Bud Ekins R.I.P.

Off road motorcyclist and legendary stuntman Bud Ekins died on October 6 at the age 77. He is perhaps best known for doubling for Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

Ekins was born in Hollywood, California on May 11, 1930. It was in the late Forties that Ekins started motorcross racing in the deserts and mountains of Southern California. He was one of the early pioneers of the sport. He raced in the Catalina Grand Prix, a 100 mile race, no less than seven times. He won the Big Bear Hare and Hound Race, an endurance run across the Mojave Desert, no less than three times. He would later organise the American motorcross team for the International Six-Day Trials in Germany. He would win four Gold Medals and one silver in that competition during the Sixties. In 1962 he became the first man to travel the whole length of Baja California on a motorcycle.

Ekins also operated a Triumph dealership,and it was through his dealership that he became friends with movie star Steve McQueen. McQueen had come into the dealership and asked for motorcross lessons and the two soon became friends. It was also through McQueen that Ekins became a stunt man. The first film on which he worked was The Great Escape. Although it is McQueen on the Triumph motorcycle in most of the film, it is Ekins, doubling for McQueen, who executed the famous 65 foot jump over a barbed wire fence. Ekins would also double for McQueen in what may be the second most famous action scene involving one of McQueen's characters. It was Ekins who drove the Dodge Charger in the famous, 10 minute long car chase in Bullitt. Ekins would perform stunts for several films, including the Elvis Presley vehicle Speedway, the Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever, The Towering Inferno, Animal House, and The Blues Brothers. He also served as the stunt double for actor Michael Parks on the TV series Then Came Bronson. Close friends with Steve McQueen, Ekins also participated in documentaries and retrospectives on the actor.

There can be little doubt that Bud Ekins was one of the greatest stuntmen of all time. Indeed, the jump on the Triumph over the barbed wire fence in The Great Escape and the car chase in Bullitt are two of the most famous movie stunts in the history of cinema. Ekins was also a pioneer in the sport of off road motorcycle racing. If not Ekins and the other men who raced in the remote, often dangerous regions of Southern California in the late Forties, we might not have motorcross racing as we know it today. As either a stuntman or a motorcross racer, Ekins will not be forgotten.

Watching Movies For Free on the Internet

I can remember ten years ago when video was a rarity on the Internet. It primarily consisted of music videos, news stories, interviews, and other things that could be fit into the space of a few minutes. It was usually delivered through RealAudio or QuickTime, and the quality of the picture wasn't always the best. What is worse is that at that time the majority connected to the Internet through dialup. As a result one often spent more time waiting for any particular video to buffer than actually watching the video.

Thing have changed a good deal since then. These days video is ubiquitous on the Internet. Nearly every news outlet has videos of the latest stories in the news. One can watch the episodes of one's favourite TV shows at the websites of the various networks and cable channels. And then there are sites such as YouTube and IFilm, which allows users to upload their (and often other people's videos). One thing that has made all this possible is that many, perhaps most, people these days connect through the Internet through cable. No longer does one have to wait for ten minutes as a 3 minute video buffers. One can watch the video almost immediately.

One thing that these changes have made possible is the ability of people to watch movies on their computers. Now I am not talking about buying movies through a source such as ITunes. Instead I am talking about the ability of individuals to watch classic films, now in the public domain, at various video venues.

One of the best sources of movies in the public domain is Google Video. Google Video is essentially a free video sharing service, as well as a video search engine. This means that not only can one look at videos on Google Video, but one can also find videos on other parts of the Internet through its search engine. Among the movies I have found on Google Video are the original Little Shop of Horrors, Topper, It's a Wonderful Life, and Angel and the Bad Man.

Of course, the best known video sharing site is YouTube. I rather suspect that it is best known for the short, often humorous videos created by users. But one can find movies on YouTube as well. I found the original Night of the Living Dead (in public doman due to a scribal error), Nosferatu (actually, a friend found that one), The Mouse and His Child (actually I'm not sure that is in the public domain...), Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (an old Fox silent film), The Choppers (1961 drag race movie), and von Stroheim's The Wedding March. It is not easy to find movies on YouTube. Typing in the word movie in their search engine will often yield results that definitely are not movies, and there is no way to limit one's search to items over a certain duration (say, one hour). Still, there are movies to be found there. At least YouTube boasts a few movies. I have never found a movie on either of its rivals, IFilm or Metacafe.

Another source for free movies is In2TV, a video service operated by AOL. The primary focus of In2TV is classic television--one can watch episodes of Gilligan's Island, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and The Adventures of Brisco County there. But they also offer a few movies, among them various Godzilla movies, Our Gang comedies, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. feature films (basically episodes that were edited together into movies for the foreign market). AOL Video also offers movies, but sadly one had to pay for the movies there.

Things have certainly changed in the past ten years. Ten years ago, watching the first appearance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show on RealVideo, and waiting ten minutes for it to buffer, I would not have believed that one day I could watch movies for free on the Internet. Today I can. What is more, they are not that hard to find.

Plagiarism--the Sincerest Form of Flattery

"Imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery, its plagiarism."--Red Skelton

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution."--Paul Gauguin

Perhaps the simplest definition of the word plagiarism is artistic or intellectual thievery. Our word plagiarism comes from the Latin word plagiare "to kidnap," the origins of the word being perfectly understandable given the nature of the act. Plagiarism is the misappropriation of another's ideas in order to present them as one's own.

While plagiarism is easy to define, it seems to me that it is much harder to prove that any given work, in any given medium, was produced through plagiarism. In fact, throughout the history of popular culture there have been lawsuits in which it was fairly obvious that plagiarism had taken place, and yet others in which one had to wonder why a lawsuit was even taking place. Curiously, there have been cases in which authors have sued claiming a given work, although very dissimilar to their own, was plagiarism and actually received money for it.

Indeed, one of the most famous plagiarism lawsuits in the history of film involved an obvious case of theft. Although regarded as a classic, the silent film Nosferatu is essentially an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. In fact, the production company Prana-Film GmbH had tried to get the film rights to the novel and failed. They then set about creating their own version of Dracula (with "Count Orlok" instead of "Count Dracula"), changing the novel's plot in only a few respects (Orlok does not create other vampires and he is vulnerable to sunlight, quite unlike Dracula). Anyone who has both read Dracula and seen Nosferatu can only conclude that Prana-Film GmbH wilfully stole from Bram Stoker's work. This was certainly the conclusion of Bram Stoker's estate. They sued Prana-Film GmbH and won. What is worse is that the Bram Stoker estate did not simply ask for money. They ordered every single copy of Nosferatu destroyed. Fortunately, collectors around the world preserved the film, allowing it to survive. Although a work of plagiarism, it is undoubtedly a work of genius. Although the film would survive, the company that made it would not. The plagiarism suit drove Prana-Film GmbH to bankruptcy. Nosferatu would remain the only film it ever made.

Another well known plagiarism lawsuit involved the movie The Terminator. Anyone who has watched the original Outer Limits will notice similarities between the movie and two episodes of that show written by Harlan Ellison ("Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand"). In "Soldier" two soldiers from a post apocalyptic future were tossed back in time. "Demon with a Glass Hand" centred on a man with a advanced computer contained in his left hand (which resembles glass) who is sent into the past. Of course, while The Terminator has a good deal in common with "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand," arguably there is enough differences between them that it could have been possible that writer and director James Cameron did not intentionally plagiarise Harlan Ellison. After all, it is possible for someone to have an idea similar to one previously used in a work without ever having been exposed to that work; however, that does not appear to have been the case with James Cameron. While initially claiming that the inspiration for The Terminator came to him after being ill in Rome, he later told the magazine Starlog that he had drawn the idea from two episodes of The Outer Limits. And while The Terminator resembles "Soldier" but little, anyone who has seen "Demon with a Glass Hand" would have to wonder about Cameron's true inspiration for the movie.

At the outset Harlan Ellison was not inclined to sue James Cameron. Unfortunately for Cameron, his actions would lead Ellison to believe that he had wilfully plagiarised his work. Cameron had managed to have the Starlog article edited so that his quote regarding the origins of The Terminator resting with two Harlan Ellison Outer Limits episodes were removed. Unfortunately for Cameron, Starlog still had the original article. Ellison presented this evidence to Orion Pictures as proof that Cameron had plagiarised his work. As a result, the studio settled with Ellison out of court for $400,000 and story credit on all prints of the film. The bitter irony of the whole affair is that if Cameron had only approached Ellison prior to making the film and let him know that it was inspired by his work, he would have only settled for a Special Thanks credit on the film.

Of course, there have been plagiarism lawsuits in the world of cinema in which, at least to me, it seems obvious that plagiarism did not take place. I can think of no better example than a case involving the classic movie Alien. From the beginning writer Dan O'Bannon has always admitted where found the various inspirations for the film. Among them are Forbidden Planet (the sci-fi classic in which the crew of a spaceship face an invisible creature, inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest), It! The Terror from Beyond Space (in which the crew of a spaceship inadvertantly brings a murderous alien on board their ship), the Clifford Simak story "Junkyard (in which the crew of a spaceship stumble upon alien eggs)," Planet of the Vampires (involving the discovery of an ancient alien found dead at the helm of his spaceship), the Philip Jose Farmer story "Strange Relations (which involves alien reproduction), The Thing From Another World (based on John Campbell's Who Goes There, it centred on a murderous alien at an Arctic base), and many stories published in Weird Tales One story which O'Bannon never mentioned as a source for Alien was A. E. van Vogt's short story "Black Destroyer," the first story in a series centred upon the exploratory spaceship, the Space Beagle.

If O'Bannon never mentioned "The Black Destoryer" as a source of inspiration, it is perhaps with good reason. The story resembles the movie only insofar as both feature monsters aboard a spaceship. In "The Black Destroyer," a sentient, panther like creature called Coeurl boards the Beagle and systematically begins killing crewmen in order to feed on the potassium in their bodies. Coeurl then less resembles the Alien of Alien than he does the Salt Vampire from the original Star Trek episode "Man Trap." Regardless, A. E. van Vogt sued Twentieth Century Fox, who then settled out of court despite very little resemblance between "The Black Destroyer" and Alien. As to why Twentieth Century Fox did not fight the lawsuit I do not know. To me, it is fairly obvious that Dan O'Bannon did not plagiarise A. E. van Vogt. Indeed, the movie more resembles Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and the movie It! The Terror from Beyond Space than it does "The Black Destroyer."

Curiously, while I can think of various plagiarism suits in the world of cinema, I cannot think of nearly as many plagiarism suits in the world of television. I find this curious as television has historically been a very imitative medium and I am sure that the average person can think of instances in which TV shows have, to put it bluntly, ripped off movies and even other TV shows. B. J. and the Bear was obviously inspired by Smokey and the Bandit (although it lacked a chimp). One Tree Hill obviously drew upon Dawson's Creek. Even a classic show, Star Trek, bears more than a passing resemblance to the movie Forbidden Planet. Perhaps it is because television is imitative by its very nature that plagiarism suits seem rare in the medium. Quite simply, without plagiarism on some level perhaps American television simply could not function.

Regardless, two plagiarism lawsuits in the medium of television come to my mind. The first involved the short lived TV series Future Cop. It also once more involved the author Harlan Ellison. The tale of the Future Cop plagiarism lawsuit began with the short story "Brillo," written by Ben Bova and Harlan Ellison. "Brillo" centred on a robotic police officer in the near future. Published in 1970, the two authors eventually pitched "Brillo" as an idea for a TV series to Paramount Pictures. Paramount Pictures passed on the idea, but shortly thereafter began development on the TV series Future Cop. Like "Brillo," Future Cop centred on a robot police officer. The differences only lie in that Paramount moved the setting of the series to the present, made the robotic police officer (named Haven) humanoid looking, and gave him a crusty mentor played by Ernest Borgnine. It took two pilots before the series finally made it to the air. When it did make it to the air, Future Cop only lasted for seven episodes on ABC. Still, Paramount had not given up on the idea. The series was revived in 1978 as Cops and Robin, in which Haven and his crusty mentor must protect a six year old girl who witnessed a murder. A new series did not emerge.

Despite its short run, the presence of Future Cop on American airwaves was not lost on Harlan Ellison and Ben Bova. Ellison sued ABC and Paramount Pictures, alleging that Future Cop was a plagiarism of "Brillo." Ellison would ultimately win $337,000 from the suit. Ellison would use part of his winnings to pay for a billboard across from Paramount Pictures which read "Writers -- Don't Let Them Steal From You! Keep Their Hands Out of Your Pockets!" The lawsuit is considered a landmark victory for writers in Hollywood.

Of course, as in the case of A. E. van Vogt and Alien, there have been plagiarism lawsuits brought because of TV shows even though it might be obvious to the average person that no plagiarism took place. Such was the case of the original version of Battlestar Galactica. Battlestar Galactica debuted on ABC in 1978. Concerning a fleet of refugees fleeing the Cylon Empire, there can be no doubt that it was riding the coat tails of Star War Episode IV: a New Hope. George Lucas suspected something more. He thought that in creating Battlestar Galactica TV producer Glen Larson had plagiarised Star Wars. To be fair, one cannot blame him for thinking so. After all, Larson's previous TV shows were pretty blatant with regards to their sources of inspiration. Alias Smith and Jones obviously drew upon Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. While Switch differed from The Sting in many respects, it was still obviously inspired by it. And as mentioned earlier, B.J. and the Bear took liberally from Smokey and the Bandit. That having been said, Battlestar Galactica appears to have been Larson's first original idea for a series. Beyond a few minor elements, it resembled Star Wars only insofar that both concerned wars in space. In fact, it seemed to me that this would be fairly obvious to anyone who had watched both. Regardless, at the urging of George Lucas 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios, claiming they had plagiarised Star Wars.

It would be on August 22, 1980 that Judge Irving Hill ruled in favour of Universal, citing what the average person probably thought at the time, that there were substantial differences between Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. Among the differences Hill cited was the most obvious--that Star Wars centred on a rebellion against an galactic empire while Battlestar Galactica centred on refugees fleeing from a hostile, foreign power.

Of course, while plagiarism suits seem rare to me in the world of television, they seem to be more common in the world of music. Indeed, they seem downright frequent. That having been said, it seems to me that when it comes to music, it can often be hard to prove an instance of plagiarism. There is no better example of this that the case of George Harrison's song "My Sweet Lord." It was not long after the song's release that a lawsuit was brought against Harrison alleging that he had plagiarised the song "He's So Fine," a hit for The Chiffons in the Sixties. Admittedly, the chouruses of the songs are very similar, as anyone who has heard both will soon realise. But Harrison was not ruled to have intentionally plagiarised "He's So Fine." Instead, it was ruled that in 1976 that George Harrison had unintentionally, subconsciously plagiarised the song. That is, when he wrote "My Sweet Lord" he did not realise it was inspired by "He's So Fine." Harrison was forced to pay Bright Tunes Music (who owned the copyright) $587,000.

While George Harrison was found not to have intentionally stolen from He's So Fine, the same case cannot be said for R. Kelly. Kelly wrote the song "You Are Not Alone" for Michael Jackson, a hit for the singer in 1995. Just last month a Belgian court found that the melody to "You Are Not Alone" was too similar to a song written by veteran Belgian composers Eddy and Danny Van Passel in 1992 to be coincidence. As a result, "You Are not Alone" was banned from Belgian airwaves.

Of course, Eddy and Danny Van Passel are relatively well known (at least in parts of Europe). Perhaps the majority of plagiarism lawsuits in music are brought by unknown songwriters and performers. In the Eighties Patrick Alley, a Jamaican reggae performer, alleged that Mick Jagger had plagiarised his song "Just Another Night." During the trial Jagger produced evidence to show the development of his song "Just Another Night" and how it was not created through plagiarism. Ultimately, the jury found that Jagger had not plagiarised Alley's work and the two songs actually had very little in common (the phrase "Just another night with you" being about the only thing). At least Alley's song had that much in common with Jagger's song. Other times lawsuits have been brought by unknown composers when the songs have virtually nothing in common. Amateur songwriter John J. Benson sued Coca-Cola in 1983 alleging that their jingle "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" plagiarised his song "Don't Cha Know." He copyrighted "Don't Cha Know" in 1960 and spent years trying to sell the song. Benson claimed that Coca-Cola used his music but replaced its lyrics. Ultimately, the court ruled that apart from a few notes, the melodic content of the two songs did not resemble each other in the least.

The vagaries of music copyright would eventually produce one of the most bizarre lawsuits in history, not mention a landmark one. In 1994 John Fogerty (best known as the leader of Credence Clearwater Revival) left Fantasy Records for the greener fields of Warner Brothers. Owning the music rights to Credence Clearwater Revival's songs, Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz sued Fogerty, maintaining that his solo song "Old Man Down the Road" plagiarised the Credence Clearwater Revival song "Run Through the Jungle (here it must be noted that both songs were written by Fogerty)." In a landmark decision, the court decided in Forgerty's favour, pointing out quite sensibly that one cannot plagiarise himself.

I won't discuss literary plagiarism here, as it seems to me that most literary plagiarism lawsuits have been fairly well covered elsewhere. Indeed, perhaps the best known of late was Nancy Stouffer's lawsuit alleging that J. K. Rowling has plagiarised her work. Not only did Stouffer's work, The Legend Rah and the Muggles resemble the Harry Potter series only insofar as both used the word "muggle," but it was uncovered that Stouffer had both submitted fraudulent documents and offered fraudulent testimony. Ultimately, her lawsuit was dismissed and she was fined $50,000 and forced to pay the plaintiff's legal fees due to her "intentional bad faith conduct."

Speaking as a writer, I can safely say that plagiarism is wrong. That having been said, I must also admit that it can also be hard to prove and even hard to recognise. When does a work cease to be inspired by another work and begin to plagiarise from it? In some instances, this can be fairly obvious (Nosferatu and Dracula being a prime example). In other instances, it might not be so clear. And it seems possible that many cases of plagiarism are not intentional. Although the scientific validity of the phenomenon of cryptomensia (in which someone believes they are creating something original, when in truth they may be drawing upon something he had heard or read years ago, but forgotten) has been questioned, I believe it does occur. I think most writers, including myself, can recall times when we thought we were creating something original only later to realise it was drawn from something we had read or seen. Fortunately, most of us catch such things before they reach publication. But not all of us do. I believe George Harrison did not realise he was plagiarising "He's So Fine" when he wrote "My Sweet Lord." I also believe that Helen Keller did not realise her story "The Frost King" was inspired by "The Frost Fairies" by Margaret Canby. For better or worse, the complexity of the human mind can result in unintentional acts of plagiarism.

Sadly, intentional acts of plagiarism are all too common. There can be no doubt that Paramount wilfully stole from Harlan Ellison and Ben Bova in creating Future Cop. And Prana-Film GmbH full well knew what they were doing when they turned the novel Dracula into the film Nosferatu. When such instances occur, the only resort the original author has is to turn to the courts. Fortunately, the past many years have seen the courts favouring authors as opposed to corporations, making it less likely that plagiarism will take place. Of course, as always, there will be those who will try to kidnap other's ideas.

Ned Sherrin Passes On

Ned Sherrin,perhaps best known as the creator of the news satire series That Was the Week That Was, passed on October 1 at the age of 76. He had throat cancer.

Sherrin was born Low Ham, Somerset on February 18, 1931 into a farming family. He attended Sexey's School in Bruton, Somerset and law at Exeter College, Oxford. He could have been a barrister, but instead he took an interest in theatre while still at Oxford. With the introduction of commercial television to Britain in 1956, he found himself producing shows for ATV. By 1957 he found himself producing Tonight for the BBC. It was in 1962 that he created That Was the Week That Was. That Was the Week That Was was a live, satirical television series. Known for its irreverence, it sent up politics, religion, and the news of the day. The Profumo scandal (in which John Profumo, a Secretary of State for War, was found to have had an affair with a showgirl) became a popular target of the show. That Was the Week That Was was wildly popular, but it ran for only a little over a year. The BBC, under pressure from the Tories (then in power), cancelled the series because it was thought it would unduly influence the upcoming election. That Was the Week That Was can be considered a forerunner of such series as Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show.

While it went off the air in December 1963, That Was the Week That Was did not disappear entirely from TV screens. An American version debuted on NBC in January 1964. This version was also produced by Ned Sherrin. Like the British original, the American version of That Was the Week That Was lambasted political figures, former Vice President Richard Nixon and Republican Senator Barry Goldwater were favourite targets. Because of this, the cancellation of the American version, like its British forebear, was largely due to politics. Senator Goldwater, then running for President, repeatedly had That Was the Week That Was preemepted for his own political programmes from September into October. As a result, the show's ratings suffered and it left NBC in May 1965.

Sherrin went on to produce such series as Where Was Spring, BBC 3, and World in Ferment. Sherrin was also behind such television productions as A Last Word on the Election, My Father Knew Lloyd George, The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens, The Alf Garnett Saga, The Cobblers of Umbridge, and The National Health. He also entered film production, producing such films as Up the Junction, The Virgin Soldiers, Every Home Should Have One, The National Health, and Up the Front. In addition to television and film, Sherrin also worked in radio. He was the host of two long running radio shows, Loose Ends and Counterpoint.

Sherrin also worked on stage, beginning with the musical Come Spy With Me in 1967. He would finally see success on stage with Side by Side by Sondheim, in collaboration with Stephen Sondheim. Sherrin not only directed the musical revue, but appeared in it as a performer as well. Eventually Side by Side moved from the West End to Broadway. There it earned him the 1977 Tony award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Sherrin would later have success with Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, which had a long run on the West End.

Sherrin also wrote several books, including many volumes of memoirs, books devoted to theatrical anecdotes, and I Wish I'd Said That (a collection of humorous quotes). He edited The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. He also wrote the novel Scratch an Actor and co-wrote the novel Rappel 1910 with Caryl Brahams.

While Ned Sherrin worked in film, radio, and the theatre, he will probably always be remembered best as creator of That Was the Week That Was. At the time sketch comedy was nothing new, on either side of The Pond, but That Was the Week That Was broke ground that even Your Show of Shows (here in the States) or The Goon Show dared not tread. Not only did it satirise powerful politicians and other public figures, but it did so with an utter tone of irreverence. What is more, it was funny while doing so. In this respect That Was the Week That Was was the forerunner of many modern day sketch comedy shows and other shows that poke fun at the news. Even if this had been the only thing Ned Sherrin had ever done, he would be worth remembering.

Sputnik Turns 50

It was on this date fifty years ago that the U.S.S.R. launched the satellite Sputnik 1. Sputnik 1 was absolutely primitive by today's standards. Despite that fact, its launch caused a furore in the United States, which has assumed it was ahead when it came to the development of space technology.

Indeed, in his book Danse Macabre Stephen King talks about how he was at a Saturday matinee when the theatre's manager stopped the show to announce that the Russians had launched a satellite into orbit. The response the manager received was essentially stunned silence and then utter disbelief. This was the reaction of many Americans. As for the United States government, I think it is safe to say that the launch of Sputnik 1 kick started the United States space programme. After all, it was only less than a year afterwards, on July 29, 1958, that Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act,bringing into being the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA. It was the beginning of the Space Race, in which the two superpowers competed in achievements of space exploration.

Despite the impact the launch of Sputnik 1 had on the American public and the American government. it did not seem to have much impact on American pop culture. Much of this may have been because paranoia about the Soviet Union had already infiltrated American pop culture to a large degree. After all, this was the era of The Thing and Invasion From Mars. With regards to American pop culture, the primary contribution that the launch of Sputnik 1 made was in reinvigourating the American space programme. And it would the American space programme that would have a huge impact on American pop culture in the Sixties.

Its effects were felt as early as 1959, when the Disney series Men into Space aired. That series sought to realistically portay space travel in the near future. Eventually science fiction style plots would appear in sitcoms ranging from Gilligan's Island to The Monkees. A few sitcoms would even have Space Age themes--My Favourite Martian, My Living Doll, and I Dream of Jeannie (while Jeannie was a genie, Major Nelson was, after all, an astronaut). It would be the Space Race between the United States and the U.S.S.R. that would inspire such TV series as Lost in Space and the legendary show Star Trek. Its impact on movies in the Sixties would be less--the only major movie of the Sixties to centre on space was 2001: a Space Odyssey. Of course, that movie would help legitimise science fiction in film, thus paving the way for such movies as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

The effects of the launch of Sputnik 1 can still be felt today. While we might have an American space programme without Sputnik, it might not be as far along as it is now. And without an American space programme that made amazing advances in the Sixties (including ulitmately landing on the moon), we might not have such series as Star Trek or such movies as the Star Wars franchise. In a strange sort of way, we owe a lot to a primitive, beach ball sized satellite.

George Grizzard R.I.P.

Tony winning actor George Grizzard passed yesterday at the age of 79 after a long battle with lung cancer. He had an extensive career on Broadway, as well as in television and on film.

George Grizzard was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina on April 1, 1928. He grew up in Washington D.C. He had planned to go into radio, but elected to be an actor instead. He appeared on the stage in various venues before breaking onto Broadway with the play The Desperate Hours in 1955. Throughout the years Grizzard would appear in many major plays, among them Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the 1965 revival of The Glass Menagerie, California Suite, the 1978 revival of Man and Superman, the 1996 revival of The Delicate Balance, and the 2001 revival of Judgement at Nuremberg. He won the Tony Award in 1996 for his role in The Delicate Balance. He was nominated for Tony Awards for The Disenchanted in 1959 and 1961 for Big Fish, Little Fish.

Grizzard also appeared extensively on television. He made his debut in television in an episode of the TV series Appointment with Adventure. He would go onto to appear in such shows as The Kaiser Aluminum Hour, Goodyear Television Playhouse, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, One Step Beyond, The Twilight Zone, Thriller, Rawhide, and Murder She Wrote. As Arthur Gold he was a semi-regular on Law and Order from 1992 to 2000. He won an Emmy for his role in the live teleplay The Oldest Living Graduate.

Grizzard also appeared in several feature films. He made his big screen debut in 1960 in the film From the Terrace. He would go onto appear in such films as Advise and Consent, Warning Shot, Wonder Boys, and Small Time Crooks.

Grizzard was a gifted actor who play a multitude of roles. from the pushy senator in Advise and Consent to the frightened husband in A Delicate Balance. He was versatile in a way that actors these days rarely are. It is this for which he will be remembered.

Lois Maxwell R.I.P.

Lois Maxwell, best known for playing Miss Moneypenny to both Sean Connery and Roger Moore's James Bond, passed yesterday at the age of 80 after a battle with cancer.

She was born Lois Hooker in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada on February 14, 1927. At the age of fifteen she ran away from home and joined the Royal Canadian Army during World War II. Eventually she found herself in Canada's Army Entertainment Corps. It was in London that the military learned she was under age. She joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to avoid being forcefully returned to Canada. By 1946 she would make her first appearance on film, in a small, uncredited part in A Matter of Life and Death. She would receive the Golden Globe for Best Newcomer for her role in the Shirley Temple comedy That Hagen Girl. She appeared in such Hollywood films as The Dark Past and The Crime Doctor's Diary before moving to Europe.

Maxwell appeared in a few Italian films before moving to England and appearing in films there. Throughout the Fifties she appeared in such movies as Lady in the Fog and Passport to Treason. She made her first appearance on the small screen in the ITC TV show O.S.S. in 1957. It would be the Sixties that would bring her fame. In 1962 she was cast as Miss Moneypenny in Dr. No. She played the secretary to M, who flirted with Bond and with whom he flirted back, in every Bond movie from Dr. No to A View to a Kill. She also appeared in the films Lolita, Come Fly With Me, and The Haunting. Throughout the Sixties she made guest appearances on TV shows, including The Avengers, Zero One, Danger Man, The Baron, and The Saint (with future co-star Roger Moore). She was a regular on the Canadian series Adventures in Rainbow Country.

Maxwell continued to appear in movies from the Seventies into the Naughts. Besides the Bond films, she also appeared in the films Endless Night, Lost and Found, Summer Rain, and The Fourth Angel. She also appeared on the TV shows The Persuaders (once again with Roger Moore), and the new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the Eighties.

Caroline Bliss. Samantha Bond, and Barbara Bouchet have since played Miss Moneypenny, but none of them have matched Lois Maxwell in the role. She should convey the affection she held for Bond in little more than a glance. Indeed, in Fleming's novels there is no such sexual tension between Miss Moneypenny and 007. That was a innovation of the films. And Lois Maxwell pulled it off wonderfully. Although many of the Bond girls may have been more physically attractive than Miss Moneypenny, I rather suspect that it was Miss Moneypenny that most male Bond fans would rather take home. Lois Maxwell endowed her with intelligence, independence (throughout the movies she is the only woman to resist Bond's advances), and a wholesome sort of sexuality that the Bond girls lacked. Miss Moneypenny surely would not have been so appealing if someone other than Lois Maxwell had played her.