“THE DEATH OF AN OLD MAN IS NOT A TRAGEDY.” –ROBERT ALTMAN, 1925-2006 FROM THE SF CHRONICLE: Garrison Keillor, who starred in Altman’s last movie — this year’s “A Prairie Home Companion” — said Tuesday that love of film clearly came through on the set. “Mr. Altman loved making movies. He loved the chaos of shooting and the sociability of the crew and actors — he adored actors — and he loved the editing room and he especially loved sitting in a screening room and watching the thing over and over with other people,” Keillor said in a statement e-mailed […]

When reporters asked him what he thought about most of his films, he tended to dismiss them as “garbage.” Still, his part as a homicidal husband stalking Joan Crawford in “Sudden Fear” (1952) also won him an Oscar nomination, and his role as a robber with a heart in “I Died a Thousand Times” (1955), a remake of Humphrey Bogart’s “High Sierra,” earned Mr. Palance better reviews than the movie received. Walter Jack Palance was born Feb. 18, 1920 or 1918, in Lattimer Mines, Pa., the third child of Vladimir Palahnuik, a coal miner, and the former Anna Gramiak, both […]