Blake Edwards

Perhaps best known as the creator of "Victor/Victoria" and the Pink Panther movies, film maker Blake Edwards is also a sculptor. Two of his larger bronzes--"Reclining Figure" and "Interlocking"--are now on display in the courtyard between the Century Plaza Towers, part of the Third Sculpture Walk produced by the Los Angeles Arts Council. Edwards, 67, is the first to admit that his fame as a director has boosted his recent success as a sculptor.

Steve Franken, a veteran character actor whose long career included playing the spoiled young millionaire Chatsworth Osborne Jr. on the popular situation comedy "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in the early 1960s, has died. He was 80. Franken died of cancer Friday at a nursing and rehabilitation center in Canoga Park, said his wife, Jean. In a more than 50-year career that began in New York, Franken appeared in scores of TV shows and several movies, including "The Party," "The Americanization of Emily," "The Missouri Breaks" and the Jerry Lewis comedies "Which Way to the Front?"

"Switch" (selected theaters) is a sex farce/fable about what's different between men and women--and, like many of Blake Edwards' movies, it finds danger in potential delight, humor in what most disturbs us. It's an edgy comedy, almost nerve-racking. Its protagonist, a fiercely chauvinist man reincarnated as a woman, is the ultimate in alienated characters: divorced from his/her own body.

Singer and actress Julie Andrews has listed the Brentwood house she owned with her late husband, director and screenwriter Blake Edwards , for $2.649 million. Less than a month after coming on the market, the tidy white home with gray shutters is already in escrow. The traditional-style house features a family room and living room with French doors opening to a fanciful garden that appears to be "practically perfect in every way" to borrow a phrase from "Mary Poppins. " The formal dining room has a cathedral ceiling and glass walls.

Blake Edwards' "Skin Deep" (citywide) has a couple of the funniest moments Edwards ever devised; it has John Ritter's easy-to-take charm, but it ends up living up to its title far too closely. Ritter's Zach has it all. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, a novelist and screenwriter. He has a bright, attractive wife (crisply played by Alyson Reed), who's a TV newscaster, a profession that in the movies defines the successful contemporary woman.

Hollywood as the capital city of film was founded by mavericks--prospectors with hand-cranked cameras instead of mules and gold pans. And although it now dresses up like an industry, with stockholders and boards of directors, Hollywood still relies on mavericks to keep things lively and to slow the hardening of its arteries.

Blake Edwards remembers shopping for sculptures to be featured in "The Man Who Loved Women," his 1983 comedy that starred Burt Reynolds as an artist who spends more time in the bedroom than in the studio. But the director was having difficulty finding the kind of abstract art that he thought the film needed. "I wanted the sculptures to be all original works since this was a movie about an artist," Edwards recalls.

A 75-foot yacht owned by movie director Blake Edwards sprung a leak 20 miles offshore but made it to port safely after a pump was airlifted to the boat, officials said. Edwards was not aboard the craft, the Coast Guard said. The yacht Mariah reported the leak at about 7 p.m. Thursday, said Petty Officer Matthew Wheeler. A Coast Guard helicopter rushed a pump to the ship within minutes, he said.

Tony Adams, who was 21 when he began producing a string of movies for Blake Edwards, including six "Pink Panther" films, "10" and the screen and stage versions of "Victor/Victoria," has died. He was 52. Adams died Saturday at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City after suffering a stroke, said Peter Cromarty, a spokesman for the producer. "We felt he was our second son," Edwards and his wife, Julie Andrews, said in a statement. "He was a beloved, dear, trusted and talented friend."

When the kindly French homosexual known as Toddy takes in the elderly waif Victoria, he hatches a brilliant plan. She can't get a job as a legitimate singer, despite a voice that shatters glass. His own career in the gay nightclubs of Paris is waning. Toddy and Victoria may be down and out, but by God they have spunk. And as impresario and pretend drag queen, Toddy and Victoria will reverse their fortunes and become the toast of Paris.

Film producer Stacey Sher and musician Kerry Brown have listed their house in the Beverly Crest area at $5.795 million. Originally designed by Wallace Neff, the 1948 house was once the home of actress Julie Andrews and director Blake Edwards and later remodeled. The 1.61-acre site includes a 7,800-square-foot main house, a 2,480-square-foot guesthouse, a separate building with a bathroom, a tennis court, a basketball court, a swimming pool and waterfalls. The living space features beamed ceilings, stained-glass windows, brick, stonework, mahogany doors and six fireplaces.

Singer and actress Julie Andrews has listed the Brentwood house she owned with her late husband, director and screenwriter Blake Edwards , for $2.649 million. The traditional-style single-story house features an open plan family room and living room with French doors opening to a garden. The formal dining room has a cathedral ceiling and glass walls. An artist's studio with a bathroom sits above the garage for a total of four bedrooms and three bathrooms. The walled and gated lot measures less than a quarter of an acre.

British film and stage star Julie Andrews, 75, will be honored at "Backstage at the Geffen," the Geffen Playhouse's annual fundraiser, on May 2 for cutting a swath on Broadway with leading roles in "Victor/Victoria," "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot. " Her career has also spanned films from "Mary Poppins" to "Shrek Forever After" and numerous children's books written with daughter Emma Walton Hamilton. She was married for 41 years to filmmaker Blake Edwards, who passed away in December. Since the Geffen is honoring your career, I thought I'd ask you about various points along the way, starting with a very early triumph, when you were 13 and performed for King George VI at the London Palladium with Danny Kaye.

Every one of us working in film comedy today is a descendant of Blake Edwards. Some of us more than others, to be sure, but one way or another, in ways both overt and subliminal, Edwards' films have influenced film comedy ever since. I remember watching his "Pink Panther" films as a kid and reveling in the pure, unabashed silliness of Inspector Clouseau's high jinks. As I grew into adulthood and a career in film comedy, I revisited Edwards' films and was struck not only by the enjoyable-as-ever zaniness but also with a newfound appreciation of the more nuanced elements at work.

Blake Edwards: the man who gave us a million pratfalls, has died at 88. ( Los Angeles Times ) Larry King ends his CNN show with a question. ( Los Angeles Times ) Broadway's " Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" needs some more time to perfect the web-slinging. ( Los Angeles Times ) Disney's so hot on attraction-based movies that it's now making movies based on attractions that weren't even built. ( Los Angeles Times ) Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze are looking to team up once again.

Blake Edwards, a writer-director who battled depression in his personal life yet was known as a modern master of slapstick and sophisticated wit with hit films such as the "Pink Panther" comedies, "10" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's," has died. He was 88. Edwards died of complications of pneumonia Wednesday evening at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, said Gene Schwam, Edwards' longtime publicist. His wife, Julie Andrews, and members of the immediate family were at his bedside.

Like his bumbling screen detective, Inspector Clouseau, Blake Edwards is a survivor. The 77-year-old filmmaker has covered a lot of territory, from the sublime "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961) to the outrageous "S.O.B." (1981). And although he will forever be associated with the commercially successful "Pink Panther" film series and "10" (1979), his artistic triumph remains the uproarious and elegant "Victor/Victoria" (1982).

Eyeing the blond in the next booth at the Polo Lounge as she stands up to leave, Blake Edwards jokes that there was a reason why he wrote and directed the comedy "10." His blue eyes twinkle as he watches the statuesque twentysomething put on her raincoat -- it's the same type of look Dudley Moore gave Bo Derek the first time he caught a glimpse of her in the 1979 hit that Edwards wrote and directed. Never mind that the woman is casting off vibes that she knows she's attractive.

Blake Edwards has been the guiding force on such comedic classics as 1959's "Operation Petticoat" and 1961's "Breakfast at Tiffany's," not to mention the "Pink Panther" films with Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. On Thursday, Edwards will be on hand to talk about his career at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater. A screening of his 1981 Hollywood satire, "S.O.B.," starring Edwards' wife, Julie Andrews, and William Holden in his final film, will follow the discussion.

Blake Edwards remembers shopping for sculptures to be featured in "The Man Who Loved Women," his 1983 comedy that starred Burt Reynolds as an artist who spends more time in the bedroom than in the studio. But the director was having difficulty finding the kind of abstract art that he thought the film needed. "I wanted the sculptures to be all original works since this was a movie about an artist," Edwards recalls.