Gillian Reagan

Well here's one movie we're definitely not going to make it through without crying. We can't even read the news article from MSNBC without tearing up.

Sony Pictures is in negotiations to secure the rights to the story of Christian the hugging lion and the two men, John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke, who adopted him. The movie will be based off their 1972 book, A Lion Called Christian. There was also a 1971 documentary about the boys reuniting with Christian, but this will apparently be a dramatized version. We'd rather go for the doc, but the new deal is a testament to the power of YouTube and viral cuteness.  read more »

We're tuning into our desktops more and more these days. The Conference Board, a business research organization, and market research firm TNS Global have the proof! According to their recent report, online viewership of television broadcasts has almost doubled since 2006. One-fifth of families fire up the laptop instead of the big screen. The top two destinations were the official TV channel homepage and YouTube.com. Nine out of ten online viewers check out videos and TV shows at home. But about 15 percent are catching up on Heroes at their workplace. Tsk tsk!

Here's more from the report:

The top five types of shows viewed online are news, drama, sitcom/comedy, reality shows and sports, with user generated content following close behind.

 read more »

Michael Moore is pulling a Radiohead. He's releasing his next new film online at Blip.tv. Slacker Uprising takes us on a 62-city tour during the 2004 election with Mr. Moore, who is rallying young people into the voting booths. It will be available for three weeks as a free download to North American residents, beginning Sept. 23.

This is the first major movie to be released in such a way, according to the Associated Press.  read more »

East Village Radio has been streaming online shows for the past five years but you've probably been missing out on all their awesome jams. Our Friday night always gets warmed up with an episodes of The Let Out (run by our buds at Fader Magazine) from 6-8 p.m. and Mark Ronson's Authentic Shit keeps us going from 8-10 p.m. We often found ourselves wandering to their funny little booth at 1st and 1st to say hey to the local DJs. And we subscribe to the podcasts too.

In celebration of their half-decade anniversary, EVR is having a big bash at Pier 17 at South Street Seaport this Saturday, Aug. 6 from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Superstar DJ Mark Ronson himself was just added to the (free!) concert line-up, which also includes KRS-ONE, Boris, Devin the Dude, Awesome Color, Vivian Girls, Flying Lotus, High Places, Dr. Lonnie Smith, The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and John Oliver of The Daily Show.

If you're out of town for the weekend, you can listen live on eastvillageradio.com.  read more »

Jon Hamm had whiskey breath. On the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 3, Mr. Hamm—the actor who plays Don Draper, the dashing and deceiving creative director in a 1960s Madison Avenue ad house on AMC's Mad Men—was swirling his drink (whiskey with ice, in ... a wine glass) in the window-walled back room of Michael's on 55th Street. Best Life magazine threw him a party celebrating his first time as a cover boy in their September issue.

The Daily Transom was half expecting him to pull out a cigarettte and light up. Instead, he was behaving and checking out the artwork.

"That's a nice painting right there," he said, stopping mid-sentence with a guest to observe a painting of a man looking out on a landscape with his head turned.  read more »

We told you about Fort Greene boutique Thistle & Clover's open call for designers early last month. They saw about a dozen independent designers present their wares at their stylish little shop on DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn but could only choose a few to add to their fall collection. Well, the gals have made their decisions.

Co-owner Camilla Gale emailed the goods about the goods:  read more »

We were at the NY Tech Meetup last night, hosted by Meetup founder Scott Heiferman himself, at the ridiculously gorgeous/high-tech IAC building in Chelsea. In the huge lobby, budding start-ups have five minutes to present their new projects to investors, colleagues and developers. Here's one we were pretty excited about: Boxee. It's like TiVo, iTunes and Netflix... on steroids.

Boxee is what its New York creators call a "social media device." You download it onto your computer, it searches your hard drive and all of your devices (from your iPhone to your iPod) for videos, pictures and music and puts it all into one pretty interface. You can hook it up to your TV at home and get even better visuals.Check out how it looks in the video above, courtesy of Allen Stern at CenterNetworks.  read more »

For two years, Kelly Cutrone, the brash headmistress of public-relations firm People’s Revolution and frequent guest star on MTV’s The Hills, has banned Julie Fredrickson, editor in chief of Coutorture.com, from her fashion shows. In a well-publicized incident that was covered from MSNBC to MediaBistro.com, Ms. Fredrickson said she quietly asked Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour if she could get a video interview at Costello Tagliapietra’s Fashion Week show in Bryant Park in September 2006. Ms. Wintour agreed, but after just two questions, “Kelly went apocalyptic on me and told me to get away from Anna immediately,” Ms. Fredrickson said. This is what happens when you are a blogger who crosses a publicist.  read more »

You've probably heard all about Google's continuting quest to take over the entire internet galaxy by launching of their own free internet browser, Chrome, since noon yesterday. They have a cute little comic to go along with it, typical of the "candy, beanbags" and "kindergarten esthetic of the Googleplex" that their marketers and admen love so much. Oh, you guys!

The reviews are in, and they're pretty good. It's fast, anyway. But Walter Mossberg at The Wall Street Journal's Personal Technology blog complains that it's "rough around the edges and lacks some common browser features Google plans to add later. These omissions include a way to manage bookmarks, a command for emailing links and pages directly from the browser, and even a progress bar to show how much of a Web page has loaded."  read more »

Here's an idea: instead of spending lots of time, money, cleanliness and sanity touring in clubs in random cities across the states and reaching just a few fans at once, how about taking the tour on the internet and getting exposure to millions of possible fans... by sitting at home in your pajamas. Hypebot tells us that Interscope "urban" and hip-hop artist Charles Hamilton is doing a bit of virtual touring via a group of hip-hop and urban music blogs. "The Hamiltonization Process" is a 3-month, 8-site tour that begins today, Sept. 2, on okayplayer.com and ends Dec. 9 on onsmash.com.

New music from Charles Hamilton will be will be provided by his DJ, DJ Skee, and will premiere exclusively on each site using embedded imeem playlists. After two weeks, the music will be circulated to the other participants of the tour.

In addition to new music being released, Charles Hamilton will provide the visitor a peak into his daily life in short clips.

In an LA Times interview earlier this summer, Mr. Hamilton was dubbed "one of the most important new rappers to emerge in years."  read more »

Is NBC finally embracing the web? Lipstick Jungle, Chuck, Life, Knight Rider and 30 Rock will all premiere on their video site Hulu (which they co-founded with News Corp.) a week before their TV broadcast.

Hulu has its own Fall Lineup page, with new premiere episodes on all networks for seven straight weeks beginning Sept. 2. Tonight you can watch Fox's Prison Break (mmm, Wentworth Miller) if you can't get to the TV by 8 p.m.

As Michael Learmonth at Silicon Valley Insider points out, giving the internet a head start over the broadcast episodes isn't a major risk for NBC.  read more »

Guys, remember when Jennifer Aniston was actually a TV actress and not just a Hollywood beefcake's weepy ex or current arm candy? Well, she's about to remind us on an upcoming episode of 30 Rock. John Mayer will be eating his shorts!

She'll definitely appear on the show, which airs on NBC, the channel that gave her a household name (and haircut) on Friends, a publicist confirmed, but he has no further details, according to the AP.

Remember greedy weirdo Richard Fish on Ally McBeal? He owned the Boston law firm filled with annoyingly quirky characters. His affinity for women with chicken-like "neck wattles"? Well, the actor who played Mr. Fish, Greg Germann, is still around. You might've seen him in Talladega Nights, the 2006 Nascar racing movie starring Will Ferrell that was actually pretty funny. But now you can see him on stage. He'll join the cast in the sex comedy of errors Boeing-Boeing starting Sept. 9, according to Playbill. The play won a 2008 Tony Award-winning Best Play Revival.  read more »

Big news events like the Olympics and the Democratic National Convention usually spark new media technologies and breakthroughs.

Here's one, pointed out to us by Lost Remote. Washington Post reporter Ed O’Keefe recorded the clip above using his cellphone and streamed it live onto WashintonPost.com.

"This is one of the first times a newspaper organization has had the ability to bring this level of live video coverage to viewers," according to a WashingtonPost.com publicist.

The Washington Post and Newsweek.com equipped its journalists with cell phones featuring an application produced by Comet Technologies. According to the company's Web site, the technology has been in development for four years and is the first and only technology that allows reliable video to be transmitted to and from common cell phones. Cool stuff.

Creepy director Todd Solodnz will be making another movie for the misanthropes. He just got financing for a kind of sequel to Happiness, the 1998 dark (dark!) comedy that haunted us for weeks thanks to its creepy masturbation scenes. A new indie production and finance company Werc Werk Works offered up the cash, Variety reports. But they can't even describe what it's about. Here's what they're saying:  read more »

Don't hold your breath on this one. Studios and TV stations are holding on tight to their catalogs, despite the fact that digital downloads of movies do well on paid services like iTunes (and can probably be found in pieces or in full on illegal download sites). Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Annie Hall, Star Wars, and many of the top 25 most successful movies at the U.S. box office aren't available online and they probably won't be any time soon.

Studio executives told Variety that many new movies are still being broadcast on pay TV, cable, and other networks. What about older titles?  read more »

Say good-bye to workplace productivity! JamLegend--a free, internet-based version of Guitar Hero--is totally going to be the new Scrabulous, allowing people to procrastinate and waste time at work and at home by....rocking out on their keyboards! Amazing! We may never work again.

TechCrunch tells us all about it. It's in private beta but you might still be able to play the initial version when you sign up with their secret code: TechCrunch. Once you pick a song and a difficulty level, the game begins. On your computer screen, notes flow down as dots on a guitar fret, and you have to be quick on the keyboard as they pass by.  read more »

Oh we're sure the Museum of the Moving Image's board was just tickled about their choice for this year's honoree at their swanky 24th annual black-tie salute. Reuters says it's Ben Stiller, the guy who parodies last year's honoree, Tom Cruise, as TomCrooze, the actor's "stunt double."

So at Cipriani 42nd Street on Nov. 12, we expect to see one of these Tom Crooze clips in the tribute reel and maybe a few from his new movie with co-star Mr. Cruise, Topic Thunder.

The New York Times reports that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is getting a $1 million award for its coming exhibition “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989.”

The National Endowment for the Humanities is the gift-giver and will fund the exhibition, which will display loaned objects from European and Japanese museums, as well as other American museums and private collections. Artists inlcuding Georgia O'Keeffe, Ezra Pound, Jack Kerouac and Yoko Ono will be featured. You can check out the 270 works starting Jan. 30 through April 19.

If you're lucky, you can find a few clips of obscure documentaries and mainstream films on YouTube. But they don't stay up long because the site's police take it down because of copyright issues. But now YouTube is getting into the feature film screening business.

They're airing filmmaker Charles Ferguson's documentary No End in Sight between Sept. 12 and Nov. 1, according to Reuters. The documentary, about America's dubious decisions in the lead-up to the Iraq war, got an Oscar nod for best feature-length documentary and got the special jury prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

YouTube is taking a big step politically (releasing a film about Iraq during election season) and technologically. We wonder what else they'll be screening in the future...

You guys, Haley Joel Osment is 20 years old! 20! We'll always see him as the creepy kid who saw dead people in The Sixth Sense. God, we're old. Anyway, Mr. Osment is all grown up and making his Broadway debut in the revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo, according to BroadwayWorld. At least he still has those rosey baby-faced cheeks! He joins John Lequizamo and Cedric the Entertainer was junk shop workers who scheme to steal a rich man's coin collection. The show opens Nov. 17 at the Belasco Theatre.

On a recent muggy Monday afternoon, Jill K. Davis, 26, a jewelry maker from Ohio, stepped into Fort Greene boutique Thistle & Clover and began laying out delicate earrings and necklaces on a pristine black-and-white table in the middle of the small space. With a wall of colorful silk dresses and dressy tops behind her, the boutique’s co-owner Camilla Gale, 24, picked up one of Ms. Davis’ rings adorned with a tiny, handmade sterling silver house featuring two windows and a teeny front door. “I had a couple who wanted that as an engagement ring because, they said, it was like they found a home in each other,” Ms.  read more »

The Culture Czar has always had a soft spot for Gilmore Girls, the beloved mother-daughter dramedy that thrived on the WB channel for six seasons. In 2006, before the seventh season, the show's new studio and its creators, Amy Sherman-Palladino and her writer-producer husband Daniel Palladino, couldn't come to agreements on a new contract, and the couple left the show and left usheartbroken. Gilmore Girls' suffered and was cancelled last May, but we still DVR the repeats on the ABC Family Channel (every weekday at 11 a.m!).

So we're happy to report that the witty couple is still going strong and getting in on the action in Denver. They're guest blogging on Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch Blog during the convention.

"Our first impression of Denver: It's Reno, but bigger," starts out their first entry, titled "Insanity in Denver." They've been running into Christians in street malls and "feverish nutballs," as they put it. What about the Hillary supporters?  read more »

We imagine Hollywood wheeling and dealing to be much like what happens on Entourage. There's booze, lavish lunches and maybe even pool parties with pretty ladies. But the LA Times has the real scoop on how Hollywood is networking and making deals these days... through online video games.

Every Thursday night, up-and-comers in Hollywood calling themselves Nerd Poker, play an Xbox Live game together and sometimes end up making deals and connections. The 95-member strong group started two years ago when Misher Films executive Kevin Chang and Variety reporter Ben Fritz wanted to do a little online gaming without being taunted by teen nerds. So they started an online gaming group of their own and invited friends in the biz.

"While the aim was not necessarily to do business, I think the casualness and the lack of pretense made us all really close," said Mr. Chang told the LA Times. "And who wouldn't want to do business with friends?"  read more »

While you can read plenty of Democratic National Convention live-blogging, commentary and video on the Observer Does Denver blog, you might want to check out these sites in another tab for live streaming video.

There is, of course, lots of live coverage from major network sites, including MSNBC, ABC News (via Yahoo News), CNN, and Fox News. CBS News' Katie Couric has been recruited to do special Web-only segments live from the convention. C-Span has a new video hub that incorporates YouTube videos and Qik livestreams. The Huffington Post is using Kyte's video service. You can get the live stream in high definition from the Democratic Party itself over at DemConvention.com.

The Washington Post and Newsweek teamed up for live-streaming convention coverage online from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. (for your end-of-workday internet fix) and again from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. each night this week.

Director David Wain has had a cult following since his 1993 sketch comedy show The State, which he made with college buds Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter. Wain obsessives followed him to summer camp for 2001's Wet Hot American Summer and then in 2007, they got a mixed-reviewed The Ten (the Czar interviewed Mr. Wain at the Sunshine theater when that movie came out). Now his fans have followed him to the internet. His web series Wainy Days is a minor hit on comedy site My Damn Channel, with more than 6 million viewers clicking over to watch him fail miserably at wooing women in five-to-six minute-long shorts.

The third season finale of Wainy Days "aired" yesterday and Wired interviewed Mr. Wain about the success of the web series and his new movie, Role Models, starring Paul Rudd (dreamboat) and Elizabeth Banks (fem dreamboat).

How does his real-life girlfriend feel about him making out with ladies and broadcasting it on the internet?  read more »

Did you see the New York Times' positive coverage about web viewership of the Olympics "soaring"? Well, we beg to differ.

NBC was going for the gold (forgive us) with all their online coverage of the Olympics. They launched a brand new cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in website to cover the Olympics and unleashed more than 2,000 hours of online video. But they didn't even qualify to compete, according to recent numbers. Techcrunch tells us that Yahoo Sports beat NBCOlympics.com with an average of 4.7 million visitors a day versus 4.3 million, according to Nieisen Online. Yahoo didn’t even have video. Worse, NBC’s Olympics video ad revenues came to only $5.  read more »

That is what Melik Kaylan asks in this Wall Street Journal piece. He thinks international art star Damien Hirst is cutting out the middle men of the art world, gallerists, since he's decided to auction his pieces directly from Sotheby's (the preview for the Sept. 15 and 16 auction is happening in the Hamptons this weekend, btw). Is this just more evidence of Mr. Hirst's "titanic Duchampian originality, as if even the way he plans to sell his work is a radical new art form"? Or is he really upending the art market as we know it?

There is some speculation that this might be a pivotal moment, like the end of the studio system in movies or the continuing decline of the record labels in the music business.

 read more »

Jason Biggs long ago ditched the American Pie college humor crowd to take on more serious roles. But he won't be far from his frat boy past in his new part in a revival of Howard Korder's Boys' Life at Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre. Playbill is reporting that he'll play one-third of a college buddy trio, including Rhys Coiro (who has been spotted on HBO's Entourage as that crazy director guy) and Peter Scanavino (subUrbia, Shining City) who romp around New York in a kind of prolonged adolescence. Directed by Rent's Michael Greif, play previews will begin Oct. 2 with an official opening scheduled for Oct. 20. Get tickets before the planned closing on Nov. 9.

Of course, the Yankees will try to upstage Billy Joel's final farewell to Shea. The New York Daily News is reporting that George Steinbrenner and son Hank want either the Boss or Paul McCartney to bring the stadium down in November. Sources close to both performers aren't aware of any negotiations. But Steinbrenner is a-brainstormin' nonetheless.

Fancy Hamptons art fiends will be checking the mail early today, as Sotheby's is sending out exclusive invitations to a preview of their three-catalog sale of Damien Hirst's works. The actual auction takes place in London on Sept. 15 and 16. But on Aug. 28, Hamptons-dwelling VIPs will see 10 highlights from the "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever" auction at the East End of Long Island. The New York Sun reports that a reception will be at the Bridge Club, Bridgehampton.

If you've seen Cynthia Nixon looking busty and pouty in New York recently, it's because she's channeling Village performing arts fixture Penny Arcade. Ms. Nixon is currently shooting British ITV’s drama An Englishman in New York, a follow-up to the 1975 TV movie The Naked Civil Servant, according to Variety.

John Hurt reprises his role as English eccentric Quentin Crisp and follows his arrival in New York in the early '80s, where the flamboyant writer and raconteur was embraced by celebrities and artists.

Attention all DVR addicts, the New York Television Festival is approaching (Sept. 12-17). Today, organizers announced their lineup for the 2008 edition of Premiere Week, featuring shows from ABC, Fox, CBS, the CW, NBC and HBO. It'll be like the upfronts for viewers instead of ad executives. There will be screenings of pilot episodes, followed by Q&As with actors and producers.

Some highlights?

On Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. ABC’s American remake of Life on Mars will have a preview. The show is about NYPD Detective Sam Tyler (played by Jason O' Mara) who finds himself transported from 2008 to 1973 during the tumultuous times of the Vietnam War, Watergate, women's lib and the civil and gay rights movements.  read more »

Aaaaand they're off! We're barely out of summer blockbuster and silly movie season (Pineapple Express, anyone?) but the Oscar race is already on for the fall. Directors will be releasing their very serious and important films for the Academy's consideration. One of the first out the gate with a new trailer is Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, based on the acclaimed Broadway play about reporter David Frost's televised talks with Richard Nixon after he resigned. Frank Langella is playing the fibbing president and Michael Sheen plays Mr. Frost. The movie will be in theaters Dec. 5, but slashfilm has the trailer for a preview.

Cinematical tells us that Film Forum will be screening newly restored 35mm prints of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II for three weeks beginning Sept. 12. There's no added footage or CGI effects (this ain't no big-time Star Wars re-release) but, rather, tastefully restored productions under the direction of director Coppola, original cinematographer Gordon Willis and film historian Robert A. Harris. You'll see Brando in a whole new light!  read more »

Forget the afternoon coffee fix. How about some film noir for a pick-me-up? Hulu has posted a full version of Charles Laughton's 1955, genre-defining movie The Night of the Hunter. Nothing like Robert Mitchum as aself-appointed preacher/widow killer with LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles to get your blood moving. The daymares will keep you from experiencing that delayed crash before work lets out. Hang in there.

We told you about the revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo co-starring John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer, and now we can report about its new home: the Belasco Theatre. American Buffalo takes over the stage from another Mamet play, Speed-the-Plow. That Jeremy Piven-starring production will move to the Barrymore Theater where Godspell was supposed to be performed. The Godspell production was postponed because of a financial fallout from an investor.

Directed by Robert Falls, previews of American Buffalo will begin Oct. 31 at the Belasco with an official opening scheduled for Nov. 17. Tickets will go on sale Sept. 4 through Telecharge by calling (212) 239-6200 or by visiting www.telecharge.com.

The Roundabout Theatre Company has just announced the casting for a new production of Pal Joey. Christian Hoff (Jersey Boys) will play Joey Evans, a lowlife nightclub entertainer who wants to own his own business. Stockard Channing (she's still got it) will play an older, married woman who he tries to seduce so she'll give him money to start his nightclub. Martha Plimpton (a two-time Tony nominee but we'll always remember her from the Goonies) will play Gladys Bumps, a chorus girl who dislikes Joey. Pal Joey was originally written as a series of awkwardly written letters published in The New Yorker in the late 1930s. The story takes place in Chicago.  read more »

Anyone who has seen Dark Knight (and that's every last one of us by now, right?) has seen the amazing, creepy, Smashing Pumpkins-soundtracked trailer for The Watchmen, a movie based on the late-80s graphic novel that redefined comics and superhero archetypes. Warner Bros. has finished shooting and is set to release the movie in theaters on March 6, 2009. But now Fox wants a piece of what looks to be a very big comic book movie pie and is battling about the Watchmen rights in court. Yesterday, a judge denied Warner Bros. the right to dismiss 20th Century Fox's lawsuit over the rights to the original graphic novel.  read more »

Michael Stuhlbarg is about to become A Serious Man for Joel and Ethan Coen. The brothers have penned a new movie and he's going to be their star. Mr. Stuhlbarg has been a fixture on New York theater stages, receiving a Tony nomination for his role in The Pillowman and recently starring as Hamlet for the Public's Shakespeare in the Park production this year. He's had some bit parts on Law & Order (like every New York actor), but now he'll get the chance to work on the big screen with the Coen brothers on their new dark comedy.

Fittingly, he'll play the title role as Larry Gopnik, a professor in the Midwest whose wife leaves him and his socially awkward brother (played by another prime casting choice, Richard Kind) won't move out of his house.  read more »

This Halloween, Mamet is returning to Broadway (again) with a revival of American Buffalo. Directed by Robert Falls, previews will begin Oct. 31 with a premiere set for Nov. 17. Latin "Sexaholic" John Leguizamo and "Original King of Comedy" Cedric the Entertainer will lead the cast about "the bungled heist of an old nickel by three lowlifes based in a Chicago pawnshop." According to press notes, the play suggests how the language and practice of American business and power politics are insidious forces in our society.

Playbill reports:

David Mamet's 1976 Obie Award-winning play, American Buffalo, originally opened at Chicago's Goodman Theater.

 read more »

No, the Screen Actors Guild and the studios still haven't come to an agreement on a new contract, which expired June 30. Now the New York chapter of S.A.G. is getting mighty feisty with their Los Angeles leaders about finding a solution, or else. Yesterday, they sent out a biting statement, stating that S.A.G. leaders are "failing to bargain realistically" with the studios. They're demanding that they seek help from a federal mediator if contract talks don't progress by Aug. 25.

The L.A. Times has more:

"Nothing is happening, and we're no closer to a deal today than we were six weeks ago," the New York members said in a statement, contradicting assertions by SAG Executive Director Doug Allen and President Alan Rosenberg that contract discussions with the studios were ongoing.

 read more »

Hunter Parrish, the blond cutie who plays Mary-Louise Parker’s increasingly hunky teenage son Silas on Showtime’s Weeds, moved to New York’s theater district just two weeks ago (his first time living in the city) with his 8-month-old Siberian Husky. He’s taking over the lead role as pensive student heartthrob Melchior in Spring Awakening, the Tony Award-winning rock musical based on the 1891 German play by Frank Wedekind. At the Eugene O’Neill Theater, where Mr. Parrish will make his Broadway debut on Aug. 18, the Plano, Texas, native seemed almost goofy, offering a hearty handshake, and donning bright blue Converse sneakers.  read more »

George Furth, a playwright who co-wrote musicals with Stephen Sondheim including Tony Award-winning Company, died on Monday in California at 75. He was hospitalized for a lung infection, but an exact cause has not been reported. Mr. Furth was a lanky, familiar character in many movies and tv shows including Blazing Saddles, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Murder, She Wrote, and Wings.

The New York Times reports:

As a playwright, Mr. Furth reached Broadway several times, both on his own and as a collaborator. “Twigs,” his play about four women from the same family, all played by Sada Thompson, received mixed reviews when i