DALIAH LAVI

4 May

(12 October 1940 - 3 May 2017)

Trained first as a dancer, the Palestine-born actress Daliah Lavi was popular as a sex symbol in European films before hitting the global market, notably in the US and UK. Her first film in 1955 was Swedish, followed by productions in Germany, France and Italy. Her first American film, Vincente Minnelli’s Two Weeks in Another Town (1962), was the director’s sequel to his 1952 film The Bad and the Beautiful. Lavi was in Abel Gance’s Cyrano et d’Artagnon (1964) with José Ferrer and Jean-Pierre Cassel and then came Lord Jim (1965), which put her on the world map. After that she was in Ten Little Indians with Hugh O’Brian, The Silencers with Dean Martin, The Spy With a Cold Nose with Laurence Harvey, the first (spoof) version of Casino Royale, Jules Verne’s Rocket to the Moon, Nobody Runs Forever, Some Girls Do, and Catlow (1971), but not very much after that, just occasional TV series (including an episode of Sez Les, with Les Dawson in 1972).

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.

DALIAH LAVI

MICHAEL WEARING

MORAY WATSON