JOHN KARLSEN

6 Jul

(20 October 1919 - 5 July 2017)

The New Zealand-born actor, who has died aged 97, started his film career in The Naked Maja (1958), with Ava Gardner. He continued with other juicy titles such as Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory, Pontius Pilate, The Witch’s Curse and Toto and Peppino Divided in Berlin, but also appeared in some more high-profile Italian productions such as Fellini’s 8½ and Casanova and he voiced Amarcord in English. He was also in Cleopatra, Modesty Blaise, The Black Stallion, I Love N.Y., Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and Roger Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound. Karlsen was never a star player but notched up over eighty appearances on TV and in films, most of which were shot in Italy. His last films were The Sin Eater (2003) with Heath Ledger, and Pupi Avati’s The Hideout (2007), with Rita Tushingham. He died in Auckland, New Zealand.

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 KARLSEN

ELSA MARTINELLI

JOE ROBINSON