BILL PAXTON

Written by Michael Darvell
 

(17 May 1955 - 25 February 2017)

Bill Paxton

From the time he entered the film business, the American actor and sometime writer, producer and director Bill Paxton, seemed to be cast in eccentric character roles. He entered films as a set-dresser for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures company and made his film acting debut in Corman’s Crazy Mama (1975). Later on he studied acting at New York University and then secured several TV appearances while also making short films. He was in The Lords of Discipline and a number of minor movies including Taking Tiger Mountain written by William S. Burroughs and then came The Terminator and Commando, both with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Many films followed, including Weird Science, Aliens, Near Dark, Slipstream, Next of Kin, Predator 2, Tombstone, Future Shock, True Lies and Apollo 13 (as NASA astronaut Fred Haise). He was Frank in Frank and Jessie, about the James brothers, he chased a storm in Twister, searched for the RMS Titanic, and played Jeff Tracy in Thunderbirds (2004). More recently, apart from TV shows, Paxton graced Soderbergh’s Haywire, was in Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise, Nightcrawler and Term Life. Paxton’s last film, The Circle, with Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, was released in 2017, in a career that notched up nearly a hundred film and TV appearances.

MICHAEL DARVELL

 
Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

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