RIP Thomas Michael Bond, CBE (13 January 1926 – 27 June 2017)

RIP Thomas Michael Bond, CBE
(13 January 1926 – 27 June 2017)
was a British author. He is best known for writing the Paddington Bear series featuring the eponymous character. More than 35 million Paddington books have sold around the world and the characters have also featured in film and on television. His first book was published in 1958 and his last in 2017, a span of 59 years. Bond was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Mr. T

Mr. T - Pencil Sketch of the Day, Wednesday, June 28, 2017

(born Lawrence Tureaud; May 21, 1952) is an American actor and retired professional wrestler known for his roles as B. A. Baracus in the 1980s television series The A-Team and as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film Rocky III. Mr. T is known for his distinctive African Mandinka warrior hairstyle, his gold jewelry, and his tough-guy image. In 2006, he starred in I Pity the Fool, a reality show shown on TV Land. The title of the show comes from the famous catchphrase used by his character, Clubber Lang.

Source: Wikipedia

Pencil sketch on 9x12 smooth bristol paper

Miguel José Ferrer - Pencil Sketch of the Day... Tuesday, June 27, 2017.

 

 

Miguel José Ferrer - Pencil Sketch of the Day... Tuesday, June 27, 2017.

(February 7, 1955 – January 19, 2017) was an American actor. His breakthrough role was the OCP Vice-president Bob Morton in the 1987 film RoboCop. He was the main character in Toto's music video for the song "I Will Remember" (1995). He also voiced the antagonistic Hun leader Shan Yu in Mulan (1998) and Big Boss in Rio 2. Ferrer's other notable roles include Dr. Garret Macy on Crossing Jordan, NCIS Assistant Director Owen Granger on NCIS: Los Angeles, Vice President Rodriguez in Iron Man 3, and FBI forensic pathologist Albert Rosenfield in Twin Peaks.

He was the son of actors José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney.

Source: Wikipedia

Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney - Pencil Sketch of the Day for June 20, 2017.

(born Joseph Yule, Jr.; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor, vaudevillian, comedian, producer and radio personality. In a career spanning nine decades and continuing until shortly before his death, he appeared in more than 300 films and was one of the last surviving stars of the silent film era.

At the height of a career that was marked by precipitous declines and raging comebacks, Rooney performed the role of Andy Hardy in a series of 15 films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized American family values. A versatile performer, he became a celebrated character actor later in his career. Laurence Olivier once said he considered Rooney "the best there has ever been." Clarence Brown, who directed him in two of his earliest dramatic roles, National Velvet and The Human Comedy, said he was "the closest thing to a genius I ever worked with.

Source: Wikipedia

Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson
Sketch of the Day, 07JUN17
(pencil on 9x12 smooth bristol paper)

(born January 3, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. He was born in Peekskill, New York, and moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia, when he was 12 years old.

Gibson is best known as an action hero, for roles such as Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon buddy cop film series, and Max Rockatansky in the first three films in the Mad Max post-apocalyptic action series.

He studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art. During the 1980s, he founded Icon Entertainment, a production company which independent film director Atom Egoyan has called, "an alternative to the studio system".

Director Peter Weir cast him as one of the leads in the critically acclaimed World War I drama Gallipoli (1981), which earned Gibson a Best Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute.

The film also helped to earn Gibson the reputation of a serious, versatile actor.
Gibson produced, directed, and starred in the epic historical drama film Braveheart (1995), for which he won the Golden Globe Award and Academy Award for Best Director, along with the Academy Award for Best Picture. He later directed and produced the financially successful and controversial, biblical drama film The Passion of the Christ (2004). He received further critical notice for his directorial work of the action-adventure film Apocalypto (2006), which is set in Mesoamerica during the early 16th century. After a 10-year hiatus from directing, Gibson returned with the critically praised and financially successful Hacksaw Ridge (2016), which won the Academy Awards for Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing and earned Gibson his second nomination for Best Director.

Sig Ruman - 04JUN17 Sketch of the Day Profile

Sig Ruman - 04JUN17 Sketch of the Day Profile
(Media: graphite pencil on bristol paper)
Siegfried Albon "Sig" Ruman
(October 11, 1884 – February 14, 1967) billed as Sig Ruman, was a German-American actor known for his portrayals of pompous and often stereotypically Teutonic officials or villains.

Born in Hamburg, German Empire, he studied electrical engineering before serving with the Imperial German Army during World War I. After his emigration to the United States in 1924, his acting career blossomed. Befriending playwright George S. Kaufman and theater critic Alexander Woollcott, he enjoyed success in many Broadway productions.
Ruman became a favorite of the Marx Brothers, appearing in A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, and A Night in Casablanca. His German accent and large stature kept him busy during World War II, playing sinister Nazi characters in a series of wartime thrillers. During this period, he also appeared in several films by director Ernst Lubitsch, a fellow German émigré, including Ninotchka (1939) and To Be or Not to Be (1942). He played the role of Professor Herman Von Reiter in Shining Victory (1941), an adaptation of an A. J. Cronin play. Ruman continued his trend of playing over-the-top German characters later in his career for Lubitsch's protege Billy Wilder, appearing in Wilder's films The Emperor Waltz (1948), Stalag 17 (1953), and The Fortune Cookie (1966).
According to Leonard Maltin in the DVD commentary for A Night at the Opera, Ruman had modified his screen name from Siegfried Rumann to Sig Ruman in an attempt to make it a little less German-sounding, to lessen potential anti-German prejudice against him.
Despite declining health during the 1950s and 1960s, Ruman continued to find work, making many guest appearances on television. He died of a heart attack on February 14, 1967, in Julian, California.

Claude Akins

Claude Akins (pencil sketch on bristol paper)
Claude Marion Akins (May 25, 1926 – January 27, 1994) was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen, and television. Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever (or less than clever) tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s television series B. J. and the Bear, and later The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spin-off series. Source: Wikipedia

James Coburn

James Coburn - pencil sketch on 9x12 smooth bristol paper.

(August 31, 1928 – November 18, 2002) was an American actor. He featured in more than 70 films, largely action roles, and made 100 television appearances during a 45-year career, ultimately winning an Academy Award in 1998 for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.

A capable, rough-hewn leading man, his toothy grin and lanky physique made him a perfect tough guy in numerous leading and supporting roles in westerns and action films,[5] such as The Magnificent Seven, Hell Is for Heroes, The Great Escape, Charade, Our Man Flint, In Like Flint, Duck, You Sucker!, and Cross of Iron. Coburn provided the voice of Henry Waternoose in the Pixar film Monsters, Inc.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s Coburn cultivated an image synonymous with "cool",and along with such contemporaries as Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, and Charles Bronson became one of the prominent "tough-guy" actors of his day. Source: Wikipedia