Latest news with #ReturnoftheJedi
BBC News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Rare Star Wars figure from Wellingborough a big hit at auction
A rare Star Wars figure described as the "holy grail" for collectors has sold for more than double the anticipated price at Yak Face toy, from the 1983 film Return of the Jedi, had been stored in an attic in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire for 40 years and was found with several other camel-faced creature was never officially sold in the US, hence its draw for collectors, and was expected to go for about £1,000 at an auction held by Hansons Auctioneers in ended up selling for £2,100, with the 15 unopened figures fetching £5,460 in total. The collection of Star Wars figures, discovered in-box with their original price labels, was put up for sale by the original owner's wife, who said he had not been a collector as such, and did not play with them much. The toys were made by Palitoy in Coalville, Leicestershire in the early 1980s. The rarest item in the collection was considered to be Yak Face, a character that also featured briefly in Return of the Jedi as a member of Jabba the Hutt's and toy expert David Wilson-Turner said: "The figures came from the vendor's husband's collection. "He didn't collect as such, just toys from his childhood that didn't get played with much. She was delighted with the result."He said there was international interest but the Yak Face figure went to a collector in toys went under the hammer in Etwall, Derbyshire on Thursday. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Buzz Feed
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
60 Pop Culture Photos That You Probably Have Never Seen
Titanic was originally supposed to open in the summer of 1997, but the movie went over schedule and was delayed until December of '97. This advance poster, which was created for its summer release date, marketed the film more in the style of an action summer blockbuster: James Cameron had a 2/3 scale of the Titanic built for the movie in Mexico. These images show just how huge the ship set was: Coincidentally, CBS aired a two-part made-for-TV movie titled Titanic a little bit over a year earlier, in November of '96. The movie starred a then-unknown Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tim Curry, Peter Gallagher, George Scott, and Marilu Henner as Molly Brown: Here's a behind-the-scenes photo of Dave Prowse in the Darth Vader costume, trying to cool off during the filming of Star Wars: A New Hope: The very first Star Wars spoof was on the Season 3 premiere of the Donny & Marie show in September of 1977 (the film, which opened in May, was still the No. 1 movie in theaters then, and Star Wars mania was in full swing). It featured Donny and Marie as Luke and Leia, Kris Kirstofferson as Han Solo, and Redd Foxx as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and featured dancing Stormtroopers, cheesy jokes, and Chewie hugging Darth Vader: The spoof was made with the approval of George Lucas, who allowed the show to use the original Stormtrooper and Darth Vader costumes. Along with the authentic costumes and props (including the actual R2-D2 used in the movie), Anthony Daniels played C-3PO, and Peter Mayhew played Chewbacca: Revenge of the Jedi was the original working title of Return of the Jedi, the change in the name was so last-minute that a (now rare) pre-release poster and teaser trailer for the movie both had the title Revenge of the Jedi in it: By all accounts, George Lucas always wanted to call the film Return of the Jedi, but the film's co-writer, Lawrence Kasdan, felt that "Return" was "too weak" and thought "Revenge" sounded better. Lucas changed the name close to the film's release because he thought that revenge was out of character for the Jedi. These are a couple of photos of Sarah Jessica Parker filming the very first episode of Sex and the City in June of 1997: Here's a promotional photo taken of Jonathan Taylor Thomas while he was recording the speaking voice of Young Simba for The Lion King: Gone With the Wind is a classic and considered one of the greatest films of all time. The film also did a lot of firsts, including being the first color movie to win the Best Picture Oscar and having the first Black actor to be nominated and win an Oscar — which was Hattie McDaniel for Best Supporting Actress. However, one first you might not know is that it was the first film to have its premiere televised (and yes, TVs existed back in the '30s, but they were EXTREMELY rare). Gone With the Wind's New York premiere was televised, and below is a photo from the premiere announcing it: The development of television was delayed because of WWII. Speaking of firsts, in 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first US president to appear on TV — FDR gave a speech to open the 1939 World's Fair in New York, which was televised. It also wouldn't be the only time he appeared on TV: The original opening credits for I Love Lucy throughout its run were actually animated. They were changed to the classic satin and heart credits when the show was syndicated (put into reruns), as the animated credits wouldn't work because they incorporated whichever brand was sponsoring that week's episode: The very first issue of TV Guide, released on April 3, 1953, featured Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's newborn son, Desi Arnaz Jr., on the cover: In 1977, 26 years after first costarring together on I Love Lucy, Vivian Vance and Lucille Ball would costar together one last time in the TV special Lucy Calls The President: Lucille and Vivian became friends and first costarred together when Truman was president — and their deep friendship and working relationship would span over seven presidents. Before Kermit the Frog became famous as the leader of The Muppets, he was actually well-known for his drag act! He went by "Kermina" and performed a lipsync-comedy act to Rosemary Clooney's "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face." Here's a screenshot of him performing it on The Steve Allen Show in 1956: And here is a screenshot of Kermit performing the lipsync-comedy act on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967: Here is a rare color photo of Coco Chanel at her 1958 Chanel Spring-Summer collection show: This is what the set of the Petries' living room on The Dick Van Dyke Show looked like in color: The iconic Hollywood sign was actually built in 1923 to advertise the Hollywoodland real estate development in the hills below it. The sign was originally only supposed to be up for 18 months, but it became a visual symbol of Los Angeles. Throughout most of the Golden Age of Hollywood the Hollywood sign read "Hollywoodland," with the "land" part only being removed in 1949: If you look at this photo of Hollywood (looking up Vine St.) from 1949, you can see that the sign still spells out "Hollywoodland" in the distance: In 1992, a seductive 75-foot cartoon cutout of the character of Holli Would from the movie Cool World was placed on top of the "D" in the Hollywood sign as part of the publicity stunt for the film. People who lived in the area were not happy: The movie was an adult animated/live-action film, in the vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and starred Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger as Holli Would: This is what the Bayside High set from Saved by the Bell looked like behind-the-scenes (which, TBH, looks a lot smaller than I imagined): Also, Saved by the Bell didn't use canned laughter; it was filmed before a live studio audience: Jean Stapleton and Carroll O'Connor were actually not that old when All In The Family premiered in 1971. Stapleton was 48, and O'Connor was 46 — for context, Reese Witherspoon is currently 48, and Ashton Kutcher is 46: This is what a 20-year-old Madonna looked like in 1978, when she first moved to New York: While filming Scooby-Doo, the actors employed various methods to help them act opposite a CGI Scooby. One method was to memorize exactly where (the creepy) Scooby's head on a stick — which was used for camera placement — was during the set-up: In case you were wondering, the scene in the airport where Scooby is in disguise as a grandma was filmed using a man dressed in costume and wearing a green screen hood: Here's Cameron Diaz... And Eddie Murphy recording their lines for Shrek: Michael Keaton's Batman wears Nike shoes in Batman and Batman Returns, but there are contradictory reasons why that came to be. According to the assistant costume designer on the 1989 Batman film, one of the producers had struck a product deal with Nike and needed them in the movie, and because they didn't fit stylistically with any of the other characters or background actors, they incorporated them into Batman's costume. While the lead costume designer on the 1989 movie remembers Nike gifting it to them without a tie-in: You might have never noticed, but Jack Nicholson gets top billing on the poster and opening credits of Batman (over the lead, Micheal Keaton). This was part of Nicholson's list of demands for signing on to play the Joker: This promotional photo of Jack Nicholson in the "Here's Johnny!" moment in The Shining was what got him cast as the Joker. In 1980, Michael Uslan, who would go on to executive produce all the Batman films, picked up a copy of the New York Post, and when he opened up the movie section, he saw this photo of Nicholson, which was advertising that The Shining was opening that weekend. Uslan, who had bought the film rights for Batman the year prior, immediately thought that Nicholson was the only one who could play the Joker. When he got home, he tore the photo from the paper and drew the Joker's face over it using Wite-Out and markers. The drawing, indeed, looks a lot like the Joker from the film: According to Uslan, "The day Jack Nicholson was hired was the best day of my career to that point." Here's what Humphrey Bogart looked like in color as his Casablanca character Rick Blaine: If you've ever seen Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, then you know it's one of the funniest movies ever and has aged surprisingly well. This is what Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis looked like in color as their drag characters Josephine and Jerraldine/Daphne: While here's a color photo of the rehearsal on the train scene in from Some Like It Hot: And here's a color photo of Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane: Popular Hollywood movies being adapted into Broadway musicals is not a new phenomenon. In 1970, one of the greatest films of all time, All About Eve, was adapted into the popular musical Applause, with Lauren Bacall in the role of Margo Channing (who was iconically portrayed by Bette Davis in the film). Below are some photos of the production when it was adapted for a CBS television special: In 1999, in an interview on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Lauren Bacall spoke about how Bette Davis approved of her performance. In 1966, Breakfast at Tiffany's was adapted into a musical, with Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain as Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak. The show was a huge failure, closing quickly after only four previews on Broadway. Here are a couple of photos of Moore and Chamberlain rehearsing for the show: These clay models of Woody and Buzz's faces were created for Toy Story so that they could be scanned into the computer whenever needed so that animators could always get the right shape, depth, and scale when animating them: To promote the remake of Child's Play in 2019, promotional posters of Chucky killing Toy Story characters were released: The poster designs were based on the promotional character posters for Toy Story 4 — which was released on the same day as Child's Play: Here's a behind-the-scenes photo of Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews rehearsing a dance number for Mary Poppins: Here is a screenshot of Britney Spears and Madonna rehearsing the iconic kiss they did during the 2003 VMA's "Like A Virgin"/"Hollywood" opening performance: And here's a screenshot of Christina Aguilera kissing Madonna during rehearsal, which wasn't seen during the original telecast because the camera people cut to Justin Timberlake to get his reaction: This is Ronald Reagan modeling for a sculpture class in 1939-ish: Here's a photo of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks putting their handprints and signatures in cement outside the Chinese Theater in 1927. They were the first two celebrities to ever do it: This is an awesome (at least to me) photo of George Lucas, David Bowie, and Jim Henson taken to promote Labyrinth: Here's Princess Diana at the London premiere of Labyrinth, alongside Jim Henson, as she meets Ludo: And here's Princess Di at the London premiere of Jurassic Park in 1993, warmly greeting her longtime friend, actor-director Sir Richard Attenborough, who played John Hammond in the film: In fact, the last premiere Princess Di attended was for Attenborough's In Love and War in February of 1997: Here's Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger in 1967, having a conversation as they wait for their train to depart: These photos are of the Apple Boutique, a short-lived London store owned by the Beatles. The store was open from December 1967 to July 1968 — closing for several reasons, including too much shoplifting and not being able to make a profit because they sold rather expensive to produce clothes at low prices: But the shop was open long enough for a young Maggie Smith to film a scene there for the movie Hot Millions, where her character goes shopping at the Apple Boutique for psychedelic clothing: When Forrest Gump was released in 1994, the special effects scenes that incorporated archived footage with Forrest in them were pretty mind-blowing. Here's a behind-the-scenes photo of how the scene where Forrest meets Richard Nixon was filmed: And here's how the scene looked in the film: This is what the mysterious and spooky, and all together ooky cast of The Addams Family looked like in color: While Salvador Dalí is an artist who is most associated with the surrealism movement of the '20s and '30s, he was actually still a very active artist at the same time Andy Warhol was in the '60s and '70s (in fact, Dalí outlived Warhol). Below is a photo of the two in 1975, at a screening of the film Shampoo: Here's a behind-the-scenes photo of the Clueless cast with the movie's director, Amy Heckerling, taken while they filmed the movie's final scene: Jackie Kennedy's iconic pink suit is, of course, forever linked to JFK's assassination. However, she wore the suit publicly at least six times before that day. Below is a photo of her wearing it to visit her sister, Lee Radziwill, in London in March 1962. She also wore it when the Maharajah and Maharani of Jaipur visited the White House in October 1962. When The Wizard of Oz started filming, the Wicked Witch of West was not as menacing looking as she would be in the final film, with Margaret Hamilton wearing less makeup and a long bob wig. While Judy Garland's Dorothy wore a strawberry blonde wig and a lot of makeup to give her a "baby-doll" look: Two weeks' worth of footage was shot with the characters having these looks until the film's director, Richard Thrope, was let go from the film, after MGM executives thought that the scenes he shot "did not have the right air of fantasy about them." The movie was paused and Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West's costumes were redesigned to what we saw in the final film: Also, none of the footage Thrope shot survived. Here's a photo of Martin Luther King Jr., along with his kids, Yolanda and Martin Luther III, in 1964, riding the Ford Magic Skyway attraction that was built by Disney for the New York World's Fair: It's A Small World was actually an attraction that Disney originally built for the 1964 New York World's Fair, and this is what the exterior of the ride looked like: Here's a behind-the-scenes photo of Alfred Hitchcock directing Janet Leigh in the iconic shower scene in Psycho: This is a marketing poster for Psycho featuring Alfred Hitchcock telling people they needed to arrive at the movie on time or else they wouldn't be allowed to be let in. Before the 1970s, it was common for people to buy tickets and drop into a theater at any point during a movie. The poster was created because Hitchcock wanted to ensure that people didn't have the plot twists spoiled by showing up late — and the campaign worked: If you've been on TikTok, then you might have stumbled upon a video of some younger people who didn't know that we used to have commercial supersonic planes. This is a photo of Queen Elizabeth on a chartered Concorde on her way back to London in 1977, after her Silver Jubilee tour of Canada and the West Indies: Did the late Queen Elizabeth ever watch a Lindsay Lohan movie? The answer is YES! Here's the Queen meeting Natasha Richardson at The Parent Trap's Royal Premiere in London in 1998: This is how the water balloon scene was filmed in The Parent Trap: Here's a behind-the-scenes photo of director Mark Waters showing Daniel Franzese how to grab Lindsay Lohan's hair in the "Is that your natural hair color" moment in Mean Girls: And here's a behind-the-scenes photo of Tina Fey filming the gym scene in Mean Girls: And lastly, here are Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe at a photo-call in London, in August 2000, after it was announced that they would be playing Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Harry Potter in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone film:
Time of India
21-07-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Kenneth Colley, the Star Wars actor, dies aged 87 from Covid‑19–related pneumonia
Image credits: X Kenneth Colley , the steely-eyed British actor best known for his role as Admiral Piett in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, has died. He was 87. With his gaunt features and quiet authority, Colley stood out in a galaxy packed with larger-than-life characters—earning a rare return for a second film as Darth Vader's highest-ranking officer. His agent, Julian Owen, confirmed that Colley died on June 30 at a hospital in Ashford, England, from complications of pneumonia after contracting COVID-19. He had injured his arm in a fall and became ill while hospitalized, an all-too-familiar trajectory during the pandemic years, when hospital-acquired infections sharply increased pneumonia risk, particularly among the elderly. Coronavirus and Pneumonia Image credits: X While many people who contract COVID-19 only feel symptoms similar to a rough seasonal bug, there are others for whom the virus takes a sharper turn. In some cases, the symptoms can spread into the lungs and trigger pneumonia across both. COVID-related pneumonia has proven to be especially aggressive and, at times, fatal. Pneumonia: Risks, symptoms, and what it is Image credits: X Pneumonia itself isn't new. It's an infection of the lungs where the tiniest air sacs, known as alveoli, become inflamed. In severe cases, these sacs flood with fluid or pus, cutting off oxygen and making every breath feel like a struggle. People often report exhaustion, chest discomfort, fever, and a cough that doesn't let up. Treatments range from over-the-counter fever reducers to hospital care with oxygen or, in the worst scenarios, ventilators. Though pneumonia can follow colds or flu, it's not limited to viruses. Bacteria, fungi, or any other invading organism can be behind it. But what sets COVID-19 pneumonia apart is how quickly it can escalate. Preliminary signs of COVID-19 include: fever, a dry cough, shortness of breath, Fatigue, chills, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea, belly pain, loss of smell or taste, sore throat, runny nose, pinkeye, and skin rashes. If your COVID-19 infection begins to develop into pneumonia, the symptoms can also include rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, rapid breathing, dizziness, and heavy sweating. People who are most at risk are older people, above the age of 65 in general, and even more so if past 85. Further, people who are already dealing with chronic diseases like asthma, heart disease, and liver disease are also at risk due to weak metabolism and immunity.
Boston Globe
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Kenneth Colley, 87, ‘Star Wars' actor with a commanding presence, dies
Advertisement In a 2014 interview, he recalled that when he walked into an office to meet Irvin Kershner, the director of 'The Empire Strikes Back,' Kershner told him he was looking for 'someone that would frighten Adolf Hitler.' Colley, with his gaunt face and steely eyes, fit the bill. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Admiral Piett is appointed top commander of the Imperial fleet after his superior is killed by Darth Vader (whose physical presence is played by David Prowse) for his poor judgment. Mr. Colley often said that he saw Admiral Piett as a shrewd operator who followed orders for the sake of survival in Darth Vader's world. In his interpretation of the character, he reinforced the severity and tension felt in the camp as the Rebel alliance evades capture. Advertisement The film grossed more than $200 million in its original release, according to the site Box Office Mojo, with Admiral Piett emerging as an unexpected crowd pleaser. As Mr. Colley liked to recall, the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, asked him to come back for 'Return of the Jedi' (1983) after he received a flood of fan letters curious about Admiral Piett's backstory. Although the character wasn't included in the original script, Lucas wrote him into new scenes while on set. In the finished film, Admiral Piett leads the Imperial fleet until he is shot down by a Rebel fighter at the Battle of Endor. Mr. Colley relished the popularity of his role and appeared at conventions and fan events in the subsequent decades. He continued to interpret a wide assortment of roles, including an impudent left-wing journalist in a 1987 stage adaptation of John Hale's spy novel 'The Whistle Blower' (1984), but he mostly played villains, which, he told the magazine Star Wars Insider in 1987, was 'fine by me.' 'If you can burrow in deep and find some life there,' he said, 'that makes it interesting — you want to know more about this uniform.' Kenneth Colley was born Dec. 7, 1937, in Manchester, England. He began acting at the Bromley Repertory Company, where he worked as an assistant stage manager, according to The Guardian, and joined The Living Theater in Leicester in the early 1960s. He also trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company and with Laurence Olivier's National Theater Company. In the 1960s, he played bit roles in various TV series and televised theater productions, including 'ITV Play of the Week'; the anthology drama series 'Thirty-Minute Theater,' taking on the parts of Charles I and Hitler; and 'BBC Play of the Month.' He played a stammering accordion player in 'Pennies from Heaven' (1978), a major in 'The Danedyke Mystery' (1979) and Jesus in the film 'Monty Python's Life of Brian' (1979). Advertisement Mr. Colley married Mary Dunne in 1962. She died in 2018. Information on his survivors was not immediately available. His other notable performances include the Duke of Vienna in 'Measure for Measure,' a 1979 BBC Shakespeare production; Adolf Eichmann in 'Wallenberg' (1985); and a cranky recluse in a Nancy Meckler 2000 revival of Brecht's 1939 play 'Mother Courage and Her Children,' a role he 'brilliantly played for one scene only,' as Sheridan Morley wrote in The International Herald Tribune. In a hot streak during the 1980s, he acted in Clint Eastwood's 'Firefox' (1982); 'Giro City' (1982), as the titular vice admiral in the British miniseries 'I Remember Nelson' (1982); and alongside Gregory Peck in the TV movie 'The Scarlet and the Black' (1983). 'In one year, I worked with Clint Eastwood, Gregory Peck, and David Prowse,' he recalled in 1987. 'I got a crick in my neck from always looking up toward the stars!' This article originally appeared in
Buzz Feed
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Most Memorable Movie Deaths That Left Us Shook
Movies indeed move us, and nothing hits harder than the death of a beloved character. On the always alive subreddit r/AskReddit, Reddit user u/CubicleJoe0822 asked: What movie death is seared into your memory forever? Here are just some of the answers at your own risk of trauma and tears: "That one Ewok that didn't get up in Return of the Jedi." "Doesn't show the actual death, but the scene in Titanic when the ship is sinking and the mother tucks her children into bed knowing they will drown...f*cked me up for life. I was like nine or ten." "The little shoe that gets dipped in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" "Macaulay Culkin in My Girl." "The sweet alien in Galaxy Quest." "Spock dying in massive radiation contamination in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." "Littlefoot's mom in The Land Before Time." "American History X. I was way too young to watch that curb-stomping scene." "Mufasa in The Lion King. That scene hit like a truck as a kid and honestly still does." "Private Mellish getting stabbed by the German soldier in Saving Private Ryan." "'I'm tired, boss.' The Green Mile." "The dog in I Am Legend." "Not only am I scarred still by Artax dying in the swamp of sadness, but I carelessly showed my young daughter The NeverEnding Story, so now she's scarred too. Thus turns the cycle of trauma." "The AC unit in Brave Little Toaster. That movie was a psychological horror, not a children's movie, and I'm tired of pretending otherwise." "The death scene in Blade Runner that features the character Roy Batty (portrayed by Rutger Hauer) delivering the iconic 'Tears in Rain' monologue just before his death." "Wash in Serenity. I relate to his wife, Zoe, going on a crazy kill spree. I'd do the same." "To the Gen X guys out there, Neil's death by suicide in Dead Poets Society. Hearing the dad's 'Oh my son!' when discovering his body haunts me so many years later." "I know he lives ultimately, but the Iron Giant." "Old Yeller." "The grandma in Dante's Peak." "Boromir in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. 'I would have followed you, my brother. My captain. My King.'" "Bambi's mom in Bambi." "'Brooks was here.' Shawshank Redemption." "In Guardians of the Galaxy 3, the death of the hybrid animals. So f*cking cruel." "Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2." "The little girl from The Bridge to Terabithia! F*ck that movie forever." "Marley from Marley and Me. Could go for most dog deaths on screen, they're always the worst." "Leon in The Professional." "Shelby from Steel Magnolias." "T-800 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Thumbs up into the molten steel." "The longneck dino at the end of the dock watching them leave while the entire island goes up into flames in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom." "Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment. Her goodbye to her kids and the way Shirley McLain reacts is painful to watch." "Up." "That chick in the tanning bed in Final Destination 3." "I know it wasn't really a 'permanent death' but Spider-Man when Thanos snaps in Avengers: Infinity War…'I'm scared, I don't want to disappear.' I have a kiddo about Spider-Man's age in that movie, and I lost it in the theater." And lastly, and perhaps the most devastating inanimate object death in cinema history, "Wilson in Cast Away." What movie death scarred you for life? Comment below and tell us why!
