Six Degrees of Separation with Alain Delon

Six Degrees of Separation: from Alain Delon to …
(Alain Delon celebrated his 78th Birthday earlier this month, on 8th November 2013)

…Charlize Theron
Delon played a criminal mastermind devoid of any conscience, in Plein Soleil (1959/60), which was based on the novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith (1), and another crime novel of hers was the basis for the Alfred Hitchcock (2) classic, of the same name, Strangers on a Train (1951), and Hitchcock made the movie Torn Curtain (1966); an espionage thriller set beyond the Iron Curtain of East Germany; starring Julie Andrews (3), who starred in the musical, based on a true life story that took place in Austria, The Sound of Music (1965), which also starred Nicholas Hammond (4), who later played the famous fictional webbed suited superhero, ‘Spider-Man’, in the television series, The Amazing Spider-Man (1977–1979), and later Tobey Maguire (5) took over the reigns, and played the webbed superhero, in a more skin-tight stretchy suit, in the trio of Spider-Man franchise of films (from 2002 to 2007), and Maguire appeared in The Cider House Rules (1999), which co-starred Charlize Theron (6).

…Lee Remick
Delon at one time was engaged to actress Romy Schneider (1); with whom he worked on a few projects, including Christine (1958), L’Amour à la Mer (1964) and La Piscine (1969) to name a few; and Schneider was famously associated with the trilogy of Sissi films (1955,1956 & 1957), where she portrayed the well known 19th century fashionista, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (2), a.k.a. Queen of Hungary (nicknamed ‘Sissi’), as did Ava Gardner (3) in Mayerling (1968), and Gardner starred alongside Deborah Kerr (4) in  The Night of the Iguana (1964), and Kerr starred in the beautifully, spooky, children’s horror flick, The Innocents (1961), which was based on a novel, The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James (5), and another novel, of his, was the basis for the film, The Europeans (1979) starring Lee Remick (6).

…Jacqueline Kennedy
Delon starred alongside Claudia Cardinale (1) in the Italian venture, Il Gattopardo (1963), and Cardinale appeared in the Hollywood crime comedy, The Pink Panther (1963), which was directed by Blake Edwards (2), as was 10 (1979), which also starred Dee Wallace (3), who played mother to a very tiny little Drew Barrymore (4) in the children’s, science fiction, drama, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Barrymore played Edith Bouvier Beale (5), a.k.a. Little Eddie, in Grey Gardens (2009), who was the cousin of, the United States of America’s, former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy (6).

…Juhi Chawla
Delon starred in Luchino Visconti’s (1) Rocco and His Brothers (1960), and Visconti directed Italian actress Alida Valli (2) in Senso (1954), who earlier came in the noir classic, The Paradine Case (1947), along with French born, Hollywood star, Louis Jourdan (3), and Jourdan played lead villain in the Bond flick Octopussy (1983), along with Indian actor Kabir Bedi (4), whose daughter, Pooja Bedi (5), came in the Bollywood flick, Lootere (1993), which co-starred, Punjabi born, former beauty queen (Miss India 1984), and Bollywood superstar of the 1990’s, Juhi Chawla (6).

…Helen Mirren
Delon appeared in Is Paris Burning? (1966), which co-starred Kirk Douglas (1), father of actor Michael Douglas (2), who came in Coma (1978); a mystery set in a hospital, where suddenly young healthy people start falling into a coma, after being operated on, and a young female doctor tries to uncover this conspiracy, which in turn ends up being a threat to her own life; the said young doctor was played by Canadian born actress, Geneviève Bujold (3), who portrayed the famous 15th century Queen consort, Anne Boleyn (4), in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), mother of, the famous virgin queen of the 15th and early 16th centuries, Queen Elizabeth-I (5), who was portrayed by Helen Mirren (6), in the television mini-series Elizabeth I (2005).

…Madhuri Dixit
Delon played Julius Caesar (1) in the comedy Astérix aux jeux Olympiques (2008), as did Rex Harrison (2) in Cleopatra (1963), and Harrison played the lead negative role in the Bollywood gem heist of a movie, Shalimar (1978), which co-starred Zeenat Aman (3), whose most notable role happens to be that of the Hippie girl she played in Bollywood’s most loved Hippie movie, Haré Raama Haré Krishna (1971), which co-starred actress Mumtaz (4), who starred alongside Vyjayanthimala (5) in Suraj (1966), and Vyjayanthimala played a courtesan in Devdas (1955), and actress Madhuri Dixit (6), took over the role of the courtesan, in the re-make, Devdas (2002).

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)
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Six Degrees of Separation with Emile Hirsch

Six Degrees of Separation: from Emile Hirsch to…

…Barbara Stanwyck
Hirsch played the lead in the tragic true-life adventure flick, Into the Wild (2007), which was directed by actor, Sean Penn (1), who was married to pop diva, Madonna (2), whose second husband was British film director, Guy Ritchie (3), who directed Sherlock Holmes (2009), which was based on notable author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (4), famed fictional sleuth, as was The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), directed by Billy Wilder (5), and Wilder also directed the noir classic, Double Indemnity (1944), starring Barbara Stanwyck (6).

…Diego Luna – Ang Lee vice versa (vv)
Hirsch appeared in the bio-pic, Milk (2008), in which Diego Luna (1,6), co-starred as an insecure, unconfident, paranoid, vulnerable gay lover, of the lead political figure of this tragic movie, who commits suicide, and Luna has been best friends with Gael García Bernal (2,5) since childhood, and García Bernal starred in surreal fantasy flick, The Science of Sleep (2006), which co-starred Alain Chabat (3,4), who directed the French comedy, Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre (2002), a fictional account of, cartoon characters, Astérix & Obélix’s meeting the famed Queen of the Nile, Cleopatra (4,3), who was portrayed by Italian actress Monica Bellucci (5,2), who starred in the Italian movie Malèna (2000), which was nominated for two Oscars, in 2001, in the ‘Best Cinematography’ and ‘Best Original Musical Score’ categories, but lost out to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), in both categories, along with two more Oscar wins, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was directed by Ang Lee (6,1), with whom Emile Hirsch had worked with, in, Taking Woodstock (2009).

…Norma Crane
Hirsch appeared in, the waste of time, film, The Darkest Hour (2011), which co-starred Olivia Thirlby (1), who appeared in the excellent comedy Juno (2007), for which Diablo Cody (2) took home the Oscar statuette for ‘Best Original Screenplay’, and Cody also wrote the screenplay for the teenage horror flick, Jennifer’s Body (2009), which also starred Johnny Simmons (3), who is currently working on the project Frank and Cindy, to be released next year, which also stars Rene Russo (4), who came in the re-make art heist flick, The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), and original 1968 version, was directed by Norman Jewison (5), who also directed the musical, Fiddler on the Roof (1971), starring Norma Crane (6).

…Yoko Ono
Hirsch appeared alongside Penélope Cruz (1) in Venuto al Mondo (2012), and Cruz starred along with Rebecca Hall (2) in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), and Hall acted in Frost/Nixon (2008), a feature film focusing on the, post-Watergate scandal, television interview by the illustrious British talk-show host, David Frost (3), of former president, Richard Nixon (4); the only president of the United States till date to resign from office; and the well-known Beatle, John Lennon’s (5), song ‘Give Peace a Chance’; written during the famous ‘Bed-In’ of May/June 1969, and which soon became an anti Vietnam-war anthem, and was sung by half a million demonstrators in Washington, D.C. at the ‘Vietnam Moratorium Day’, on the 15th of October, 1969; shook the Nixon government, and Lennon staged the famous ‘Bed-In’s’, for peace; which gave birth to this song; along with his newly married bride, Japanese artist and peace activist, Yoko Ono (6); whom he married, in March the same year, 1969, and they staged their first ‘Bed-In’ on their honeymoon, in March 1969 itself.

…Gloria Swanson
Hirsch in his teens, played a sensitive, effeminate, lonely, farm-boy; who seeks companionship with a chicken, he associates with his dead mother; in The Mudge Boy (2003), directed by Michael Burke (1), which was a feature length re-make of Burke’s own earlier short film, Fishbelly White (1998), which starred Jason Hayes (2), who appeared in Andrew Jackson (2007), a television movie about the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson (3), who was portrayed by Charlton Heston (4) in the re-make of The Buccaneer (1958), and the original 1938 version was directed by the luminary Cecil B. DeMille (5), who had a cameo, playing himself, in Sunset Boulevard (1950), where screen goddess of silent era, Gloria Swanson (6), played a faded, ageing, silent movie star recluse; whose disintegration into nothingness, unable to accept the loss her stardom since the invention of sound in cinema, talking pictures, is inevitable.

…Madeleine Carroll
Hirsch played the younger version of the eminent, Hungarian-American, illusionist, Harry Houdini (1), in the television movie, Houdini (1998), and in the past, Tony Curtis (2), was the first actor to portray Houdini, on the screen, in Houdini (1953), and Curtis starred with Marilyn Monroe (3) in the sizzling comedy, Some Like it Hot (1959), and Monroe, appeared alongside Cary Grant (4) in another hilarious comedy Monkey Business (1952), and Grant starred in the classic Film-Noir, Notorious (1946), which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock (5), who had earlier directed Madeleine Carroll (6), in The 39 Steps (1935).

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)
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Six Degrees of Separation with James Franco

Six Degrees of Separation: from James Franco to

…Hilarie Burton
Franco portrayed legendary method actor James Dean (1), in the television movie, James Dean (2001), and Dean starred alongside Elizabeth Taylor (2) in Giant (1956), and Taylor was married to Conrad Hilton jr (3); son of the founder of the Hilton Hotel chain, who was Taylor’s first husband, who was  a gambler, alcoholic and was very abusive towards Taylor, and his abusive behaviour towards her resulted in a miscarriage, Taylor’s parents were horrified, and soon Taylor’s first marriage ended after suffering, and surviving through, nine months of a miserable marriage to Hilton jr; and Conrad Hilton jr happens to be the great uncle of Paris Hilton (4), who appeared in the remake of a B-movie, horror classic, House of Wax (2005), which co-starred Chad Michael Murray (5), who starred alongside Hilarie Burton (6) in the television soap, One Tree Hill (2003-2012).

…Hattie McDaniel  
Franco starred in the bio-pic Milk (2008), which co-starred Emile Hirsh (1), who starred in an adventure flick, based on a real life story, called Into The Wild (2007), which saw, a yet unknown, young, Kristen Stewart (2) who gained fame through the series of five Twilight movies (from 2008 to 2012), which co-starred Robert Pattinson (3); as a kind-hearted vampire who falls in love with a human and is in constant loggerheads with a werewolf, who too has the hots for the same person; and Pattinson appeared in the tragic drama, Remember Me (2010), where Pierce Brosnan (4) played his father, and Brosnan starred alongside Halle Berry (5) in Die Another Day (2002), who was the first African American actress (black actress) to bag the Best Actress trophy at the Oscars, in 2002, for Monster’s Ball (2001), and the very first black celebrity, to ever win an Oscar, was Hattie McDaniel (6), for Best Supporting Actress, in 1940, for Gone with the Wind (1939).

…Laurence Olivier
Franco directed and acted in, the one hour long, short film, Interior. Leather Bar. (2013), a re-imagining of the lost 40 minutes, of the film-within-the-film, of Cruising (1980), which starred Al Pacino (1), who played the lead mafia boss, in The Godfather: Part – III (1990), which also starred Austrian actor Helmut Berger (2), and Berger came in the movie, The Damned (1969), which co-starred Charlotte Rampling (3), who had a cameo in Deception (2008) starring Ewan McGregor (4), who shares a close friendship with fellow actor Jude Law (5); who was at one time his roommate; and Law starred in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), in which CGI manipulated archive footage of the late actor, Sir Laurence Olivier (6), is used as the villain of the movie, in a hologram form; the villain of the movie too is discovered to have been dead for quite sometime towards the end of the film.

…Sergio Fascetti
Franco carried an entire movie on his shoulders, when he played the lead, in the biographical adventure film, 127 Hours (2010), which was directed by Danny Boyle (1), who also directed the zombie flick, 28 Days Later … (2002), starring Cillian Murphy (2), who worked with director Ken Loach (3) in The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006); about the Irish anti-British rebellion for independence in the 1920’s; and Loach also directed Poor Cow (1967), which starred Terence Stamp (4), who played a visitor that seduces a whole family in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s (5) Teorema (1968), an Italian classic, and  Pasolini also directed the very controversial Salò o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma (1975); set in a Nazi-controlled northern Italian state during the second world war, where four dignitaries round up sixteen perfect specimens of youth, and subject them to 120 days of physical, mental and sexual torture; in which Sergio Fascetti (6) played one of the victims.

…Tena Desae
Franco played the famed ‘Wizard’ in, Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), which happens to be a sequel/prequel to the children’s classic musical The Wizard of Oz (1939), which starred a teenaged Judy Garland (1), mother of Liza Minnelli (2), and Minnelli starred in the 70’s, somewhat campy, musical, Cabaret (1972), which was based on Christopher Isherwood’s (3) semiautobiographical novel, Goodbye to Berlin, and Isherwood’s novella, A Single Man, was the basis for the movie with same name, released in 2009, starring Nicholas Hoult (4), who appeared in the British television show, Skins (2007 till date), which co-starred Dev Patel (5) who starred in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), which also starred Tena Desae (6).

…Audrey Hepburn
Franco starred alongside Tobey Maguire (1) in Spider-Man (2002), and Maguire appeared in Ang Lee’s (2) The Ice Storm (1997), and Lee won his second Best Director Oscar, earlier this year, for Life of Pi (2012), in which Bollywood actress Tabu (3) played the lead character’s mother, and Tabu’s aunt, 70’s feminist actress, and social activist, Shabana Azmi (4) starred in the British movie Madame Sousatzka (1988), in which the titular character was played by Shirley MacLaine (5), who starred along with Audrey Hepburn (6) in the, very bold for that period, movie, The Children’s Hour (1961), where two school teachers are accused by a student of being lesbians.

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)
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Six Degrees of Separation with Rock Hudson

Six Degrees of Separation: from Rock Hudson to

…Lillete Dubey
Hudson starred alongside Elizabeth Taylor (1) in Giant (1956), and television actress Sherilyn Fenn (2) portrayed Taylor in the TV movie, Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995), and Fenn starred in the creepy flick Boxing Helena (1993), alongside British actor Julian Sands (3), who acted in, one of the best of British Heritage Cinema of the 80’s, Room with a View (1985), which was based on novel by E.M. Foster (4), as was A Passage to India (1984), starring Victor Banerjee (5), who appeared in Delhi in a Day (2011), where Lillete Dubey (6) played his daughter.

…Joe Manganiello
Hudson starred alongside Doris Day (1) in one the most famous sex-comedies ever, Pillow Talk (1959), and Day starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s (2), 50’s re-make of his own 30’s classic, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Hitchcock was portrayed by Anthony Hopkins (3) in the bio-pic Hitchcock (2012), and Hopkins’ most famous role is that of a psychotic, cannibalistic, intellectual, killer in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), which co-starred Jodie Foster (4), who came in Flightplan (2005), in which Matt Bomer (5) had a small role, and Bomer currently plays the lead, in the television series, White Collar (2009 -till date), and in an episode, from the third season, of which, Joe Manganiello (6) has a guest role in.

…Tanay Chheda  
Hudson played a man who is an expert on sports fishing, but not so much when it comes fishing for a life partner, in the comedy Man’s Favourite Sport (1964), in which John McGiver (1), had an interesting small role, as did he in yet another hilarious comedy, Ariane – Love in the Afternoon (1957), where Audrey Hepburn (2) played the titular character; of the ‘afternoon girl’ of a playboy, driving the playboy to the brink of insanity; and Hepburn starred in Two for the Road (1967), a story chronicling 10 years of a couple’s relationship; from the day they met, to marriage, parenthood, infidelity and the disintegration of their love for one another; where the male lead was played by Albert Finney (3), who later came in the epic fantasy, Big Fish (2003), where Ewan McGregor (4) played the younger him, and McGregor came in Trainspotting (1996); a movie set in Edinburgh’s drug scene; which was directed by Danny Boyle (5), who directed Slumdog Millionaire (2008), where Tanay Chheda (6) played the younger (not the youngest) version of the lead character.

…François Goeske   
Hudson came in The Mirror Crack’d (1980), which was based on mystery novel by Agatha Christie (1), as is the, 25 year long running, British television series Agatha Christie: Poirot (1989– till date), and in a 2004 episode, of which, starred Emily Blunt (2), who, in The Young Victoria (2009), played England’s Queen Victoria (3), as did Austrian actress, Romy Schneider (4), in Mädchenjahre einer Königin (1954); who starred in another historical bio-pic; Ludwig (1972), where the titular charcter was played by Helmut Berger (5), who more recently appeared in the German television crime thriller, Damals warst Du still (2005), which co-starred French actor, François Goeske (6).

…Leehom Wang
Hudson appeared as a guest for quite a few episodes, in one season, of the famed 80’s soap, Dynasty (1981-1989), of which, the negative lead, was played by Joan Collins (1), who starred alongside George Hamilton (2), in the television movie, Monte Carlo (1986), and Logan Lerman (3) portrayed Hamilton in, My One and Only (2009), and Lerman, as a child artiste, appeared in The Patriot (2000), which also starred Heath Ledger (4) who appeared in Brokeback Mountain (2005), which was directed by Ang Lee (5), who also directed Lust, Caution (2007) which starred Leehom Wang (6).

…Robert Sean Leonard
Hudson played a young man in love with a much older woman, in the May/December tear-jerker, All That Heaven Allows (1955), where the older woman was played by Jane Wyman (1), who later starred in the 80’s soap, Falcon Crest (1981-1990), which also starred, Susan Sullivan (2), who currently plays mother to Nathan Fillion (3) in the crime drama, Castle (2009 -till date), and Fillion stars in Much Ado About Nothing (2012), a modern updated version of William Shakespeare’s (4) famed comical play, and Kenneth Branagh (5) too directed, and acted in, another modern film adaptation of the same play in 1993, which also starred Robert Sean Leonard (6).

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)
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Six Degrees of Separation with Logan Lerman

Six Degrees of Separation: from Logan Lerman to …

…Elijah Wood
Lerman starred alongside Aaron Eckhart (1) in the hilarious comedy Meet Bill (2007), and Eckhart appeared in the magnificent satire that was Thank you for Smoking (2005); a humorous insight into the manipulative business tactics of a tobacco industry; which was directed by Jason Reitman (2), who later directed yet another comical brilliance that was Juno (2007), starring Ellen Page (3); who earlier played a very dark role, of an underaged teenager who has her heart set on castrating a paedophile who she suspects is responsible for the death of yet another underaged teenage girl; in Hard Candy (2004), which co-starred Patrick Wilson (4), who appeared in Little Children (2006) with Kate Winslet (5), and Winslet starred in, the surreal masterpiece that was, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which also starred, former child star, Elijah Wood (6).

…Tom Sturridge
Lerman did one of the laziest roles ever in the pathetic flick called Gamer (2009), the only saving grace, of which, was the villainess character, excellently portrayed by Michael C. Hall (1), whose most notable role, happens to be, the titular character, of a serial killer, he plays in the television series, Dexter (2006-2013), and in the last season of which Sam Underwood (2) played his young protégé, and Underwood starred in a stage version of the play Equus, a play written by Peter Shaffer (3), and the 2007 West End and Broadway productions, of this same play, starred Daniel Radcliffe (4), who plays famed poet, of the Beat generation, Allen Ginsberg (5) in the movie Kill your Darlings (2013), and Ginsberg was also portrayed by Tom Sturridge (6) in On the Road (2012).

…Rudolph Nureyev
Lerman, as child artiste, appeared, alongside fellow child actor, Cameron Bright (1), in The Butterfly Effect (2004), and Bright played a kid who harassed a widow into believing that he was a reincarnation of her dead husband in Birth (2004), which co-starred Lauren Bacall (2), who was married to Humphrey Bogart (3); and together they were famously known as Bogie and Bacall; and Bogie starred alongside Ingrid Bergman (4), in the much loved tear-jerker classic, Casablanca (1942), and Bergman’s daughter, Isabella Rossellini (5), starred in White Nights (1985); which tells the story of a famed Russian male ballet dancer who had defected from the Soviet Union (USSR), who finds himself back in the USSR when a plane carrying him to Tokyo has to have an emergency crash landing there; the character of the defected dancer was loosely inspired by the renowned ballet dancer, Rudolph Nureyev (6).

…Rock Hudson
Lerman appeared in the excellent re-make; 3:10 to Yuma (2007); of the classic western, 3:10 to Yuma (1957), and the original was directed by Delmer Daves (1), who made his directorial debut with Destination Tokyo (1943), starring Cary Grant (2), and Grant starred in the amusingly crazily splendid farce, Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), which was directed by Frank Capra (3), as was the romantic comedy, It Happened One Night (1934), which starred Claudette Colbert (4); who was famous for playing the legendary ‘Queen of the Nile’; in Cleopatra (1934), as was Elizabeth Taylor (5) in Cleopatra (1963), who starred alongside Rock Hudson (6) in Giant (1956).

…Roger Vadim
Lerman played son to Renée Zellweger (1), in My One and Only (2009), and Zellweger starred alongside Tom Cruise (2) in Jerry Maguire (1996), and Cruise appeared in The Color of Money (1986) with Paul Newman (3), who starred alongside Robert Redford (4), in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and Redford appeared alongside Jane Fonda (5) in Barefoot in the Park (1967), and Fonda was at one time married to director Roger Vadim (6).

…Tom Ford
Lerman starred alongside Emma Watson (1) in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), and Watson appeared in My Week with Marilyn (2012), which also starred Dominic Cooper (2), who came in The History Boys (2006), alongside Stephen Campbell Moore (3), who appeared in Bright Young Things (2003), which was based on Evelyn Waugh’s (4) novel Vile Bodies, and Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited, was the basis for the 2008 movie starring Matthew Goode (5), and Goode appeared in A Single Man (2009), which was the directorial debut of fashion designer, Tom Ford (6).

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)
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Six Degrees of Separation with novelist Truman Capote

Six Degrees of Separation: from Truman Capote to…

…Katrin Saß
Capote’s novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s was the basis for the romantic comedy of the same name, released in 1961, starring Audrey Hepburn (1), and Hepburn starred in War and Peace (1956) which co-starred Jeremy Brett (2) as her brother, who later found fame as a television actor, playing ‘Sherlock Holms’, in various series and television films throughout the 1980’s &90’s, based on the ‘Holms’ novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (3), and Benedict Cumberbatch (4) currently stars in a modern, 21st century, homoerotic, adaptation on the famed sleuth, titled Sherlock (2010 till date), and Cumberbatch starred alongside Daniel Brühl (5) in the bio-pic The Fifth Estate (2013), and Brühl appeared in Good Bye Lenin! (2003), which co-starred Katrin Saß (6).

… John Ritter
Capote was portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman (1) in the bio-pic Capote (2005), and Seymour Hoffman starred in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), directed by Anthony Minghella (2), whose son Max Minghella (3) appeared in The Social Network (2010), where the lead was played by Jesse Eisenberg (4) who also starred in The Education of Charlie Banks (2007), which co-starred Jason Ritter (5), the son of late actor John Ritter (6).

… Matt Smith
Capote shared great friendship with fellow writer Harper Lee (1), who was portrayed by actress Sandra Bullock (2) in the movie Infamous (2006), and Bullock starred in the romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice (2002) alongside Hugh Grant (3), who starred in About a Boy (2002), along with Nicholas Hoult (4) and Hoult starred in A Single Man (2009) which was based on a book by Christopher Isherwood (5), who was portrayed by Matt Smith (6) in the biographical television film; based on Isherwood’s own autobiography; Christopher and his Kind (2011).

… Liev Schreiber
Capote’s closest friend and neighbour, Harper Lee (1), published only one novel, which was the basis for the movie, with the same name as the book, To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), starring Gregory Peck (2), and Peck appeared in The Paradine Case (1947), which co-starred Louis Jourdan (3), who starred alongside Joan Fontaine (4) in Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), and Fontaine starred in Jane Eyre (1943) alongside Orson Welles (5) and Welles was portrayed by Liev Schreiber in the television movie, RKO 281 (1999).

… Jugal Hansraj  
Capote wrote the screenplay for the horror flick, The Innocents (1961), starring Deborah Kerr (1), and Kerr played a nun, living the Indian Himalayas, in Black Narcissus (1947); released the same year India gained it’s independence from the British; in which Jean Simmons (2) played an Indian girl, and Simmons portrayed Queen Elizabeth – I (3), in Young Bess (1953); a film chronicling the younger days of Elizabeth – I, before she became the famed virgin queen; as did Cate Blanchett (4), in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), both directed by Bollywood director, Shekhar Kapur (5), who also directed the Bollywood classic Masoom (1983), which starred former child artiste, Jugal Hansraj (6).

… Jane Birkin  
Capote played his own look-alike, in the art-house romantic comedy, Annie Hall (1977), which was directed by Woody Allen (1), as was To Rome with Love (2012), which starred Penélope Cruz (2), who appeared in the Spanish film Los Abrazos Rotos (2009), which was directed by Pedro Almodóvar (3), as was La mala Educación (2004), which starred Gael García Bernal (4), who appeared in the surreal drama, The Science of Sleep (2006), alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg (5), daughter of Jane Birkin (6).

Bookish Nuwan

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)
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Six Degrees of Separation with Ellen Page

Six Degrees of Separation : Ellen Page to ….

… Tippi Hedren
Page played an underage teenage girl, who seduces a paedophile, to castrate him for his crimes, in Hard Candy (2005), where actor Patrick Wilson (1) played the paedophile, and Wilson starred alongside Kate Winslet (2) in Little Children (2006); an interesting art house film, set in the American suburbs, where many a plots interact with each other; and Winslet played ‘Ophelia’, in Hamlet (1996), a four hour long modern adaptation; set in the 19th Century, instead of the 16th; of William Shakespeare’s (3) famed tragic play, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet was also made into a movie in 1948, starring Laurence Olivier (4), who also starred in Rebecca (1940), which was based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier (5), and du Maurier’s short story, The Birds, was loosely adapted into a visually shocking B-movie, in 1963, starring Tippi Hedren (6).

… Jacques Demy  
Page appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), in which Cameron Bright (1) had a small, but significant to the plot, role, and Bright starred in Birth (2004), which also starred Lauren Bacall (2), who came in Blood Alley (1955) alongside John Wayne (3); a film about how a marine captain, saves a whole Chinese village, by secretly transporting them from Communist China to Hong Kong; and Wayne appeared in the western The Searchers (1956), in which Natalie Wood (4) did a cameo, and Wood starred in the musical West Side Story (1961), which also starred George Chakiris (5), who came in the French musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), a film directed by Jacques Demy (6).

… Eric McCormack   
Page played a pregnant teenager with a nonchalant attitude in Juno (2007), a film directed by Jason Reitman (1), who also directed George Clooney (2), in Up in the Air (2009), and Clooney starred in Alexander Payne’s (3) The Descendants (2011), and Payne also directed Thomas Haden Church (4) in Sideways (2004), and Haden Church appeared in the television sit-com Ned and Stacey (1995-1997), alongside Debra Messing (5), and Messing starred in Will & Grace (1998-2006) alongside Eric McCormack (6).

… Katharine Hepburn   
Page starred in Smart People (2008), where Dennis Quaid (1) played her father, and Quaid was married to Meg Ryan (2), who appeared in the best romantic comedy of the 80’s, When Harry met Sally … (1989), the screenplay of which was written by Nora Ephron (3), as was the screenplay of Silkwood (1983); which was based on a true story about a female anti-nuclear activist of the 70’s, who blew the whistle on wrong doings of a Oklahoma nuclear-plant, and was killed for trying to expose it; and this movie was directed by Mike Nichols (4), who made his directorial debut, with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which was based on a play by Edward Albee (5), as was A Delicate Balance (1973), starring Katharine Hepburn (6).

… Mark Harmon    
Page appeared in Peacock (2010), where Cillian Murphy (1), played a character suffering from a dual personality, and Murphy played a transvestite in Breakfast on Pluto (2005) which was directed by Neil Jordan (2), who also directed Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), which was based on a novel by Anne Rice (3), and another story of hers was the basis for the television movie Rag and Bone (2002), which also starred Carroll Baker (4), who appeared in The Carpetbaggers (1964), which was based on a novel by Harold Robbins (5), as was the television movie The Dream Merchants (1980), starring Mark Harmon (6).

… Mira Nair
Page appeared Woody Allen’s (1) To Rome with Love (2012), and Allen starred and directed, the art-house style romantic comedy, Annie hall (1977), which also starred Diane Keaton (2) who appeared in The Godfather (1972), which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola (3), as was The Rainmaker (1997), which was based on a novel by John Grisham (4), as was The Pelican Brief (1993), starring Denzel Washington (5), who appeared in the interracial drama Mississippi Masala (1991), which was directed by Mira Nair (6).

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)

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Six Degrees of Separation with novelist Patricia Highsmith

Six Degrees of Separation: From novelist Patricia Highsmith to …

… Marilyn Monroe
Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, was the basis for the movie, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), directed by Anthony Minghella (1), who also made Cold Mountain (2003), for which Renée Zellweger (2) bagged the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, her only Oscar win till date, and Zellweger worked with Tom Cruise (3) in Jerry Maguire (1996), and Cruise appeared in Rain Man (1988), alongside Dustin Hoffman (4), who gained famed when he played a young man being seduced by an older lady, whilst dating her daughter, in The Graduate (1967), and the older lady in question was played by Anne Bancroft (5), who earlier starred in the thriller, Don’t Bother to knock (1952), where Marilyn Monroe (6) played a psychotic babysitter, one of those rare movies where Monroe was given a chance to prove herself as an actress, and not just used as a sex symbol.

… Charlotte Rampling
Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, was adapted into the French Film, Plein Soleil (1959/60), by René Clément (1), who also directed Is Paris Burning? (1966) starring Kirk Douglas (2), whose son Michael Douglas (3) appeared in Coma (1978), alongside Geneviève Bujold (4), and Bujold played Anne Boleyn (5) in the bio-pic, Anne of The Thousand Days (1969), as did Charlotte Rampling (6) in Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972).

… Joan Collins
Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, was adapted into a noir thriller, by Alfred Hitchcock (1); which was released in 1951; and Hitchcock directed Gregory Peck (2) in the psychological thriller, Spellbound (1945), and Peck played the lead in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), which was based on a novel by Harper Lee (3), who was portrayed by Sandra Bullock (4) in Infamous (2006), and Bullock, early on in her career, starred in the television mini-series Lucky Chances (1990), which was based on the first two books; on the ‘Santangelo’ saga, a series of nine novels; by Jackie Collins (5), who happens to be the younger sister of actress Joan Collins (6).

… M. Night Shyamalan
Highsmith’s novel Strangers on a Train, was referenced in an episode of the television crime drama Castle (2009-till date); where two ‘strangers on a boat’ meet and swap murders in the style of Highsmith’s acclaimed novel; and the titular character, of Castle, is played by Nathan Fillion (1), who’s constantly mistaken; both on the show, and in real life; to be Jason Bateman (2), who starred in Juno (2007), for which Diablo Cody (3) won an Oscar for the Best Original Screenplay, and Cody recently directed the movie, Paradise (2013), which stars Octavia Spencer (4), who won the Best Supporting actress Oscar, last year, for The Help (2011), which co-starred Bryce Dallas Howard (5), who appeared in The Village (2004), which was directed by M. Night Shyamalan (6).

… Joachim Lafosse  
Highsmith’s novel Ripley‘s Game, was adapted into the German film, Der Amerikanische Freund (1977), by director Wim Wenders (1), who directed Nastassja Kinski (2) in the American film Paris, Texas (1984), and Kinski starred in the cult-Horror flick, Cat People (1982), where British actor, Malcolm McDowell (3), played her brother, and McDowell had a cameo in; the best French silent venture (with sound, but no voice) of the 21st Century; The Artist (2011), where the female lead was played by French actress, Bérénice Bejo (4), who appeared in Le Passé (2013), alongside, French actor of Algerian descent, Tahar Rahim (5), who starred in the Belgian flick, À Perdre la Raison (2012); a movie based on a real life tragedy, where a woman feeling suffocated in her marriage, kills her children and tries to commit suicide; and this film was directed by Belgian director Joachim Lafosse (6).

… Jessica Tandy
Highsmith’s novel Ripley‘s Game, was the basis for the movie, Ripley‘s Game (2002), starring John Malkovich (1), who starred in Dangerous Liaisons (1988), which was directed by Stephen Frears (2), as was Dirty Pretty Things (2002); a movie about illegal immigrants living and working in a West London hotel; which starred Chiwetel Ejiofor (3), and Ejiofor appeared in the Woody Allen (4) comedy, Melinda and Melinda (2004), and Allen also directed Manhattan (1979), where Meryl Streep (5) played his lesbian ex-wife, and Streep came in the murder mystery movie, Still of the Night (1982), which co-starred Jessica Tandy (6).

Bookish Nuwan

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)
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6° with Lauren Bacall

Six Degrees of Separation: from Lauren Bacall to …
(Lauren Bacall celebrated her 89th Birthday last month, on the 16th of September, 2013)

… Rupert Penry-Jones
Bacall starred alongside husband, Humphrey Bogart (1), in many a movies until his sudden death; and Bogart starred alongside Ingrid Bergman (2) in one most loved love stories till date, Casablanca (1942), and Bergman later appeared in the impressively splendid comedy, Cactus Flower (1969), which marked the debut performance of comedienne Goldie Hawn (3); the only movie for which she has won Oscar till date (for Best Supporting actress), out the two films she has been nominated, in two different categories, for; the other being (a nomination for Best Actress) in Private Benjamin (1980), which was directed Howard Zieff (4), as was Unfaithfully Yours (1984), which starred Nastassja Kinski (5), who later appeared in the television movie, The Ring (1996); a story about a German family that gets separated whilst secretly helping Jewish families during the Nazi occupation; where Rupert Penry-Jones (6), played brother to Kinski.

… Franco Citti
Bacall gained fame; for the sequence, where she teaches future real life husband, to whistle on reel life, in her debut performance; in To Have and Have Not (1944), which was based on Ernest Hemingway’s (1) forgettable novel of the same name, and Hemingway was portrayed by Clive Owen (2) in the television movie, Hemingway and Gellhorn (2012), directed by Philip Kaufman (3), who directed Quills (2000), which was based on the real life 18th century (and early 19th century) French aristocrat, Marquis de Sade (4); who was a great philosopher, politician and a revolutionary poet and playwright, and was incarcerated in various insane asylums and prisons for majority of his young adult life (from his 20’s to middle age), where he kept on writing, including his magnum opus, Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou l’école du libertinage; and this controversial work of his was the basis of the Italian art film, Salò o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma (1975), a contemporary adaptation, directed by famed intellectual, philosopher, poet, novelist, film director, Pier Paolo Pasolini (5), who also directed Il Decameron (1971), which starred Italian actor Franco Citti (6).

… Ioan Gruffudd
Bacall starred alongside Gregory Peck (1), as a fashion designer wife of a sports writer, in the comedy, Designing Woman (1957), and Peck appeared in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), which was based on a novel by Harper Lee (2), who was portrayed by Sandra Bullock (3) in Infamous (2006),which was directed by Douglas McGrath (4), who also directed Nicholas Nickleby (2002), which starred Romola Garai (5), who starred opposite Ioan Gruffudd (6) in Amazing Grace (2006).

… Harold Abrahams
Bacall played mother to Barbra Streisand (1), in The Mirror has Two Faces (1996), which also starred 90’s Bond, Pierce Brosnan (2) who appeared in The Deceivers (1988) with Shashi Kapoor (3), who produced 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), starring his real life wife, Jennifer Kendal (4), who appeared in the television mini-series The Far Pavilions (1984), in which the lead was played by Ben Cross (5), who, in Chariots of Fire (1981) played famed British athlete, Olympian champion of 1924, Harold Abrahams (6).

… Brad Davis
Bacall starred in Birth (2004); in which, Cameron Bright (1), played a child trying to convince a woman that he is the reincarnation of her dead husband; and Bright came in the satirical comedy Thank You for Smoking (2005), which was directed by Jason Reitman (2), who recently made Labor Day (2013), starring Kate Winslet (3), who came in Revolutionary Road (2008), which was based on a novel by Richard Yates (4), who co-wrote the screenplay for The Bridge at Remagen (1969), which starred Bo Hopkins (5), who appeared in Midnight Express (1978), where the lead was played by actor Brad Davis (6).

… Paul Mercurio  
Bacall appeared with Marilyn Monroe (1) in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), who was portrayed by Michelle Williams (2) in My Week with Marilyn (2011), which co-starred Dominic Cooper (3), who came in An Education (2009) with Carey Mulligan (4), who appeared in The Great Gatsby (2013), which was directed by Baz Luhrmann (5), who made his directorial debut, with the Australian film, Strictly Ballroom (1992), which was the debut movie for Australian actor Paul Mercurio (6) as well.

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)
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Six Degrees of Separation with Whoopi Goldberg

Six Degrees of Separation: from Whoopi Goldberg to …

… John Buchan
Goldberg played an unloved, lonely, young girl; leading a life under constant abusive circumstances, first by her father and then by her husband, in the early 20th century; in The Color Purple (1985), which was directed by Steven Spielberg (1), who also directed War Horse (2011), starring Jeremy Irvine (2), who acted in the most recent adaptation of Great Expectations (2012), an acclaimed novel by Charles Dickens (3), whose novel Oliver Twist has been the basis for many a movies, and one of the most famous adaptations happens to be the 1948 release, directed by David Lean (4), who also directed A Passage to India (1984), which starred Peggy Ashcroft (5), who appeared in The 39 Steps (1935), which was based on a novel by John Buchan (6).

… Gary Cooper
Goldberg  starred alongside Stephen Collins (1) in Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986), who came in the tragic love story The Promise (1979), which was later adapted into a novel by Danielle Steel (2), a rarity; as generally films are adapted into movies, but seldom are movies a basis for books; and Steel’s 1988 novel Zoya; a story about a Russian heiress who had to flee from her country,  during the 1917 Russian Revolution; was adapted into a television film, Zoya (1995), in which the titular character was played by Melissa Gilbert (3) who, as a child artiste, acted in the television series Little House on the Prairie (1974-1983), where Michael Landon (4) played her father, and Landon started his career with a bit role in These Wilder Years (1956), starring Barbara Stanwyck (5), who starred alongside Gary Cooper (6) in Ball of Fire (1941).

… Peter Ustinov  
Goldberg  recently was seen as a guest star in quite a few episodes of the musical television comedy series, Glee (2012 – till now), which starred the late Corey Monteith (1) who died three months ago, aged 31, of a drug overdose, and Monteith appeared in Monte Carlo (2011) in which French actor Pierre Boulanger (2) had a small role, and Boulanger, as a childe artiste, starred opposite the legendary Omar Sharif (3) in Monsieur Ibrahim et Les Fleurs du Coran (2003), and Sharif starred in the psychological drama, The Appointment (1969); where he played a man suspecting his wife to be a high-class prostitute; which was directed by Sidney Lumet (4), as was, Murder on the Orient Express (1974), which was based on a mystery novel by Agatha Christie (5), as was Death on the Nile (1978), where the lead sleuth was played by British Born actor; with Russian, German, French, Italian and Ethiopian, aristocratic, roots; Peter Ustinov (6).

… Romain Duris
Goldberg  played a comical psychic in Ghost (1990), where the ghost was played by Patrick Swayze (1), who starred in The Outsiders (1983), directed by Francis Ford Coppola (2), whose most noteworthy directorial venture happens to be The Godfather trilogy (1972, 1974 & 1990), and in the first Godfather film, Marlon Brando (3) starred as ‘The Godfather’, and in the same year, Brando was seen in the very controversial, Last Tango in Paris (1972), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci (4), who directed French actor Louis Garrel (5) in The Dreamers (2003), and Garrel played brother to Romain Duris (6) in Dans Paris (2006).

…Daniel Radcliffe
Goldberg  played ‘God’ in A Little Bit of Heaven (2011), which starred Mexican actor, Gael García Bernal (1), who played Che Guevara (2) in The Motorcycle Diaries (2004); a movie set before Guevara became a rebel; directed by Walter Salles (3), who directed On The Road (2012); a movie on the post WWII, Beat Generation, of the 40’s & 50’s; where actor Tom Sturridge (4) played famed poet Allen Ginsberg (5), who was portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe (6), in Kill Your Darlings (2013).

… Scott Baio  
Goldberg  played the lead in Steven Spielberg’s (1) The Color Purple (1985), and Spielberg directed Schindler’s List (1993); the real life story, of how one German Businessman, managed to save 1,100 Jewish lives during, the second world war, from being gassed at the ‘Auschwitz’ concentration camp; starring Ben Kinsley (2), who previously starred in the bio-pic, Gandhi (1982); another real life account of a modern day saint, this time set during India’s Freedom struggle, towards the end of the British Raj, in the early 20th century, where an Indian lawyer revolts against British oppression through his philosophy of non-violence; which co-starred Ian Charleson (3), who also came in Chariots of Fire (1981); a film about two athletes competing in the 1924 Olympics; which also had Brad Davis (4), one of whose best work was in the film, Midnight Express (1978), directed by Alan Parker (5); which too was based on a true story; and Parker directed the bio-pic, Bugsy Malone (1976); the real life gangster story with an all child cast playing adult characters; where the titular character was played by Scott Baio (6).

Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense (6°)

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