JOHN G. AVILDSEN

17 Jun

(21 December 1935 - 16 June 2017)

The American film director John G. Avildsen, who has died aged 81, was not just a director but also in his time a producer, editor, writer and cinematographer. His most famous film was arguably Rocky (1976), for which he won an Oscar and which won many other awards around the world. It was enormously popular and made a star out of Sylvester Stallone. Avildsen also directed Rocky V and hit gold, too, with The Karate Kid (1984) and its sequels, but he also made other, more interesting films such as Joe (1970) with Peter Boyle, Save the Tiger (1973) with Jack Lemmon (who won an Oscar for it) and other titles including W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, Slow Dancing in the Big City, The Formula and The Power of One. As a producer, Avildsen was involved with Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965) with Warren Beatty, and at the time of his death was working on The Margarita Man, American Satan and Nate & Al, the last with Richard Dreyfuss and Martin Landau. Derek Wayne Johnson has written and directed a documentary tribute, John G. Avildsen: King of the Underdogs with contributions from Stallone, Ralph Macchio, Martin Scorsese, Luke Perry etc plus archive footage of Avildsen’s many other actors.

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.

JOHN G. AVILDSEN

STEPHEN FURST

ANITA PALLENBERG