taken from the E! intranet
Glenn ford Fond Dead[/b]by Joal Ryan Aug 31, 2006, 11:15 AM PTIn the 1950s, Glenn Ford stood square shoulder to square shoulder with the likes of Cary Grant, Marlon Brando and Jimmy Stewart. Ford, the Eisenhower Era box-office draw of Blackboard Jungle, revered by film buffs for his noir turn in Gilda, died Wednesday. He was 90. The actor, who retired in the early 1990s due to deteriorating health, was found dead by paramedics at his Beverly Hills home. Ford's screen career ran more than 50 years. In addition to Gilda and Blackboard Jungle, the original teacher-in-a-tough-classroom classic, other highlights included: the 1963 comedy The Courtship of Eddie's Father, the forerunner of the 1969-72 TV series of the same name; the 1962 epic The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse; the 1961 Damon Runyan tale, Pocketful of Miracles, costarring Bette Davis and directed by Frank Capra; the 1956 comedy Teahouse of the August Moon, starring Brando; the 1976 World War II battle flick, Midway; and 1978's Superman: The Movie, in which Ford played the young hero's sensible, but doomed Earth father, Jonathan Kent. Invariably, Ford was described as a steady or durable star, possibly because iconic didn't fit. He never won, nor was nominated for an Oscar. He didn't rate a place on the American Film Institute's Greatest American Screen Legends list. He didn't place a film on the AFI's Top 100 Hollywood movies list. And he didn't sing or sashay to "Put the Blame on Mame"--the indelible Gilda moment that belonged to his costar, Rita Hayworth. Instead, Ford was the kind of star whose considerable work was made to be discovered in late-night study sessions on Turner Classic Movies. Fittingly, upon news of Ford's death, the cineaste-devoted network announced it would celebrate the actor with a six-film marathon on Sept. 10. Last May, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, Ford was celebrated with a theatrical film series in Hollywood. Debbie Reynolds and Martin Landau were among the names to turn out. Ford himself was supposed to attend--his first planned public appearance in more than a decade--but it was not to be. "I wish I were up and around," Ford said in a statement at the time, as reported by Variety, "but I'm doing the best that I can." "There's so much I have to be grateful for." Born Gwyllyn Ford in Canada on May 1, 1916, the future leading man moved with his family to Santa Monica, California, while still a boy. There, he did theater, before landing a movie studio contract in his early 20s. He made his feature debut in the 1939 drama, Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence. In 1942, the New York Times judged that Ford was a "normally presentable young fellow with a wry sort of boyish face"--a guy's guy who "doesn't look at all like Superman." In the midst of his lengthy film career, Ford worked in two stints in the military: the first during World War II, when he served in the Marines; the second during Vietnam, when in his late 40s, the U.S. Naval reservist sought--and received--an active duty assignment. Ford married and divorced four times, including one union to dancer/actress Eleanor Powell.
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never been into western but he was a charismatic dude...
PA KENT
Rest in Peace.