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      Olivia Newton-John, Pop Singer and ‘Grease’ Star, Dies at 73

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      She amassed No. 1 hits, chart-topping albums and four records that sold more than two million copies each. More than anything else, she was likable, even beloved.Olivia Newton-John, who sang some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and ’80s while recasting her image as the virginal girl next door into a spandex-clad vixen — a transformation reflected in miniature by her starring role in “Grease,” one of the most popular movie musicals of its era — died on Monday at her ranch in Southern California. She was 73.The death was announced by her husband, John Easterling, who did not give a specific cause in his statement, though he cited the breast cancer diagnosis she had lived with since 1992. In 2017, she announced that the cancer had returned and spread. For years she was a prominent advocate for cancer research, starting a foundation in her name to support it and opening a research and wellness center in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. English-born, she grew up in Australia.Ms. Newton-John amassed No. 1 hits, chart-topping albums and four records that sold more than two million copies each. More than anything else, she was likable, even beloved.Ms. Newton-John and John Travolta in a scene from “Grease.” It became one of the highest grossing movie musicals ever, besting even “The Sound of Music.”Paramount/Library of Congress, via Associated PressIn the earlier phase of her career, Ms. Newton-John beguiled listeners with a high, supple, vibrato-warmed voice that paired amiably with the kind of swooning middle-of-the-road pop that, in the mid-1970s, often passed for country music.Her performance on the charts made that blurring clear. She scored seven Top 10 hits on Billboard’s country chart, two of which became back-to-back overall No. 1 hits in 1974 and ’75. First came “I Honestly Love You,” an earnest declaration co-written by Peter Allen and Jeff Barry, followed by “Have You Never Been Mellow,” a feather of a song written by the producer of many of her biggest albums, John Farrar.“I Honestly Love You” also won two of the singer’s four Grammys, for record of the year and best female pop vocal performance.The combination of Ms. Newton-John’s consistently benign music — she was never a favorite of critics — and comely but squeaky-clean image caused many writers to compare her to earlier blond ingénues like Doris Day and Sandra Dee. “Innocent, I’m not,” Ms. Newton-John told Rolling Stone in 1978. “People still seem to see me as the girl next door. Doris Day had four husbands,” she said, yet she was still viewed as “the virgin.”An entry into movies in 1978 aimed to put the singer’s chaste image behind her, starting with “Grease.” Her character, Sandy, transformed from a pigtailed square smitten with John Travolta’s bad-boy Danny to a gum-smacking bad girl. “Grease” became one of the highest grossing movie musicals ever, besting even “The Sound of Music.” Its soundtrack was the second best-selling album of the year, beaten only by the soundtrack for “Saturday Night Fever,” which also starred Mr. Travolta.The “Grease” soundtrack spawned two No. 1 hits, including the manically lusty “You’re the One That I Want,” sung by the co-stars. The doo-wop romp “Summer Nights,” which they also sang, reached No. 5. (The other No. 1 single from the “Grease” soundtrack was the title song, sung by Frankie Valli.) A ballad Ms. Newton-John sang alone, “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” earned the film’s lone Oscar nomination, for best song.Applying the evolution of her “Grease” character to her singing career, Ms. Newton-John titled her next album “Totally Hot,” and presented herself on the cover in shoulder-to-toe leather. The album, released at the end of 1978, went platinum, yielding the rock-oriented “A Little More Love” with the line, “Where did my innocence go?”Ms. Newton-John in an undated photo. In the 1980s she sought to shed her innocent image, emerging with “Physical,” which spent 10 weeks at No. 1 in Billboard’s rankings.The album featured Ms. Newton-John singing in a somewhat more forceful voice. Though her sales dipped as the 1970s turned into the ’80s, by early in the decade she began the most commercially potent period in her career, peaking with the single “Physical,” which spent 10 weeks on Billboard’s top perch. Later, the magazine declared it to be the biggest song of the 1980s.Olivia Newton-John was born on Sept. 26, 1948, in Cambridge, England, the youngest of three children of Brinley and Irene (Born) Newton-John. Her mother was the daughter of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born. Her Welsh-born father had been an MI5 intelligence officer during World War II and afterward served as headmaster at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys. When Ms. Newton-John was 6, her family immigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where her father worked as a college professor and administrator. At 14, she formed her first group, Sol Four, with three girls from school. Her beauty and confidence soon earned her solo performances on local radio and TV shows under the name “Lovely Livvy.” On “The Go!! Show” she met the singer Pat Carroll, with whom she would form a duet, as well as her eventual producer, Mr. Farrar, who later married Ms. Carroll.Ms. Newton-John won a local TV talent contest whose prize was a trip to Britain. While tarrying there, she recorded her first single, “’Til You Say You’ll Be Mine,” which Decca Records released in 1966.After Ms. Carroll moved to London, she and Ms. Newton-John formed the duet Pat and Olivia, which toured Europe. When Ms. Carroll’s visa expired, forcing her to go back to Australia, Ms. Newton-John stayed in London to work solo.In 1970, she was asked to join a crudely manufactured group named Toomorrow, formed by the American producer Don Kirshner in an attempt to repeat his earlier success with the Monkees. Following his grand design, the group starred in a science-fiction film written for them and recorded its soundtrack. Both projects tanked.Ms. Newton-John tried to expand her acting career with the 1980 musical “Xanadu,” here in a scene with the actor Michael Beck. Its soundtrack went double platinum.Universal/Kobal, via Shutterstock“It was terrible, and I was terrible in it,” she later told The New York Times.Her debut solo album, “If Not for You,” was released in 1971, its title track a cover of a Bob Dylan song.After some duds in the United States, Ms. Newton-John released the album “Let Me Be There” (1973), which led to a Grammy win for best female country vocal performance.Two key changes in pop music boosted her career that decade: the rise of “soft rock” in reaction to the harder genres of the late 1960s, and the mainstreaming — some would say the neutering — of country music, also epitomized by stars like John Denver and Anne Murray.The latter trend became an issue in 1974, after Ms. Newton-John was chosen female vocalist of the year by the Country Music Association over more traditional stars like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. Protests led to the formation of the fleeting Association of Country Entertainers. Yet, after Ms. Newton-John recorded her “Don’t Stop Believin’,” album in Nashville in 1976, the friction eased.The second phase of her career, which began with “Grease,” found further success through a duet with Andy Gibb, “I Can’t Help It,” followed by an attempt to expand her acting career with the 1980 musical film “Xanadu,” with Gene Kelly. While the movie floundered, its soundtrack went double-platinum, boasting hits like “Magic” (which commanded Billboard’s No. 1 spot for four weeks) and the title song, recorded with the Electric Light Orchestra.A campy Broadway show based on the film opened in 2007 to some success.Ms. Newton-John performing in Chile in 2017, the year she said her cancer had returned and had metastasized.Mario Ruiz/EPA, via ShutterstockMs. Newton-John’s smash “Physical” also yielded the first video album to hit the market, with clips for all the album’s tracks. “Olivia Physical” won the Grammy in 1982 for video of the year.She was paired again with Mr. Travolta in the 1983 movie “Two of a Kind,” an attempt to repeat the success of “Grease.” But the film disappointed even as its soundtrack proved popular, especially the song “Twist of Fate.”Ms. Newton-John was named an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1979.By the mid-80s, her career had cooled. For several years she cut back on work to care for her daughter, Chloe Rose, whom she had with her husband at the time, the actor Matt Lattanzi. They had met on the set of “Xanadu” and married in 1984; they divorced in 1995.That same year, she met Patrick McDermott, a cameraman whom she dated, on and off, for the next nine years. In 2005, Mr. McDermott disappeared while fishing off the California coast. Three years later, a U.S. Coast Guard investigation said that the evidence suggested that Mr. McDermott had been lost at sea.In 2008, Ms. Newton-John married Mr. Easterling, the founder of the Amazon Herb Company.In addition to her husband, she is survived by her daughter, Chloe Rose Lattanzi; her sister, Sarah Newton-John; and her brother, Toby.After learning she had breast cancer in 1992, Ms. Newton-John became an ardent advocate for research into the disease. Her Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund is dedicated to researching plant-based treatments for cancer, and she opened a cancer research and wellness facility under her name at Austin Hospital, outside Melbourne.Despite her own treatments, she continued to release albums and tour but failed to make headway on the charts. And she continued to act in movies and on television.In May 2017, she disclosed that her cancer had returned and that it had metastasized to her lower back. She published a memoir, “Don’t Stop Believin,’” in 2018.To the end Ms. Newton-John firmly believed in her audience-friendly approach to music. “It annoys me when people think because it’s commercial, it’s bad,” she told Rolling Stone. “It’s completely opposite. If people like it, that’s what it’s supposed to be.” More

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      in Music

      Olivia Newton-John’s Transformation Into Pop Royalty

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      When the singer smudged her classy image, she “unlocked something new that shot her to the top of pop’s Olympus,” our critic writes: “The vestal vamp.”We would’ve just called her ONJ now. But part of the appeal, I think, was all of that name, the possible royalty of it. Nobody wanted to waste a syllable. Olivia Newton-John. Just saying it might bestow a crown. The rest of her allure sprang from that classiness: She was neither queen nor first lady of anything, yet she seemed, ultimately, like … a lady. And that was something she could have some fun with, a category she could smudge. Eventually. I mean, this was a person who, at the heights of funk, disco and glam rock, recorded six country-esque albums, throw pillows for your ears. And most of their singles topped what was once known as Billboard’s easy listening chart. (So maybe she was the queen of that.)By the end of the 1970s, though, she had figured out the whole “lady” thing and spent 90 percent of her first Hollywood movie disguised that way, as a princess. There’s a lot going on in “Grease.” Most of it’s bizarre and has to do with sex and a sort of pure whiteness, particularly how, in both cases, Newton-John, who died on Monday at 73, was holding onto hers. Not for John Travolta, per se, but for “You’re the One That I Want,” the duet with Travolta (and a triple-X bass line) that ends the movie. The virginal bobby-soxer Newton-John had been playing was now in pumps and skintight black pants. Her hair had expanded from Sandra Dee to Sophia Loren. You could see her shoulders.That transformation unlocked something new that shot her to the top of pop’s Olympus: the vestal vamp. Nothing about the presentation of a four-minute pop song would be the same. Neither would anybody who sat through a dozen showings of “Grease.” The only reason my 5- and 6- and 10-year-old selves put up with it at all was the knowledge that we’d soon get to the part at the amusement park where Olivia Newton-John turns into an ONJ.In the movie “Grease,” Sandy (Newton-John, left) transforms into a sexpot to get back together with Danny, played by John Travolta.Paramount PicturesI didn’t learn much from Newton-John about sex. Only that its existence was there to be implied and winked at. It’s true that her pelvis was, at last, affixed to Travolta’s near the end of “Grease” but on a redundant ride called the Shake Shack. And, yeah, she does spend that zany video for “Physical” in a disco spa studded with Adonic gym rats, but when the tanned, fatless men walk off hand-in-hand, she gleefully locks arms with one of the spa’s tubbier clients. They’re the ones she wants — and, consequently, the ones I wanted, too.The videos, the hit songs, her lip-syncing them on “Solid Gold”: I also wanted Olivia Newton-John. And one of my parents must have known this because there was a copy of her second greatest hits LP, from 1982, at our house. And knowing what my parents weren’t listening to, the only reason it would’ve been there is for me; I wasn’t even 7. The thing about that album — more than any I’d ever studied up to then, except for Stevie Wonder’s “Hotter Than July” (you could see his shoulders) — is the gatefold, a good album’s second strongest intoxicant. And this one was just Newton-John in a horizontal display, head to thigh, hair shortish and characteristically a-feather. White knit top, tight white pants, some gold jewelry. Was she truly on her back or simply shot to look that way? I’d have to wait a whole two months, for the gatefold of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (not a dissimilar pose but with a tiger cub), to see anything as mesmerizingly erotic.Newton-John revamped herself at the dawn of the music-video era. She knew the power of the art form — her Grammy-winning 1982 video album, “Olivia Physical,” was the “Lemonade” of its day, inspiring a prime-time network TV event. She only had to toy with going too far. Her real thing was limitations. She seemed to know what hers were — as a vocalist, as a dancer, as an actor. And she luxuriated in them. There was nothing inherently subversive about her. Yet she was an ironist — the person you’d least expect to see, say, mounting a fat dude on a massage table and riding him like a mechanical bull. Even when she was straining for eros — the way she was in the video for “Tied Up,” in a red leather vest, her mouth seemingly in want of irrigation — you were watching an angel pursue a dirty face.That’s the reason she survived “Xanadu” — the musical belch, from 1980, with her as a Greek muse on roller skates: an imperviousness to the surrounding absurdity. It’s the reason she came to embody the sleek fantasies of pleasure, painlessness and profit of the 1980s. Nothing disturbed her. She disturbed no one. Even that gatefold: She’s fully clothed! The skates and spandex were a prop and a metaphor. And “Physical” remained the decade’s longest-running No. 1 song.Gene Kelly, left, and Newton-John in the movie “Xanadu,” from 1980.Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesBut at some point, she stopped perking us up. Well, we stopped letting her. Madonna had come along and threatened to put her out of business. I swore she was a parody of Newton-John’s flirty, jolly, heaven-sent persona; of her being staunchly white while adjacent to a wealth of Black and Latin music. What would it mean to mean it, not just to get dirty but to be dirty, to mix in some of that Blackness and brownness? “Like a Virgin,” for instance, is Newton-John but more ornately ironic, authentically, imaginatively lewd. Even though Newton-John’s hit machine was still going by 1985, she was already becoming a memory of a kind of innocence. Which is to say that she was never, ever forgotten. She’s a place pop music has been trying to get back to: the Stacey Q’s and Cathy Dennises, the Carly Rae Jepsens and Dua Lipas; the one and only Kylie Minogue.What I like to go back to with Olivia Newton-John isn’t her body at all. It’s her singing. There’s always more to it than I remember. I was putting it in sundresses and leotards. But, boy, that voice could work a singlet, too: She learned to flex her soprano so that it bent, barked, yipped and squealed. “Totally Hot,” from 1978, occasionally features sounds more typical for Sea World. Yet any deficiencies in soulfulness were repaid in spirit.She also perfected a great trick: layering. Instead of just one of her, suddenly, in a pre-chorus or a chorus-chorus, there was a fleet, of lilting, undulating, rainbowing, billowing, Bee Gee-ing selves, on “Have You Never Been Mellow,” on “A Little More Love,” on “Magic.” She had but one body, but on a record, she could become a multitude. The warmth of that sound; the glorious blue-sky of it still warrants exclamation — like “oh my lord” but alternatively divine. I like “ONJ.” More

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      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Princess’ and ‘Password’

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      HBO airs a new documentary on the life and death of Princess Diana. And NBC brings back a game show.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Aug. 8 — 14. Details and times are subject to change.MondayMOULIN ROUGE (2001) 5:49 p.m. on Starz. Over twenty years before Baz Luhrmann was focused on “Elvis,” he directed this whimsical, pop-music filled love story. Set in Paris in 1899 Christian (Ewan McGregor), a writer, meets Satine (Nicole Kidman), a cabaret dancer, at Moulin Rouge and tries to impress her in order to be able to perform his play at the now-iconic venue in the outskirts of Montmartre. They end up falling in love despite the relationship Satine is faking with a Duke (Richard Roxburgh) who is helping fund the club. “‘Moulin Rouge’ will be accused of having no heart,” Elvis Mitchell wrote in his review for The New York Times. “But the truth is just the opposite. The movie has so much heart that the poor overworked organ explodes in every scene.”TuesdayFrom left: a contestant, Jimmy Fallon and Keke Palmer in “Password.”Jordan Althaus/NBCPASSWORD 10 p.m. on NBC. In 1961, CBS aired its first episode of this game show. After a 14-year run, the show ended and instead became an occasional segment on Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show.” This Tuesday, the show is coming back with Fallon as an executive producer and Keke Palmer as the host. Each episode will feature Fallon teaming up with a celebrity guest (to name a few: Chelsea Handler, Heidi Klum and Martin Short), and they will be playing against two contestants to guess a secret password using one-word codes. The first episode of the show will honor Betty White, who originally played the game on the show in 1961 — which is also where she met her husband, Allen Ludden, who hosted the show.HARD KNOCKS: THE DETROIT LIONS 10 p.m. on HBO. With a new team and new season, football fans are getting another inside look into what goes on at training camp — this season follows the Detroit Lions. Each season of this long-running show follows a different NFL team’s players and coaches in their personal and professional lives. This year, cameras followed the Lions at their training camp in Allen Park, Mi. Later this fall, there will be another new season featuring the Arizona Cardinals.WednesdayAlan Tudyk in “Resident Alien.”SYFYRESIDENT ALIEN 10 p.m. on SYFY. After a midseason break, this show is back on Wednesday to tie up loose ends from the first half of the second season. In the series, which is based on a comic book of the same name, Alan Tudyk plays Harry Vanderspeigle, an alien who was dropped to earth on a mission to destroy all life but cannot do that until he fixes his spaceship. In the meantime, he pretends to be a small town doctor. The show has already been renewed for a third season.ThursdayBUMP 8 p.m. on the CW. Coming all the way from Australia, this show about an unexpected teen pregnancy is airing in the U.S. for the first time this week. The series begins when a 17-year-old girl named Olympia (Nathalie Morris) is rushed to the hospital for intense cramps and finds out she is actually in labor. She then has to reassess her ten-year plan when she realizes the baby’s father is not her boyfriend. The original run on Stan in Australia finished after two seasons.FridayCHILDREN OF THE UNDERGROUND 8 p.m. on FX. In the late 1980s into the early 1990s, Faye Yager was creating a secret network of women and children who she was helping protect from alleged abuse at the hands of their husbands or fathers when the criminal justice system did not step in. In 1992, she went to trial herself, for kidnapping and emotional cruelty of the children she was claiming to help. Though she was acquitted of all charges, public opinion has not decided whether she was hurting or helping the families she worked with. This original documentary is diving deep into who Yager was and what she was trying to accomplish in this five-part original series.SaturdayTHE PRINCESS (2022) 8 p.m. on HBO. Aug. 31 will mark the 25th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Though there has been no shortage of details surrounding her untimely death in the years that followed, this documentary uses archival interviews and footage to highlight key moments in the princess’s public life and lay out the details as if they were happening in real time. The film focuses on the public adoration of the princess as well as the intense media scrutiny she faced.SundayAaron Paul in “Westworld.”John Johnson/HBOWESTWORLD 9 p.m. on HBO. This show, which was first set in a futuristic park meant for wealthy people looking for a vacation, is wrapping up its fourth season this week. The show first premiered in 2016, and viewers experienced a seven-year time jump in the show between season three and the current season. This season consisted of eight episodes, and there is no word from HBO yet about whether it will be renewed.WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? 7 p.m. on NBC. It turns out that Zachary Quinto, who played Commander Spock in “Star Trek Beyond,” wasn’t the first person in his family to say the iconic greeting “live long and prosper” — his great-grandfather, P.J. McArdle, wrote a letter to the editor in a newspaper published in 1899 that ends with the phrase: “May it live long and prosper.” This is just one of the things that Quinto finds out about his history on this show, executive produced by Ancestry, which is finishing up its eighth season this week. This season comprised six episodes featuring Billy Porter, Nick Offerman, Allison Janney, Zachary Levi and Bradley Whitford.GRANTCHESTER 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The seventh season of this series is set in the summer of 1959. There are lots of murders happening in the city of Grantchester, which gives the detective inspector Geordie Keating (Robson Green) and his friend, the Reverend Will Davenport (Tom Brittney) a lot of crime solving to do. The show, which originally aired on ITV in Britain, has not yet confirmed whether there will be an eighth season. More

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      in Movies

      Clu Gulager, Rugged Character Actor of Film and TV, Dies at 93

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      On TV, he played Billy the Kid on the “The Tall Man” and was seen on the long-running “The Virginian.” His movies ranged from “The Killers” to “The Last Picture Show.” Clu Gulager, a rugged character actor who appeared in critically acclaimed films like “The Last Picture Show” as well as low-budget horror movies, and who memorably portrayed gunslingers on two television westerns, died on Friday at his son John’s home in Los Angeles. He was 93.John Gulager confirmed the death. He said his father’s health had been in decline since he suffered a back injury several years ago.Mr. Gulager’s rough-hewed good looks and Southwestern upbringing made him a natural for the westerns that proliferated on television in the 1950s and ’60s. He was seen regularly on “Wagon Train,” “Bonanza,” “Have Gun — Will Travel” and other shows.An appearance as the hit man Mad Dog Coll on “The Untouchables” in 1959 persuaded the writer and producer Sam Peeples to cast Mr. Gulager as the legendary outlaw Billy the Kid on “The Tall Man,” a television series he was planning about Billy’s friendship with Sheriff Pat Garrett. (By most accounts the title was a reference to Garrett’s honesty and rectitude, and to the show’s opening credits, in which Garrett’s long shadow stretches in front of him.)“He’s exactly what we were looking for, an actor with a flair for the unusual,” Mr. Peeples said in a TV Guide profile of Mr. Gulager shortly after the show first aired in 1960. “He lends a certain psychological depth to Billy.”The friendship between the lawman (played by Barry Sullivan) and the gun-toting rustler was fictionalized and greatly exaggerated over the show’s 75 episodes; many historians believe that Sheriff Garrett actually shot and killed Billy in 1881. Their fatal encounter never happened on the show, which ended abruptly in 1962.Mr. Gulager played a more lawful character on “The Virginian,” the first of three 1960s western series that ran for 90 minutes, which starred James Drury and Doug McClure. Mr. Gulager’s character on the show, Emmett Ryker, was introduced in the show’s third season when a rich man tried to hire him to murder a rancher. Although he refused to be a hired killer, he was framed for killing the man. After clearing his name, Ryker channeled his penchant for violence into the service of the law.On the series “The Virginian,” Mr. Gulager played a character who channeled his penchant for violence into the service of the law.NBC,via PhotofestIn Mr. Gulager’s first scene, Ryker was typically unflappable. He walked into a saloon and within moments angered a man playing cards. Ryker drew his gun on the card player before he could stand up, ending the conflict.Moments later a deputy sheriff asked Ryker where he learned to draw like that.“In the cradle,” he replied.Mr. Gulager’s acting career, which lasted well into the 21st century, was not relegated to the frontier. He appeared on non-western television shows including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Knight Rider” and “Murder, She Wrote,” and in several notable movies.Mr. Gulager, right, with Lee Marvin in “The Killers” (1964).The Criterion CollectionHe and Lee Marvin played hit men in “The Killers,” a 1964 film noir directed by Don Siegel and based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway that also starred Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes and, in what turned out to be his last movie, Ronald Reagan.In 1969 he played a mechanic in “Winning,” a film about auto racing with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. He played an older man who has a fling with his lover’s beautiful daughter in “The Last Picture Show,” Peter Bogdanovich’s celebrated 1971 study of a fading Texas town.He was also in more lowbrow fare, like the Keenen Ivory Wayans blaxploitation parody “I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka” (1988) and the horror films “The Return of the Living Dead” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2” (both 1985).His movie work continued well into his later years, including roles in the independent productions “Tangerine” (2015) and “Blue Jay” (2016). His final screen appearance was as a bookstore clerk in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” (2019).Mr. Gulager left the cast of “The Virginian” in 1968 to focus on directing and teaching. (The show remained on the air until 1971, becoming the third-longest-running western in television history, after “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza.”) His directing career foundered after the short film “A Day With the Boys” in 1969, but he became a popular teacher, running a workshop that focused on horror film acting and directing.“I tell the young students in my class that what we do is as important as the work of a man who grows the wheat, the doctor who saves lives, the architect who builds homes,” he said in an ABC news release before he starred in the TV movie “Stickin’ Together” in 1978. “What we do, in our best moments, is provide humanity with food for the spirit.”William Martin Gulager was born in Holdenville, Okla., on Nov. 16, 1928. He often said that he was part Cherokee; the name Clu came from “clu-clu,” a Cherokee word for the birds, known in English as martins, that were nesting at the Gulager home.His father, John Delancy Gulager, was an actor and vaudevillian who became a county judge in Muskogee, Okla., and who taught him acting from a young age, well before he graduated from Muskogee Central High School. His mother, Hazel Opal (Griffin) Gulager, worked at the local V.A. Hospital for 35 years.Mr. Gulager served stateside in the Marines from 1946 to 1948 before studying drama at Northeastern State College in Oklahoma and Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He continued his education in Paris, where he studied with the actor Jean-Louis Barrault and the mime Etienne Decroux.He married Miriam Byrd-Nethery, and they acted in summer stock and university theater. In 1955 both were in a production of the play “A Different Drummer” on the television series “Omnibus.” He continued acting in New York until 1958, when the Gulagers and their infant son, John, moved to Hollywood.Mr. Gulager’s wife died in 2003. Besides his son John, survivors include another son, Tom, and a grandson.John Gulager is a director of horror movies, notably the gory “Feast” (2005), which starred Henry Rollins and Balthazar Getty. That film and its two tongue-in-cheek sequels also featured the older Mr. Gulager as a shotgun-toting bartender battling fanged monsters in a Midwestern tavern. The second “Feast” movie was even more of a family affair.“You know, there are three generations of Gulagers in this movie,” John Gulager told the blog horror-movies.ca in an interview. One of them, named after Clu the elder, was Clu Gulager’s infant grandson.“He was 11 months old when we filmed it,” John Gulager added. “My dad said, ‘We have to get Baby Clu’s career started now.’ ”Christine Chung contributed reporting. More

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      in Television

      Clu Gulager, ‘The Tall Man’ and ‘The Virginian’ Actor, Dies at 93

      by

      On TV, he played Billy the Kid on the “The Tall Man” and was seen on the long-running “The Virginian.” His movies ranged from “The Killers” to “The Last Picture Show.” Clu Gulager, a rugged character actor who appeared in critically acclaimed films like “The Last Picture Show” as well as low-budget horror movies, and who memorably portrayed gunslingers on two television westerns, died on Friday at his son John’s home in Los Angeles. He was 93.John Gulager confirmed the death. He said his father’s health had been in decline since he suffered a back injury several years ago.Mr. Gulager’s rough-hewed good looks and Southwestern upbringing made him a natural for the westerns that proliferated on television in the 1950s and ’60s. He was seen regularly on “Wagon Train,” “Bonanza,” “Have Gun — Will Travel” and other shows.An appearance as the hit man Mad Dog Coll on “The Untouchables” in 1959 persuaded the writer and producer Sam Peeples to cast Mr. Gulager as the legendary outlaw Billy the Kid on “The Tall Man,” a television series he was planning about Billy’s friendship with Sheriff Pat Garrett. (By most accounts the title was a reference to Garrett’s honesty and rectitude, and to the show’s opening credits, in which Garrett’s long shadow stretches in front of him.)“He’s exactly what we were looking for, an actor with a flair for the unusual,” Mr. Peeples said in a TV Guide profile of Mr. Gulager shortly after the show first aired in 1960. “He lends a certain psychological depth to Billy.”The friendship between the lawman (played by Barry Sullivan) and the gun-toting rustler was fictionalized and greatly exaggerated over the show’s 75 episodes; many historians believe that Sheriff Garrett actually shot and killed Billy in 1881. Their fatal encounter never happened on the show, which ended abruptly in 1962.Mr. Gulager played a more lawful character on “The Virginian,” the first of three 1960s western series that ran for 90 minutes, which starred James Drury and Doug McClure. Mr. Gulager’s character on the show, Emmett Ryker, was introduced in the show’s third season when a rich man tried to hire him to murder a rancher. Although he refused to be a hired killer, he was framed for killing the man. After clearing his name, Ryker channeled his penchant for violence into the service of the law.On the series “The Virginian,” Mr. Gulager played a character who channeled his penchant for violence into the service of the law.NBC, via PhotofestIn Mr. Gulager’s first scene, Ryker was typically unflappable. He walked into a saloon and within moments angered a man playing cards. Ryker drew his gun on the card player before he could stand up, ending the conflict.Moments later a deputy sheriff asked Ryker where he learned to draw like that.“In the cradle,” he replied.Mr. Gulager’s acting career, which lasted well into the 21st century, was not relegated to the frontier. He appeared on non-western television shows including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Knight Rider” and “Murder, She Wrote,” and in several notable movies.Mr. Gulager, right, with Lee Marvin in “The Killers” (1964).The Criterion CollectionHe and Lee Marvin played hit men in “The Killers,” a 1964 film noir directed by Don Siegel and based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway that also starred Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes and, in what turned out to be his last movie, Ronald Reagan.In 1969 he played a mechanic in “Winning,” a film about auto racing with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. He played an older man who has a fling with his lover’s beautiful daughter in “The Last Picture Show,” Peter Bogdanovich’s celebrated 1971 study of a fading Texas town.He was also in more lowbrow fare, like the Keenen Ivory Wayans blaxploitation parody “I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka” (1988) and the horror films “The Return of the Living Dead” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2” (both 1985).His movie work continued well into his later years, including roles in the independent productions “Tangerine” (2015) and “Blue Jay” (2016). His final screen appearance was as a bookstore clerk in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” (2019).Mr. Gulager left the cast of “The Virginian” in 1968 to focus on directing and teaching. (The show remained on the air until 1971, becoming the third-longest-running western in television history, after “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza.”) His directing career foundered after the short film “A Day With the Boys” in 1969, but he became a popular teacher, running a workshop that focused on horror film acting and directing.“I tell the young students in my class that what we do is as important as the work of a man who grows the wheat, the doctor who saves lives, the architect who builds homes,” he said in an ABC news release before he starred in the TV movie “Stickin’ Together” in 1978. “What we do, in our best moments, is provide humanity with food for the spirit.”William Martin Gulager was born in Holdenville, Okla., on Nov. 16, 1928. He often said that he was part Cherokee; the name Clu came from “clu-clu,” a Cherokee word for the birds, known in English as martins, that were nesting at the Gulager home.His father, John Delancy Gulager, was an actor and vaudevillian who became a county judge in Muskogee, Okla., and who taught him acting from a young age, well before he graduated from Muskogee Central High School. His mother, Hazel Opal (Griffin) Gulager, worked at the local V.A. Hospital for 35 years.Mr. Gulager served stateside in the Marines from 1946 to 1948 before studying drama at Northeastern State College in Oklahoma and Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He continued his education in Paris, where he studied with the actor Jean-Louis Barrault and the mime Etienne Decroux.He married Miriam Byrd-Nethery, and they acted in summer stock and university theater. In 1955 both were in a production of the play “A Different Drummer” on the television series “Omnibus.” He continued acting in New York until 1958, when the Gulagers and their infant son, John, moved to Hollywood.Mr. Gulager’s wife died in 2003. Besides his son John, survivors include another son, Tom, and a grandson.John Gulager is a director of horror movies, notably the gory “Feast” (2005), which starred Henry Rollins and Balthazar Getty. That film and its two tongue-in-cheek sequels also featured the older Mr. Gulager as a shotgun-toting bartender battling fanged monsters in a Midwestern tavern. The second “Feast” movie was even more of a family affair.“You know, there are three generations of Gulagers in this movie,” John Gulager told the blog horror-movies.ca in an interview. One of them, named after Clu the elder, was Clu Gulager’s infant grandson.“He was 11 months old when we filmed it,” John Gulager added. “My dad said, ‘We have to get Baby Clu’s career started now.’ ”Christine Chung contributed reporting. More

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      ‘Nope’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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      ‘Easter Sunday’ Review: A Feel-Good Filipino Family Comedy

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      Jo Koy stars as a struggling comedian who is balancing his acting career with the demands of his son and mother.“Easter Sunday” has all the makings of a rollicking family comedy: The protagonist is a struggling actor and comedian with wacky relatives and a rocky relationship with his son. The film features mostly Filipino actors, with wonderful, culturally specific jokes and a cast of characters that fit into stereotypical, but no less true, immigrant archetypes. Not only Filipino viewers will see their families represented here; much of it rang true to this Dominican reviewer, as well.Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, the movie finds Joe Valencia (Jo Koy) trying to get his career off the ground as producers pressure him to put on a Filipino accent to book a major role. At the same time, he struggles to connect with his son, Junior (Brandon Wardell), a Gen Z high school student Joe views as privileged. Generational divides are also on display at Easter dinner at the family matriarch’s home in San Francisco, where Joe and Junior take a road trip.There are many genuinely funny moments in the film, including jabs between the warring aunties, the high jinks of a bonehead cousin and situations involving the family’s irreverent relationship to religion. Plus, the movie includes some winning cameos: Tiffany Haddish plays a police officer and old flame of Joe’s, and Lou Diamond Phillips makes an appearance as himself. But things veer a bit off course with a subplot involving an illegal scheme and neighborhood goons. “Easter Sunday” is at its strongest when it stays close to the Valencia family, which is made for TV.Easter SundayRated PG-13 for violence and some strong language. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Pattrakorn Tungsupakul on ‘Thirteen Lives’ and the Rescue

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      For Ron Howard’s retelling of the 2018 ordeal, Pattrakorn Tungsupakul not only played the mother of a stranded boy, she also made key script contributions.When Ron Howard set out to retell the story of the dramatic 2018 rescue of a young soccer team from a flooded cave in northern Thailand, he knew he would have to grapple with underwater photography, hordes of extras and a handful of surly protagonists in the form of the British divers who successfully saved the boys through extraordinary methods. But he also knew that, as an American director tackling a specifically Thai story, authenticity would be crucial — and that any deviation from verisimilitude would come at his peril.So for the new film, “Thirteen Lives,” which debuts Friday on Prime Video, Howard and his producing partner, Brian Grazer, hired the Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (“Call Me by Your Name”), employed the producers Raymond Phathanavirangoon and Vorakorn Ruetaivanichkul, and relied on actors from the region to serve as his guides.One such actor Howard came to trust was the 33-year-old Pattrakorn Tungsupakul, a petite television star from northern Thailand who plays Buahom, a single mother forced to wait helplessly at the entrance to the cave for an excruciating 17 days. Timid and afraid for her son, Tungsupakul’s character serves as the film’s emotional center.The whole experience was refreshing — and strange — for an actress who has spent close to a decade working in Thai television, an environment that Tungsupakul says has not always been very collaborative or encouraging.In the film, Tungsupakul plays the mother of one of the soccer players stranded in a flooded cave.Vince Valitutti/MGM, via Associated Press“Ron, he always asked me, ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘What do you want to say?’ And he listened,” she said in an interview in Los Angeles, where she was accompanied by her older sister, Rugeradh Tungsupakul, a lawyer who served as her interpreter. “Because he trusted me so much, I had to prepare myself and work harder. I had to bring my experience to this project.”She may also be the film’s secret weapon.“She’s the most broadly relatable person in the film,” said Howard, who compared Tungsupakul’s character’s seemingly endless wait outside the cave to being stuck in the waiting room while your child is in surgery — if the procedure lasted 17 days. “Dramatically, she’s the most heartbreaking.”Tungsupakul hails from Chiang Mai, a city not far from the Tham Luang Cave where the boys were trapped. Howard was initially attracted to Tungsupakul for her visceral connection to the character, but when he discovered she was also from the area and wouldn’t have to learn the very specific dialect, he knew she was the right woman for the job.Tungsupakul, who goes by the nickname Ploy, became an integral part of the production team. She improvised lines, researched specific cultures and traditions of her hometown, selected her own wardrobe and even suggested plot points that made it into the film.Getting details right was especially complicated because Covid restrictions prevented Howard from entering Thailand at all. Instead “Thirteen Lives” was shot in Queensland, Australia, and Howard remotely oversaw a film crew shooting exteriors in Thailand.“That was a challenge,” Howard said in an interview. “And there’s certainly the risk of underachieving in that way.”Since the producers didn’t have life rights to the boys or their families, Tungsupakul wasn’t able to meet with any of the survivors or their parents. Instead, she studied news footage of the rescue, particularly the reactions of the parents when journalists peppered them with questions each day. “The reporters kept asking ‘How do you feel?’ ‘How do you feel?’ ‘You must be sad,’” she said. “It was terrible. But for me, it was good because I have to do research, and I want to see the real reactions.”Tungsupakul’s character is a poor working mother who carries tremendous guilt for not being home enough for her son. She is also stateless, a recent immigrant from Myanmar who isn’t certain her child will be rescued along with the others because she doesn’t have the proper citizenship.Her character’s arc involves finding her voice in the quiet moments: She challenges the governor directly (“How can you understand? Is your own son going to die?”) — a moment very uncharacteristic for a culture predicated on politeness and respect. In one scene, she asks a famous local monk to bless a handful of traditional northern Thai bracelets. She then gives the bracelets to the divers (played by Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen, among others) before they plunge back into the depths.After graduating from law school, Tungsupakul chose instead to pursue an acting career.Jennelle Fong for The New York TimesTungsupakul brought the idea of the bracelets to the production as another example of paying attention to the local customs. “I asked my friend who studies northern culture at Chiang Mai University, and he said this is a must-have item,” she said. “It’s a signature of passing good luck to a person, giving him a blessing that if you’re going on a dangerous mission, you will be safe.”Tungsupakul is also one of a handful of female characters in a male-dominated cast — a factor that Ruetaivanichkul, one of the producers, said was crucial to creating balance within the production, which is one of a spate of screen projects, including the 2021 documentary “The Rescue,” about the mammoth effort to save the stranded soccer team and its coach. (The producer P.J. van Sandwijk worked on both “Thirteen Lives” and “The Rescue.”)“She introduces femininity and the soft side of energy,” Ruetaivanichkul said. “She shows the empathy within the group. That is what Ron emphasized from the very beginning, because otherwise it’s not going to be different from the story in the documentaries that focus on the rescuers. We are trying to do the world-building of Thai culture.”Tungsupakul and her sister were raised by parents who ran a small business trading construction materials. She graduated from law school, but instead decided to move to Bangkok to pursue a career in acting. Early success on a 2013 series in which she played a rural girl forced to move to Bangkok after her father is murdered made her a star in Thailand. When asked if she was famous, Tungsupakul demurred with a quiet “Yeah,” before adding, “But if I say ‘yes’ then maybe ‘Oh, I’m too much.’”“Thirteen Lives” is her first international production, one she found challenging when it came to modulating her emotions. She remembers Howard telling her at one point, “‘Ploy, in this scene, please don’t cry. No more tears,’” she said with a laugh. The tears came so easily because the world the production team had recreated in Australia felt so close to home. Tungsupakul was in Bangkok when the rescue was underway, but she remembers being glued to the television, watching the story unfold, positive that no child was going to survive.“I told Ron, there was just no hope,” she said. “It’s desolate. They have no light. It’s wet. Scientists say people can starve within three days. There are just many ways to die.”At the time of the interview in July, Tungsupakul had yet to watch the movie with a Thai audience, though she had viewed the link she was sent seven times. Her sister, for one, is a fan. “I feel proud,” said Rugeradh Tungsupakul, who goes by Waen. “I know how hard it’s been for her to get where she is today.”Tungsupakul’s biggest regret is that her father isn’t alive to witness her success. He died before her first television show ran and had not been happy when she abandoned law for the unpredictable life of an actress.“If there is any wish that I could make,” she said, “I want Prime Video to be available where he is now so that he can watch me in ‘Thirteen Lives,’ too.” More