Image via parade.condenast.com
This post has been edited since publication in light of recent news.
This Sunday, February 2nd 2014 Philip Seymour Hoffman passed away. The 46 year-old actor was found dead in his bathroom on Sunday evening. Reports suggest that his death may be linked to taking drugs. Hoffman has talked about his drug abuse in the past, and has previously sought treatment.
Let us remember him as a brilliant actor. With more than 60 film credits to his name, including Mission Impossible III, The Master, and Capote. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won the Best Actor Academy Award for Capote.
Personally I loved Hoffman as ‘The Count’ in The Boat that Rocked a period comedy about a pirate radio station. More recently I’ve enjoyed his performance in The Hunger Games, I look forward to seeing him in the final two Hunger Games films.
Adam Burt has written a feature celebrating Philip Seymour Hoffman’s life.
On January 31st 1975, Walt Disney Productions sued the producers of The Life and Times of a Happy Hooker. The film follows the life of Dutch secretary then Call Girl, Madam and Memoirist, Xaviera Hollander. In one scene, while a group sex act is being performed, the Mickey Mouse March plays in the background. Walter Stratton, Disney attorney, alleged that the use of the march constitutes “substantial and irreparable, injury, loss and damage to ownership rights”. The producers lost the case.
100 years ago on February 2nd Charlie Chaplain’s first film Making a Living was released. The short stars Chaplain as a swindler who courts a wealthy young lady with a ring he conned from her admirer. Chaplain then steals his camera after he takes shots of a car crash.
This was Chaplains first film role, the start of a huge film career which made him a household name. In 1914 he appeared in a total of 36 short films, he was in just 50 further films in his acting career which spun to 1967.