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Mirren’s casting as Israeli prime minister Golda Meir ignited debate over non-Jewish people playing Jewish roles.

Golda director Guy Nattiv has addressed the debate around the casting of non-Jews in Jewish roles, saying ahead of the film’s Berlinale world premiere that UK actor Mirren has “got the Jewish chops to portray Golda”.

Mirren, who is not Jewish, plays Israel’s only female prime minister, Golda Meir, as she leads her country through the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a conflict between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.

In the UK, the likes of...

Oscar-winning actor Helen Mirren refused to address the controversy around her casting as Israel’s iconic Prime Minister Golda Meir in Guy Nattiv’s biopic during the movie’s press conference at the Berlinale.

When asked to comment on the backlash and the issue of authentic casting, Mirren left it to Nattiv and her co-star Lior Ashkenazi (“Footnote”) to stand up for her while she smiled shyly.

Mirren is neither Israeli nor Jewish, and critics have argued that she shouldn’t have been cast as Israel’s most important female figure.

Nattiv said that when he met Mirren, he instantly felt like he was in the presence of a “family member” — an “aunt” who had the “Jewish chops to portray Golda.”

“We spoke about that for hours. She totally got everything, every nook and cranny, everything in this character,” he continued. Surrounding Mirren with an Israeli cast was a crucial step,...

The Berlin Film Festival on Monday unveiled the titles selected for its official competition as well as its sidebar Encounters competitive section.

A total of 18 films have been selected for the international competition with highlights including Christian Petzold’s latest film Roter Himmel (Afire), Margarethe von Trotta directing Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps in Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey Into the Desert, and Philippe Garrel returns with a new feature titled The Plough.

Scroll down for the full lineup.

This morning the festival also revealed an extra special screening: Actor and filmmaker Sean Penn will debut a documentary titled Superpower, a film shot in Ukraine last year at the outbreak of Russia’s invasion and follows president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Berlin Film Festival takes place February 16-26.

Organizers have already announced more than 100 titles across sidebars spanning Panorama, Forum, and Berlinale Special. The festival had initially done a good job of increasing...

The Berlin Film Festival today announced eight titles that have been added to its Berlinale Special program. The new crop of films includes Golda, starring Helen Mirren, Camille Cottin, and Liev Schreiber.

Directed by Guy Nattiv from a screenplay by Nicholas Martin, the pic follows the intensely dramatic and high-stakes responsibilities and decisions that Golda Meir, former Israeli prime minister, faced during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Mirren stars as Meir. Jane Hooks and Michael Kuhn are producers on the pic. Embankment is handling sales.

Other titles added to the program include Netflix’s Kill Boksoon. Jeon Do-Yeon, who won the best actress award at Cannes in 2007 for Secret Sunshine, stars in the pic, which follows a single mother and renowned hired killer who struggles to find a balance between her personal and work life.

Also selected is Andrea Di Stefano’s Last Night of Amore, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Linda Caridi,...

Berlinale Special strand adds eight titles.

Guy Nattiv’s Golda, in which Helen Mirren plays former Israeli prime minister Golda Weir, will have its world premiere as a Berlinale Special Gala at next month’s Berlin Film Festival (February 16-26).

The film is one of eight additions to the Berlinale Special section, seven of which are world premieres.

Scroll down for the full list of new Special titles

Produced by Michael Kuhn for the UK’s Qwerty Films, Jane Hooks and Nattiv’s New Native Pictures, Golda focuses on the responsibilities and decisions of Meir faced during the Yom Kippur...

Wilko Johnson, a “Game of Thrones” actor and British rocker who served as the guitarist for Dr. Feelgood, has died. He was 75 years old.

According to Johnson’s official Facebook page, he died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Westcliff-on-Sea, England, on Monday. A cause of death was not disclosed.

“Thank you for respecting Wilko’s family’s privacy at this very sad time, and thank you all for having been such a tremendous support throughout Wilko’s incredible life,” the post added.

Also Read:

Mickey Kuhn, Last Surviving ‘Gone With the Wind’ Cast Member, Dies at 90

Born in 1947, Johnson grew up in Canvey Island and went on to study English at Newcastle University and work briefly as a school teacher.

In 1971, he formed the rock band Dr. Feelgood with a group of local friends, which performed across countless stages and venues in the United Kingdom throughout the mid-70s.

Mickey Kuhn, a former child actor and the last surviving cast member of the 1939 film “Gone With The Wind,” died at the age of 90 on Nov. 20, 2022, at a hospice facility in Naples, Florida, his wife confirmed to Variety.

In the classic film, Kuhn played Beau Wilkes, the son of Ashley and Melanie Wilkes, played by Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland, respectively. The latter’s death in 2020 left Kuhn as the film’s last surviving credited cast member until his death on Sunday.

Kuhn’s acting career was at its height in the 1930s and 1940s, when he appeared such in films as “Juarez,” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Red River,” in which he played the adoptive son of John Wayne’s character. Kuhn left the entertainment industry in 1957, with his final credit being multiple appearances in episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”

Kuhn was born as Theodore Matthew Michael Kuhn Jr. on Sept.

Simu Liu has offered a response to Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese’s less-than-favourable comments on superhero films.

Both directors have been outspoken on their feelings towards Marvel projects.

The Irishman filmmaker Scorsese first weighed in on the topic by saying that superhero franchise films were “not cinema” in 2019.

Most recently, Tarantino expressed a similar view against “the Marvel-isation of Hollywood” while promoting his new book, Cinema Speculation.

“You have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters,” the Kill Bill director said. “But they’re not movie stars... Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star.”

In response, Liu, who played the title character in the Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in 2021, defended these films on social media by highlighting their success and their embracing of diverse talent.

“If the only gatekeepers to movie stardom came from Tarantino and Scorsese,...

Mickey Kuhn, the last surviving credited cast member of the 1939 film classic Gone With The Wind, died Sunday at a hospice facility in Naples, Fl. He was 90.

His death was announced in a Facebook post by friend George Terrell.

Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery Related Story James Winburn Dies: Prolific 'Halloween' Stuntman Was 85 Related Story Jean-Marie Straub Dies: Radical French Filmmaker Of Straub-Huillet Duo Was 89

A prolific child actor of the 1930s and ’40s, Kuhn is best remembered for his role as Gone with the Wind‘s Beau Wilkes, the son of Ashley and Melanie Wilkes. In his most memorable scene, Kuhn tearfully reacts to Melanie’s death by asking his father: “Where is my mother going away to? And why can’t I go along, please?”

De Havilland’s death in 2020 left Kuhn as the film’s last surviving credited cast member.

Mickey Kuhn, the last surviving actor of Gone with the Wind, has died at age 90.

His wife, Barbara, confirmed his death on Tuesday (22 November), telling press that Kuhn died on Sunday 20 November at a hospice facility in Naples, Florida.

With Kuhn’s death, it means that no members of the 1939 film’s production remain.

The actor was six years old when he starred in the Victor Fleming-directed picture. Considered a Hollywood classic, Gone with the Wind tells the story of Vivien Leigh’s outspoken heroine Scarlett O’Hara and her romantic pursuits of Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable).

Kuhn played the son of Olivia de Havilland’s character (Melanie Wilkes), Beau Wilkes.

The film ultimately won 10 Academy Awards of the 13 it was nominated for. Notably, Hattie McDaniel’s win for Best Supporting Actress marked the first time a Black person won an Oscar.

After this role,...

Former child actor Mickey Kuhn, best known for starring in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, has died. He was 90. According to his wife, Barbara (via The Hollywood Reporter), Kuhn passed away in a hospice facility in Naples, Florida, on Sunday, November 20. He was in good health until recently, she said. Kuhn was the last surviving cast member of Gone with the Wind, in which he played Beau Wilkes, the son of Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard’s characters. He was just six years old when he took on the role and went on to appear in Dick Tracey (1945), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), John Wayne’s Red River (1948), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), where he reunited with Vivien Leigh, 12 years after they first worked together in Gone with the Wind. He also starred in the CBS television anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1956, the same year he featured in his final film,...

Mickey Kuhn, a child actor whose long credits list in the 1930s and 1940s included “Gone With the Wind” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” has died in Naples, Florida, at the age of 90, his wife, Barbara told reporters.

Kuhn was the last surviving credited cast member of “Gone With the Wind,” playing Beau Wilkes, the son of Ashley and Melanie Wilkes, who were played by Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland. Kuhn’s most well-known line comes near the end of the film, when Melanie is on her deathbed from pregnancy complications and Beau asks his father, “Where is my mother going away to? And why can’t I go along, please?”

Despite the mother-son relationship between their characters, Kuhn and de Havilland never appeared on-screen together and had never even met on set. In fact, he told the Naples Daily News in 2017 that his first meeting with de Havilland...

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Mickey Kuhn, the busy child actor of the 1930s and ’40s who played Beau Wilkes, the son of Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard’s characters, in Gone With the Wind, has died. He was 90.

Kuhn died Sunday in a hospice facility in Naples, Florida, his wife, Barbara, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was in excellent health until recently, she said.

Kuhn also portrayed the ward of a famous movie cop in Dick Tracy (1945) and younger versions of Kirk Douglas and Montgomery Clift in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) and John Wayne’s Red River (1948), respectively.

And in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Kuhn reunited with Gwtw actress Vivien Leigh to appear as a sailor who gives Blanche DuBois directions. (Was he Leigh’s good luck charm? She won her two best actress Oscars with him in the cast.)

Kuhn was 6 when...

Mark Rosman‘s The House on Sorority Row (1982) and Stewart Hendler‘s Sorority Row (2009) feel shoved aside in their respective horror classes. Titles like Pieces, Black Christmas, and The Dorm That Dripped Blood get more frequent mentions when discussing pre-90s sorority or dormitory slashers. Remake debates rarely include Sorority Row in their reassessments of unfairly stigmatized 2000s horror revamps based on nostalgia biases (among other reasons). It’s interesting how both seem equally less popular despite their amassed cult followings after meager box office openings.

It’s almost like Hendler attempted to shake the original’s mojo by deeming Sorority Row an adaptation of Rosman’s screenplay Seven Sisters — the earlier iteration of what would become The House on Sorority Row. Don’t mind the trickiness because Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger write their re-imagining indebted to The House on Sorority Row. Maybe late-2000s remake fatigue led to...

Two Classic Hollywood giants celebrated big birthdays today. The legendary two time Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland turned 104 this morning and Gigi herself, Leslie Caron turned 89 years young.  We thought it was time to update our Oldest Living Oscar People list. Pick a few of these giants in 2020 and watch a couple of their movies to appreciate their gift or learn about it for the first time. Our very best wishes of good health and happiness to the following actors, directors and craftsmen who nabbed at least one Oscar honor in their career...

100 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees/Winners

To see a less Oscar-specific list, here's a bigger 'oldest living actors' list 

104 Years Young

Olivia de Havilland (7/1/1916) Oscar stats: 5 nominations | 2 wins

This incredible actress won Oscar's top acting prize twice by the time she was 33 for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). She also received Best Actress nominations for The Snake Pit...

Republic raids an early Rko talkie for a fantastic special effects sequence, and you won’t believe how it’s repurposed — in a story about a TV personality (in 1939!) taking on a corrupt political mob. New York crumbles and is then washed away — sort of. It’s yet another resurfacing of a title that not long ago we couldn’t see to save our cinema-curious souls.

S.O.S. Tidal Wave

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1939 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 62 min. / Street Date October 31, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Ralph Byrd, George Barbier, Kay Sutton, Frank Jenks, Marc Lawrence, Dorothy Lee, Oscar O’Shea, Mickey Kuhn, Ferris Taylor, Don ‘Red’ Barry, Raymond Bailey.

Cinematography: Jack A. Marta

Film Editor: Ernest Nims

Musical Director: Cy Feuer

Written by Gordon Kahn, Stanley Rauh, Maxwell Shane, story by James Webb

Produced by Armand Schaefer

Directed by John H. Auer

If Republic wasn’t...

Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...

Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Written by Robert Rossen, Robert Riskin

Directed by Lewis Milestone

U.S.A., 1946

As a teenager, Martha Ivers (Janis Wilson) was a petulant rebel who regularly struck the ire of her caretaking aunt, a wicked woman prone to sucking the joy out of Martha’s life even though she offers the youngling a home in her plush Pennsylvania estate. One of the teen’s attempts to run away with street smart Sam Masterson (Darryl Hickman) changes the rest of her life in ways she could never have anticipated. Caught by the police once again and sent back home, Martha unleashes her frustrations on her aunt, murdering her in the process. The only witness to the killing is young Walter O’Neil (Mickey Kuhn), son of Martha’s tutor. Martha claims an intruder killed the vile old creature amidst a frantic escape. Flash forward years...

‘Gone with the Wind’ actress Mary Anderson dead at 96; also featured in Alfred Hitchcock thriller ‘Lifeboat’ Mary Anderson, an actress featured in both Gone with the Wind and Alfred Hitchcock’s adventure thriller Lifeboat, died following a series of small strokes on Sunday, April 6, 2014, while under hospice care in Toluca Lake/Burbank, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Anderson, the widow of multiple Oscar-winning cinematographer Leon Shamroy, had turned 96 on April 3. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1918, Mary Anderson was reportedly discovered by director George Cukor, at the time looking for an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in David O. Selznick’s film version of Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller Gone with the Wind. Instead of Scarlett, eventually played by Vivien Leigh, Anderson was cast in the small role of Maybelle Merriwether — most of which reportedly ended up on the cutting-room floor. Cukor was later fired from the project; his replacement, Victor Fleming,...

‘Gone with the Wind’ actress Alicia Rhett dead at 98; was oldest surviving credited Gwtw cast member Gone with the Wind actress Alicia Rhett, the oldest surviving credited cast member of the 1939 Oscar-winning blockbuster, died on January 3, 2014, at the Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community in Charleston, South Carolina, where Rhett had been living since August 2002. Alicia Rhett, born on February 1, 1915, in Savannah, Georgia, was 98. (Photo: Alicia Rhett as India Wilkes in Gone with the Wind.) In Gone with the Wind, the David O. Selznick production made in conjunction with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM head Louis B. Mayer was Selznick’s father-in-law), the stage-trained Alicia Rhett played India Wilkes, the embittered sister of Ashley Wilkes, whom Scarlett O’Hara loves — though Ashley eventually marries Melanie Hamilton (Rhett had auditioned for the role), while Scarlett ends up with Rhett Butler. Based on Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller, Gone with the Wind was (mostly) directed by Victor Fleming...

Washington, Jan 5: Alicia Rhett, the oldest surviving cast member of 1939's 'Gone With the Wind', has passed away due to natural causes. She was 98.

According to Rhett's retirement home - Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community in Charleston, S.C. - the veteran actress died around 5 p.m. on Friday, People Magazine reported.

Rhett played the role of India Wilkes in the movie which also starred Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

Now that Rhett, who was also known for her portrait painting skills, has died, only 3 main cast members remain : Mary Anderson, 93, who played Maybelle Merriweather, Mickey Kuhn, 81, who.

Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’: TCM schedule on August 20, 2013 (photo: Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’) See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel: Oscar Winner Makes History.” 3:00 Am Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). Director: David Butler. Cast: Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Eddie Cantor, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly, Don Wilson, Spike Jones, Henry Armetta, Leah Baird, Willie Best, Monte Blue, James Burke, David Butler, Stanley Clements, William Desmond, Ralph Dunn, Frank Faylen, James Flavin, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Paul Harvey, Mark Hellinger, Brandon Hurst, Charles Irwin, Noble Johnson, Mike Mazurki, Fred Kelsey, Frank Mayo, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Treen, Doodles Weaver. Bw-127 mins. 5:15 Am Janie (1944). Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton,...

Gone With The Wind Actress Ann Rutherford Dies. [Photo: Ann Rutherford as Carreen O'Hara, Evelyn Keyes as Suellen O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.]

Ann Rutherford‘s most notable screen roles were in films made away from both MGM and Wallace Beery. She was a young woman who falls for trumpeter George Montgomery in Archie Mayo’s 20th Century Fox musical Orchestra Wives (1942), and became enmeshed with (possibly) amnesiac Tom Conway in Anthony Mann’s Rko thriller Two O’Clock Courage (1945).

Following a couple of minor supporting roles — in the Danny Kaye comedy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) at Goldwyn and the Errol Flynn costumer The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) at Warner Bros. — and the female lead in the independently made cattle drama Operation Haylift (1950), opposite Bill Williams, Ann Rutherford retired from the screen. (Rutherford would later say that her Operation Haylift experience was anything but pleasant.)

She then turned to television, making regular television appearances in the ’50s (The Donna Reed Show, Playhouse 90,...

Hey, Stellaaaaa! Fire up the Blu-ray player! 1951's "A Streetcar Named Desire" marked the 60th anniversary of its release last September. Now, seven months later, fans will have the opportunity to relive the classic flick with a special-edition Blu-ray release. That's as good an excuse as any to revisit this landmark film, which opened up Hollywood to movies with strictly adult content and -- thanks to Marlon Brando's legendary performance -- Method acting. The film forced the medium into a new, raw, emotional, mature kind of expression, and, six decades later, it has lost none of its power to shock and astonish. Of course, what went on behind the scenes of the steamy Southern story was nearly as dramatic as the on-screen tale. Read on for more about the film's casting (can you imagine Bette Davis as Blanche?), Vivien Leigh's witty takedown of director Elia Kazan, and the...

Sad news arrived this morning. The Coroner from The Wizard of Oz (1939) passed away yesterday. I would tell you that "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" is one of my favorite scenes from The Wizard of Oz but the statement is meaningless; Every scene is "one of my favorite scenes" from The Wizard of Oz. I love that movie like it's a family member or body part.

Meinhardt Raabe (1915-2010)

As coroner, I must aver

I thoroughly examined her.

And she’s not only merely dead,

She’s really most sincerely dead.There are so few people of any height left alive from what's often regarded as cinema's greatest year. I don't know how many Munchkins are still with us from Oz but some must remain. After all, there were baby Munchkins, too.

According to the IMDb there are six cast members of Gone With the Wind still with us:...