JON POLITO

2 Sept

(29 December 1950 - 1 September 2016)

The American character actor Jon Polito was often seen in the films of Joel and Ethan Coen, namely Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski and The Man Who Wasn’t There. Perhaps never a star, he was, however, a face you might recognise without necessarily putting a name to it. With over two hundred film and TV credits to his name he was a very busy man, starting out on television in 1981 and working continuously up until his death. His last film, The Maestro, is due out in 2017. Over the years he played cops, detectives, hoods, judges, bankers and other businessmen with equal aplomb, in films such as The Freshman, Highlander, The Crow, The Tailor of Panama, The Singing Detective, Flags of Our Fathers and American Gangster. As well as working for the Coens, Polito was directed by Clint Eastwood, Ridley Scott, Michael Apted, Tom Hanks, Andrew Bergman, Tim Burton and many others. On stage he appeared in American Buffalo, Curse of the Aching Heart, Total Abandon and a revival of Death of a Salesman, while on television Polito appeared in everything from As the World Turns (1983) and Crime Story (1986-8) to Desperate Housewives (2005) and Modern Family (2014-16).

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.

JON POLITO

HUGH O’BRIAN

GENE WILDER