Movie Star

Burt Lancaster was the first movie star I ever met. I've encountered others since, but the circumstances have never been so dramatic. The year was 1971 and I was a young reporter for the Washington Post covering the Cannes Film Festival on my own dime. Few Americans made the trek in those days, which is why Lancaster's publicist contacted me and asked if I wanted to be part of a small lunch the actor was giving for journalists at the glamorous Hotel du Cap, a legendary spot perched just above imposing rocks that jut boldly into the Mediterranean.

When producers of the upcoming science fiction movie "After Earth" wanted to create an image of what the planet might look like 1,000 years in the future, location manager Dow Griffith knew just the place. He immediately thought of the mystical redwood forests in Northern California where his parents had taken him on a camping trip as a child. "I wanted to be able to evoke that sense of what the Earth would be like a thousand years after man has left, and I always felt that these enormous trees would say that in one shot," Griffith said in an interview from his Santa Monica home.

Dale Robertson, an Oklahoma horseman who became a TV and western movie star during the genre's heyday, died Tuesday at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. He was 89. Robertson, who was best known for starring in the series "Tales of Wells Fargo" from 1957 to 1962, had pneumonia and lung cancer, his family said. The handsome, square-jawed actor, who was often said to resemble Clark Gable, was an able horse rider by age 10 and was training polo ponies in his teens. He applied those skills in Hollywood, where he appeared in more than 60 movies, including a prime role as Jesse James in 1949's "Fighting Man of the Plains.

Burt Lancaster was the first movie star I ever met. I've encountered others since, but the circumstances have never been so dramatic. The year was 1971 and I was a young reporter for the Washington Post covering the Cannes Film Festival on my own dime. Few Americans made the trek in those days, which is why Lancaster's publicist contacted me and asked if I wanted to be part of a small lunch the actor was giving for journalists at the glamorous Hotel du Cap, a legendary spot perched just above imposing rocks that jut boldly into the Mediterranean.

The former retreat of silent and talking movie star Lewis Stone, who was cast with film giant Greta Garbo in a series of films, is on the market in the Valley Glen area at $1.75 million. Constructed in 1930 as the main house at his 500-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley, the 6,500-square-foot residence features a walk-in film vault, six fireplaces, cast-iron chandeliers, six bedrooms and 31/2 bathrooms. The half-acre-plus lot includes a tiki bar, a saltwater swimming pool, a brick courtyard and fruit trees.

Tony Curtis was a strikingly handsome 23-year-old native New Yorker playing the lead in an off-Broadway production of "Golden Boy" in 1948 when he was spotted by a Universal Pictures talent scout. Sent west for a screen test, he signed a seven-year contract at $75 a week. "I got into movies so easy it was scary," Curtis told the Denver Post in 1996. The former Bernie Schwartz went on to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars of the 1950s and '60s, one whose early reputation as a "pretty boy" tended to blur recognition of his growth and range as an actor who starred in some of his era's landmark films.

30,000 BC: Stone Age man begins using sharpened flint and seashells to scrape the hair from his body, inventing the morning shave. 1150 BC: Biblical hero Samson, whose feats of strength allegedly included slaying an entire army with the jawbone of an ass, confides to Delilah that losing his hair means losing his strength, making this perhaps the earliest recorded lament about premature baldness. 1700s: Elaborate powdered wigs ? for men, not women ? become an 18th century status symbol in Europe.

Russell Crowe: Serious thespian, Oscar winner, rage-prone phone thrower -- kung fu movie star? Fans of New Zealand's most celebrated dramatic export were mystified to discover that Crowe had signed on to appear in hip-hop superstar turned first-time filmmaker the RZA's directorial debut “The Man With the Iron Fists.” The rollicking martial arts mini-epic, shot on location in Shanghai, features ninja prostitutes, a bad guy with body-morphic brass...

How's this for a slice of irony? Mario Batali, dressed in a suit, no orange Crocs in sight, is seated at a gleaming restaurant counter in a Manhattan eatery, haranguing a chef who works for him: "In a down economy, green doesn't play," Batali insists as part of a profanity-laden rant. "People don't give a damn where their hamburger comes from as long as it tastes good. " It's the last thing anyone would expect to hear from the ambassador of Italian cuisine, a man who wholeheartedly endorses the eating local philosophy.

Ever since the astounding grosses for "Avatar" started rolling in, Hollywood has been pretty much going gaga over 3-D. At a time when DVD revenues have been plummeting, who would've believed that 3-D would help save the studios' bacon? According to Warners distribution chief Dan Fellman, roughly 52% of the studio's box-office take for this weekend's "Clash of the Titans" was from 3-D ticket sales. According to industry marketers, the 3-D ticket price premium gave a huge boost to "Clash's " $61.4-million box-office take, which would've been closer to $41.4 million if it was only playing in 2-D. The film, which was retrofitted with 3-D at the last minute, inspired my colleague Kenny Turan to write that "Clash" could be "the first film to actually be made worse by being in 3-D."

Dale Robertson, an Oklahoma horseman who became a TV and western movie star during the genre's heyday, died Tuesday at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. He was 89. Robertson, who was best known for starring in the series "Tales of Wells Fargo" from 1957 to 1962, had pneumonia and lung cancer, his family said. The handsome, square-jawed actor, who was often said to resemble Clark Gable, was an able horse rider by age 10 and was training polo ponies in his teens. He applied those skills in Hollywood, where he appeared in more than 60 movies, including a prime role as Jesse James in 1949's "Fighting Man of the Plains.

Hollywood's most celebrated fake feud reached its epic climax Thursday when Matt Damon took over “Jimmy Kimmel Live” for the night. It was an hour of sweet, highly entertaining revenge for the Oscar-winning star, who's been “bumped” from Kimmel's show hundreds of times over the years. With his nemesis bound and gagged in a chair to the rear of the stage, Damon had free rein over the entire broadcast, which he kindly renamed “Jimmy Kimmel Sucks.” It all began with a monologue in which Damon ruthlessly taunted Kimmel (sample dialogue: “I am Luke Skywalker and Kimmel is the Death Star -- big and round and easily destroyed through his garbage hole”)

Larry L. King, a writer and playwright whose magazine article about a campaign to close down a popular bordello became the hit Broadway musical "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and a 1982 movie starring Burt Reynolds, died Thursday. He was 83. King, who had emphysema, died at a retirement home in Washington, D.C., where he had lived for six months, said his wife, Barbara Blaine. He wrote his most famous piece, about the demise of the Chicken Ranch brothel in Texas, in 1974 for Playboy magazine.

There's no harm in toasting to a few good men - or raising many toasts for many good men, as GQ magazine packed Los Angeles institution Chateau Marmont with its annual Men of the Year celebration Tuesday. On a hotel patio transformed from its usual bistro setting, cream canvas tents with chic black piping protected the coif of cover boy Ben Affleck from some aggressive wind. Affleck chatted up another man of the year, Jamie Foxx, who has been everywhere lately supporting "Django Unchained," something we don't mind.

After the coffee. Before figuring out who's ahead for 2016. The Skinny: Hear that? It's quiet. No political ads. No screaming on cable news. Let's see how long it lasts. Wednesday's headlines include a look at how TV did covering the race, Paramount's struggles regarding a 3-D version of "Top Gun" and Time Warner posts solid third-quarter results. Daily Dose: Paramount Pictures had no problem showing lots of alcohol brands in the movie "Flight," about an alcoholic pilot, including Budweiser, Bushmills and Absolut.

Russell Crowe: Serious thespian, Oscar winner, rage-prone phone thrower -- kung fu movie star? Fans of New Zealand's most celebrated dramatic export were mystified to discover that Crowe had signed on to appear in hip-hop superstar turned first-time filmmaker the RZA's directorial debut “The Man With the Iron Fists.” The rollicking martial arts mini-epic, shot on location in Shanghai, features ninja prostitutes, a bad guy with body-morphic brass...

Behind the glasses there--is that movie star Sandra Bullock playing for yuks on a TV sitcom? It is. She puts in an appearance Wednesday on "The George Lopez Show" (8:30 p.m., ABC). Why? Read the credits: She's one of the program's executive producers.

WE ALL know that the stock market has been plummeting in recent weeks. But what's dropping even faster is the stock Hollywood studios put into the value of movie stars. This past weekend's disastrous opening of Warners' costly "Body of Lies" was just another nail in the coffin. Buoyed by the presence of two mega-stars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, with Ridley Scott in the director's chair, the Middle East spy thriller was supposed to easily win its weekend. Instead, it finished No.

Every movie star handles award season differently. Some are openly disdainful of the dog-and-pony shows - Joaquin Phoenix, anyone? - while others are able to at least feign excitement at the prospect of traipsing down yet another red carpet. For the most part, the celebrities making their way to the Beverly Hilton ballroom for the Hollywood Film Awards on Monday evening seemed to be in good spirits. After all, the event was only the first stop on the long road to the Academy Awards in February, so fete-fatigue had yet to set in. Marion Cotillard, who took home an acting prize for her role in the foreign-language film "Rust and Bone," said she was reveling in an experience that doesn't exist in her native France.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Oct. 21 - 27 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SPECIALS Funny as Hell 2012:  More performances from the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal (8 p.m. BBC America). MOVIES A Nanny's Revenge:  A woman schemes to punish the man she blames for the death of her parents in this 2012 TV drama starring Jodi Lyn O'Keefe and Victoria Pratt (8 p.m. Lifetime). I Married Who?