FRITZ WEAVER

27 Nov

(19 January 1926 - 26 November 2016)

American actor Fritz Weaver made his Broadway acting debut in Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden in 1955, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination. He won a Best Actor Tony for Robert Marasco’s Child’s Play but lost out to James Mason in the film version of 1972. He had been in television since 1948 and continued for much of his career on the small screen. Never perhaps a star, Weaver was always a reliable character actor who brought dignity to any role he played. He was in more films as his career progressed, from his first, Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe (1964), through Guy Green’s A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970), Mike Nichols’ The Day of the Dolphin, Marathon Man, Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday, Donald Cammell’s Demon Seed, Lumet’s Power, the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, and The Cobbler (2014), with Adam Sandler. His last film in 2016 was The Congressman, with Treat Williams.

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.

FRITZ WEAVER

BILLY CHAPIN

FLORENCE HENDERSON