvis Presley [on] 'It Happened at the World’s Fair' when I was just 10 years old. That was an opportunity. And then playing him in the film 'Elvis' was such — it was written when he was still alive. Then he died. It added a degree of difficulty to it. Because there was this sense of, "Gee, it’s only been 18 months since Elvis died and they’re already doing this." That’s sort of the way things were at the time. You didn’t jump on that. It was bad form. But this was already in motion.
There’s a really nice man, an actor, Treat Williams. He and I were down to the last "Who’s it going to be?" I remember Treat one time said to me, "If you get this, are you going to actually do it?" And I said, "What? What do you mean?" I said, "What about you?" And he said, "I don’t know." And I said, "Why? What do you mean?" And he said, "Come on. I don’t know, you’re playing Elvis."
There’s a really nice man, an actor, Treat Williams. He and I were down to the last "Who’s it going to be?" I remember Treat one time said to me, "If you get this, are you going to actually do it?" And I said, "What? What do you mean?" I said, "What about you?" And he said, "I don’t know." And I said, "Why? What do you mean?" And he said, "Come on. I don’t know, you’re playing Elvis."
- Kurt Russell, The Ringer
10 Crime Films
01. 'Deadly Hero' (1975 - Ivan Nagy)
02. 'Prince Of The City' (1981 - Sidney Lumet)
03. 'Flashpoint' (1984 - William Tannen)
04. 'Once Upon A Time In America' (1984 - Sergio Leone)
05. 'Smooth Talk' (1985 - Joyce Chopra)
06. 'Dead Heat' (1988 - Mark Goldblatt)
07. 'Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead' (1995 - Gary Fleder)
08. 'Mulholland Falls' (1996 - Lee Tamahori)
09. 'Critical Mass' (2001 - Fred Olen Ray)
10. 'Deadfall' (2012 - Stefan Ruzowitzky)
'Solitaire' - Carpenters
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John Travolta (born February 18, 1954, Englewood, New Jersey, U.S.)
He was noted for his work in musicals early in his stage career. He made his big screen debut when he accepted a juicy part in Robert Fuest's road horror 'The Devil's Rain' (1975), having done sporadic work in television since 1972. In the autumn of 1975, his television career also took off when he earned himself a plum role in the hit sitcom ' Welcome Back, Kotter'.
“You know, Quentin (Tarantino) was ‘The Fanatic’ about me when we first met [Chuckles]. So I know how he feels about me. And he’s a man of his own destiny. If he feels there’s something that’s
, we’ll do it. Don’t forget, at one point it was Michael Madsen who was going to do ‘Pulp Fiction.’ But [Tarantino] changed on a dime and said, ‘I can’t get John out of my head for Vincent.’"
- John Travolta, The Chicago Sun-Times
10 Crime Films
01. 'Blow Out' (1981 - Brian De Palma)
02. 'The Experts' (1989 - Dave Thomas)
03. 'Pulp Fiction' (1994 - Quentin Tarantino)
04. 'Get Shorty' (1995 - Barry Sonnenfeld)
04. 'Get Shorty' (1995 - Barry Sonnenfeld)
05. 'Broken Arrow' (1996 - John Woo)
06. 'Face/Off' (1997 - John Woo)
07. 'Domestic Disturbance' (2001 - Harold Becker)
08. 'Swordfish' (2001 - Dominic Sena)
09. 'The Punisher' (2004 - Jonathan Hensleigh)
10. 'Savages' (2012 - Oliver Stone)
'Spirit Of The Boogie' - Kool And The Gang
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