Rants N’ Jibes

Famed Indian film actress, Kajol’s father Shomu Mukherjee passed away in Mumbai, India on Thursday morning. He was 65.

The filmmaker had not been keeping well for some time and died of a heart attack at around 8 am. He is survived by his wife, actress Tanuja and two daughters, Kajol and Tanisha.

Son of Shashidhar Mukherjee, the famous Bollywood film producer of the 1950s, Shomu produced and directed films like Chaliya Babu, Patthar Ke Insaan, Lover Boy and Nanha Shikhari in the 1980s. He was also one of the owners of the famous Filmalya studio. The last film that he directed was Sangdhil Sanam in 1994.

The funeral will take place at Mumbai’s Santa Cruz crematorium at 2 pm, sources said.

Mukherji passed away on the eve of his son-in-law Ajay Devgan’s directorial debut U Me Aur Hum, casting a pall of gloom in the family.

Family sources said, the film, however, will be released as per the schedule.

courtesy: eviltwinltd.com

Stanley Kamel, the actor well known for his role as Dr. Charles Kroger in hit Series “Monk” was found dead Tuesday at his Hollywood Hills home. Police investigators claimed the cause of death to be a heart attack. He was 65 years old.

Only last week, Kamel had appeared in Los Angeles at a promotional event for USA, “Monk’s” network home. In a statement, the network said it was deeply affected by his passing. “Stanley was an amazingly talented and extremely kind man, and an important member of the USA family. He will be sorely missed,” the network said.

Kamel was a veteran of the New York stage. His acting career began off-Broadway and then broke into television with a role in “Days of Our Lives”, as Eric Peters. He has also appearances in over eighty TV shows including “Mission: Impossible”, “Three’s Company”, “Charlie’s Angels”, the original “Knight Rider”, “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, “Hill Street Blues”, “Murder, She Wrote”, “Cagney & Lacey”, “NYPD Blue”, “ER”, “7th Heaven”, “The Nanny”, “The Golden Girls” and “The West Wing.”

One of his favorite roles seemed to be the one as a lawyer with AIDS on “L.A. Law”. Kamel called the role as being an “extraordinary” one in an interview. “It was an extraordinary—I don’t want to say job—opportunity because as an actor. Of course, I got to go to some very deep places that actors don’t always get to go. But I also think it was very important because no one had seen at that time a character have AIDS,” Kamel said.

Stanley Kamel recently appeared in David Lynch’s “Inland Empire” and he completed filming “The Urn,” a comedy directed by Skip Usen, according to IMDB.com.

Epic film star and N.R.A. leader Charlton Heston dies at the age of 84. The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said. They have a son, Fraser Clarke Heston and an adopted daughter, Holly Ann Heston

He was born John Charlton Carter and then took his stepfather’s last name for his stage name. In “The Ten Commandments” Heston not only played Moses, he supplied the voice of God. His son, Fraser, 3 months old at the time, played the baby Moses floating down the Nile in a basket.
Heston lent his strong presence to some of the most acclaimed and successful films of the midcentury. “Ben-Hur” won 11 Academy Awards, tying it for the record with the more recent “Titanic” (1997) and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003). Heston’s other hits include: “The Ten Commandments,” “El Cid,” “55 Days at Peking,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Earthquake.” Heston earned star billing from his first Hollywood movie, “Dark City,” a 1950 film noir. Cecil B. DeMille next cast him as the circus manager in the all-star “The Greatest Show On Earth,” named by the Motion Picture Academy as the best picture of 1952.

Heston also wrote several books: “The Actor’s Life: Journals 1956-1976,” published in 1978; “Beijing Diary: 1990,” concerning his direction of the play “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial” in Chinese; “In the Arena: An Autobiography,” 1995; and “Charlton Heston’s Hollywood: 50 Years of American Filmmaking,” 1998.

Heston was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and before becoming a conservative Republican he campaigned on behalf of Democrats Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy. Heston served as president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003. He once summed up his belief in the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which includes the right to bear arms, by calling it “America’s first freedom, the one that protects the others.”

In late years, Heston drew a lot of publicity for his crusades as for his performances. In addition to his NRA work, he had also campaigned for Republican presidential and congressional candidates and against affirmative action.

He resigned from Actors Equity, claiming the union’s refusal to allow a white actor to play a Eurasian role in “Miss Saigon” was “obscenely racist.” He attacked CNN’s telecasts from Baghdad as “sowing doubts” about the allied effort in the 1990-91 Gulf War.

At a Time Warner stockholders meeting, he castigated the company for releasing an Ice-T album that purportedly encouraged cop killing.

Heston wrote in “In the Arena” that he was proud of what he did “though now I’ll surely never be offered another film by Warners, nor get a good review in Time. On the other hand, I doubt I’ll get a traffic ticket very soon.”

He often appeared at conventions holding an antique flintlock rifle above his head and telling gun-control advocates they would not get his gun unless they could pry it “from my cold, dead hands.” In August 2002 Heston released a video statement saying he had “symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease.” “If you see a little less spring to my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you’ll know why,” he said. However, he still finished his term as NRA president after the diagnosis.

He was a great man touching the lives of millions with his activities in the movies and outside as well.