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A few months ago, veteran character actor Louis Gossett Jr, who got his acting start in Broadway productions back in 1950s (including Take a Giant Step and a 1959 production of A Raisin in the Sun where he shared the stage with Sidney Poitier), passed away at 87. While we have to get used to the fact that our favorite actors are all human, and like all of us, eventually pass away, it can’t help but hurt anytime we lose a legend like this. But he leaves behind a rich legacy, so let’s look back at five of his coolest roles.

An Officer and a Gentleman:

Louis Gossett Jr. won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in this, and became the first African-American actor to win an Academy Award in that category in the process. Next to R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket,...

Mark Tarlov, who produced the John Waters-directed films “Pecker,” “Serial Mom” and “Cecil B. Demented,” died on July 31 at his home in Manhattan due to cancer, his family announced. He was 69.

Starting his career in entertainment in 1979, Tarlov worked in business affairs at Warner Bros. before executive producing his first feature, “Christine,” based on the Stephen King novel. In 1986, Tarlov produced Sidney Lumet’s “Power,” which starred Richard Gere, Gene Hackman and Julie Christie. In 1995, he produced “Copycat,” starring Holly Hunter and Sigourney Weaver.

In 1990, he worked with the British novelist William Boyd to transform Mario Vargas Llosa’s 1977 book “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” into “Tune in Tomorrow,” directed by Jon Amiel and starring Keanu Reeves, Peter Falk, Barbara Hershey, Patricia Clarkson and John Larroquette. The film won the audience and critics awards at the Deauville Film Festival, and was closing-night selection at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Mark Tarlov, who produced such films as Copycat and Serial Mom, passed away on July 31st after a battle with cancer. His family made the announcement. Tarlov was 69.

Tarlov landed his first entertainment job in Business Affairs at Warner Bros. in 1979. Four years later, he EP’d his first feature, Christine, based on the Stephen King novel and directed by John Carpenter. Next, he produced Sidney Lumet’s Power starring Richard Gere, Gene Hackman and Julie Christie.

In the ’90s Tarlov worked with the British novelist William Boyd to transform the Mario Vargas Llosa novel, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter into the offbeat film, Tune in Tomorrow, directed by Jon Amiel and starring Keanu Reeves, Peter Falk, Barbara Hershey, Patricia Clarkson and John Larroquette. His collaboration with William Boyd grew into a lifelong friendship and yielded another film based on Boyd’s novel, A Good Man in Africa starring Colin Friels,...

Award-winning actress was best known for roles in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ , ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Game Of Thrones’.

UK actress Diana Rigg, whose prolific career included memorable roles in the James Bond franchise and Game Of Thrones, died today aged 82. She had been diagnosed with cancer in March.

Rigg remained active in recent years and her final performances include Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho, set for release in April 2021, and miniseries Black Narcissus, co-produced by the BBC and FX.

Born near Doncaster, England in 1938, Rigg began her career on stage before securing her breakout role in 1965 as...

Diana Rigg, best known for her iconic turn on The Avengers, and memorable roles on Game of Thrones and Theatre of Blood, died Sept. 10, at home with her family at the age of 82, according to Variety. “It is with tremendous sadness that we announce that Dame Diana Rigg died peacefully early this morning. She was at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time,” her agent Simon Beresford said in a statement. “Dame Diana was an icon of theatre, film, and television. She was the recipient of BAFTA, Emmy, Tony and Evening Standard Awards for her work on stage and screen. Dame Diana was a much loved and admired member of her profession, a force of nature who loved her work and her fellow actors. She will be greatly missed.”

Rigg was diagnosed with cancer in March, according to her daughter Rachael Stirling, who said...

Diana Rigg, the Tony and Emmy winner who splashed into the world of television with her commanding turn as intelligence agent Emma Peel on “The Avengers” in the 1960s and played Lady Olenna Tyrell on “Game of Thrones” decades later, died Thursday at her home in England. She was 82.

Rigg was a venerable figure in Britain’s entertainment industry who worked incessantly on stage, TV and film. She famously thumbed her nose at convention in her private life and in later years seemed to enjoy her status as a grande dame.

“She was a beautiful kind and generous human being that enhanced the lives of all that knew her as well as a great actress. She leaves a great void in my heart,” said Lionel Larner, Rigg’s longtime friend and talent agent.

Having a key role in the biggest TV series of the past decade was a fitting career capper for Rigg.

Exclusive: With AMC’s Preacher coming to a close this summer, Dominic Cooper is set to star in the six-part espionage Cold War series Spy City from Miramax and Germany’s H&v Entertainment and Zdf.

Novelist and screenwriter William Boyd is currently writing Spy City. German-Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Alexandre will direct, and Johanna Wokalek and Leonie Benesch (The Crown, Babylon Berlin) also star.

Cooper will play an English spy who is sent to Berlin in 1961 to sift out a traitor in the UK Embassy or among the Allies, shortly before the construction of the Berlin Wall. The city, declared by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as “the most dangerous place on earth,” is teeming with spies and double agents. One wrong move could trigger the looming threat of nuclear war as American,...

Chaplin writer to adapt novel for Wild Tales and Mad To Be Normal producers.

Bad Penny Productions has picked up rights to Graham Greene’s last published novel The Captain And The Enemy, which is being adapted for the big screen by screenwriter and novelist William Boyd (Chaplin).

The novel tells the story of a young boy named Victor Baxter taken away from his boarding school by a stranger to live in London. The mysterious stranger is simply known as “the Captain”.

In London Victor companions a sweet but withdrawn woman named Liza, serving as her conduit to the outside world. When Victor reaches manhood, he finally learns the secrets of the Captain.

The thriller includes smuggling, jewel theft and international espionage and culminates in a dramatic showdown in Panama.

In addition to Bad Penny’s Phin Glynn (Mad To Be Normal), other producers are Victor Glynn (That Good Night) and Axel Kuschevatzky (Wild Tales).

The film will...

London, Sep 26: William Boyd has revealed Daniel Day-Lewis is his choice for the role of the super-spy for his new Bond novel 'Solo'.

The acclaimed author of 'A Good Man in Africa' said that Day-Lewis truly resembles the Bond that Ian Fleming describes in his James Bond series of spy novels, and has picked him to play the role when his new novel which is set in 1969, is adapted for the big screen, the Independent revealed.

He added that Fleming described Bond in three novels as looking like Hoagy Carmichael, a singer-songwriter famous around the Second World War, and in his opinion, the 56-year old 'Lincoln' actor fits.

William Boyd has revealed the name of his new official James Bond novel.

Solo will be the title of the 1969-set spy adventure, which will take 007 across Europe, Africa and the USA. Boyd, who announced the title at this year's London Book Fair, said that he has had "tremendous fun" penning the story.

"Mark my words, I've undertaken writing this very seriously," he said, adding: "No gimmicks, this is a real spy story."

The announcement comes 60 years since the publication of Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel Casino Royale.

The Fleming estate has continued to publish 007 novels, recruiting writers including Sebastian Faulks (Devil May Care) and Jeffrey Deaver (Carte Blanche) to continue the British spy's story. Bond movie producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have kept the character's screen adventures separate from the literary continuity.

Boyd's highly-acclaimed novels include A Good Man in Africa, Any Human Heart and Cold War espionage thriller Restless.

A political sex satire from the director of Silver Linings Playbook and a cop film from Tony Kaye are among the casualties of the company's financial woes

If you went to the movies over the weekend, it is possible you saw Silver Linings Playbook, David O Russell's screwball romcom, tipped to repeat the Oscar success of his previous film, The Fighter. If you enjoyed Silver Linings – and it's likely you did – it's possible your interest has been piqued in the director's back catalogue. Perhaps you're eager to root out his other movies – caustic soap Flirting with Disaster, polarising comedy I Heart Huckabees, George Clooney war flick Three Kings, political sex satire Nailed.

What's that? Not heard of Nailed? Odd, given it boasts a top-drawer cast and a killer plot about a waitress without health insurance (Jessica Biel) who has a nail accidentally lodged in her brain, travels to Washington to...

Getty Author William Boyd

Acclaimed British author William Boyd has started work on a new Bond book, joining a handful of contemporary writers who’ve tried their hand at continuing Ian Fleming’s series.

In an interview Thursday with the British Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. Boyd said Mr. Fleming’s estate had chosen him to write the next installment, which is to be published in 2013.

The author, twice nominated for the prestigious Man Booker Prize, called the Bond assignment “a dream come true,...

Booker Prize-nominated author William Boyd has been given the mission of creating the next James Bond novel.

The A Good Man in Africa writer was personally selected to pen 007's latest adventure by the estate of Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Boyd will follow in the footsteps of peers Jeffery Deaver and Sebastian Faulks, who revisited the superspy in their novels Carte Blanche and Devil May Care, respectively.

The author is refusing to give away any plot points or characters, but he has revealed his novel will be set in 1969 and published in 2013 to mark the 60th anniversary of Bond's introduction to the literary world in Casino Royale.

Boyd admits he didn't hesitate when the Fleming estate administrators asked him to write a new Bond book: "For me the prospect appeared incredibly exciting and stimulating."

A longtime fan, Boyd created a character called Ian Fleming in his 2002 novel Any Human Heart.

Producer David Thompson has bought the rights to Ordinary Thunderstorms, the forthcoming novel from novelist and screenwriter William Boyd.Set in London, the story takes place amid a "drug-testing conspiracy" and sees a man accused of a crime he didn't commit (taking drugs? We're guessing).Thompson, who produced Eastern Promises, Revolutionary Road and the upcoming Fish Tank among many others, calls the story "sophisticated and unpredictable in equal measure" and noted that it was rare to find such qualities in a London-set thriller.Boyd previously wrote the screenplay for Robert Downey Jr. starrer Chaplin, as well as adapting his own A Good Man In Africa and TV's Armadillo, so it's always possible that he'll adapt this himself. Watch this space for further news on what sounds like an interesting premise.

SYDNEY -- The winner of the inaugural Australian Project Greenlight scriptwriting contest has watched one too many Las Vegas-set crime thrillers. Or maybe not enough good ones. Morgan O'Neill, a 32-year-old TV actor making his writing and directing debut with Solo, might have transplanted the fear and loathing to the streets of inner-city Sydney, but the gambling dens, flophouses and neon-lit strip joints, the smoky jazz soundtrack and the cast of shady players are all too familiar.

This somewhat contrived retread, about the efforts of a jaded hitman to extract himself from the Sydney underworld, should arouse some local curiosity (it opens July 6 in Australian theaters) but regular moviegoers will feel as if they have seen it all before.

Lending some authority to the production is Colin Friels (Malcolm, A Good Man in Africa), a veteran actor who has grown into his good looks, much like an antipodean Dennis Quaid.

He plays silver-haired Jack Barrett, an old-school enforcer who works for a group of sketchy operators called the Gentlemen. We meet him up to his elbows in blood, clutching a chainsaw and retching as he dumps body parts over the side of a boat. Rough day at the office, he explains afterward in the first of several wry one-liners.

At 53, Barrett has developed a conscience, possibly after discovering that he orphaned two children with his most recent job, and the work is literally making him sick. He wants out. Naturally, it's not that easy.

As Barrett works to disentangle himself from his life of crime, the plot snarls up with the number of low-lifes lining up to off him, from a coke-snorting cop (Vince Colosimo) to his latest victim's Vietnamese associate (Anh Do) to the Gentlemen themselves.

This is where the plot takes a sharp turn into implausibility.

A young university student named Billie (promising newcomer Bojana Novakovic) is researching a thesis on organized crime and it seems she is getting a little too close for the comfort of the Gentlemen who, despite presumably having faced down their share of drug-dealers, contract killers and cops, are made to quiver in their boots by this twentysomething's questioning.

They agree to cut Barrett Loose provided he does one last job -- bump off Billie. O'Neill, who shot his film in 21 days, sets up an effectively off-key dynamic between Barrett and Billie, but clearly manipulative plot twists dilute the power of the "surprise" ending.

Australian pay TV channel the Movie Network -- which funded the local offshoot of the Project Greenlight competition created in the U.S. by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and American Pie producer Chris Moore -- gave O'Neill AUS$1 million ($763,000) and he has turned out a polished production on that modest budget, bringing on board Academy Award nominee Marcus D'Arcy (Babe) as editor and Ben Osmo (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Strictly Ballroom) to do sound.

The visual styling of production designer Murray Picknett, a two-time AFI Award winner, creates an undertow of menace that accompanies Barrett as he moves within yet apart from a world of seedy stereotypes.

SOLO

Dendy Films pressents a Movie Network Channels/Screentime production

Credits:

Screenwriter-director: Morgan O'Neill

Producer: Sue Seeary

Executive producers: Sue Milliken, Bob Campbell, Chris Berry, Tony Forrest

Director of photography: Hugh Miller

Production designer: Murray Picknett

Music: Martyn Love, Damian Deboos-Smith

Costume designer: Paula Ryan

Editor: Marcus D'Arcy

Cast:

Jack Barrett: Colin Friels

Billie: Bojana Novakovic

Reno: Linal Haft

Kate: Angie Milliken

Keeling: Vince Colosimo

Kennedy: Bruce Spence

Arkan: Chris Haywood

Louis: Tony Barry

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 98 minutes...