Film Producer

A would-be film producer from Darlington was indicted Tuesday by a county grand jury on charges of forging his partner's signature on checks totaling $14,000.John W. Tower, cousin of former Republican Sen. John Tower of Texas, was charged with 38 counts of forgery following a 16-month investigation by the Bel Air Police Department, court records show.Tower, 37, also was charged with three counts of failing to file state tax returns and one count each of filing false state tax returns, theft and fraudulent misappropriation of funds.

Actor and Maryland native Edward Norton could be ready to take on the role of father. According to US Weekly, Norton's fiancee Shauna Robertson is expecting, due "any day now. " Norton's publicist told Insider Tuesday that she couldn't comment one way or the other about the star's personal life. Robertson is a film producer who has worked on a number of Judd Apatow movies including "Knocked up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin. " The couple, along with others, co-founded Crowdrise, a website that helps people raise money for causes.

Actor and Maryland native Edward Norton could be ready to take on the role of father. According to US Weekly, Norton's fiancee Shauna Robertson is expecting, due "any day now. " Norton's publicist told Insider Tuesday that she couldn't comment one way or the other about the star's personal life. Robertson is a film producer who has worked on a number of Judd Apatow movies including "Knocked up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin. " The couple, along with others, co-founded Crowdrise, a website that helps people raise money for causes.

Baltimore's own Charles S. Dutton, star of screens big ("Gothika") and small (Fox sitcom "Roc"), Emmy winner for directing HBO's "The Corner," returns to movie theaters this weekend with "Least Among Saints. " The film, from writer-director-star Martin Papazian, centers on an emotionally scarred war veteran suddenly having to play father-figure to an orphaned boy. Dutton, who said he remembers many friends who returned from Vietnam with emotional issues they never seemed able to stare down, plays a police officer sympathetic to the vet's plight.

Mario Cecchi GoriItalian film producerROME -- Mario Cecchi Gori, a leading Italian film producer whose credits included the Oscar-winning "Mediterraneo," died yesterday of an apparent heart attack.Mr. Cecchi Gori, 73, was the second figure from the Italian cinema to die this week. Film director Federico Fellini died Sunday.He produced more than 40 films over more than three decades, ranging from grade B fare to such successes as "The Easy Life," a 1962 tragicomedy."Mediterraneo," a film about Italian soldiers stranded on a Greek island during World War II, won the 1992 Oscar as best foreign film.

In conjunction with its screening of "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies," TCM has put together a slate of 19 films, including three of Scorsese's own works: 1974's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (3: 30 a.m. tonight), 1977's "New York, New York" (3 a.m. tomorrow night) and 1978's "The Last Waltz" (4 a.m. Wednesday night). Other highlights: Vincente Minnelli's "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1953), a tempestuous look at the art vs. commerce tug-of-war in Hollywood, with Kirk Douglas as a perfectly corruptible film producer (9: 30 p.m. tonight)

AS A STUDIO EXECUTIVE: " Philadelphia" ( Jonathan Demme's movie starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer dying of AIDS): "It was based in part on an idea that I came up with. I did it with the group that had done "The Silence of the Lambs," but it was a very risky undertaking.…There were distribution challenges in many parts of the world, where its subject matter was taboo. It was a landmark not just because of the Oscars for Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen. It also was a great entertainment that changed the way people viewed a segment of the population.

PHIL LUCAS, 65 Film producer Mr. Lucas, an award-winning film producer and director who made a career of telling the stories of American Indians, died Sunday in Bellevue, Wash., of complications after heart surgery, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Seattle Times. In his four decades as a filmmaker, Mr. Lucas wrote, produced or directed more than 100 feature films, television series and documentaries in an industry that often stereotyped Indians. Among them were The Broken Chain, about the Iroquois Confederacy, and The Honour of All, a documentary about how the Alkali Lake Indians in British Columbia became almost entirely sober in the 1980s after being 100 percent alcoholic 20 years before.

What becalmed "Beloved"? Launched with galas and cover stories and borderline-reverent reviews, the Oprah Winfrey epic that arrived wrapped in Oscar predictions has been anything but beloved at the box office.In the five weeks since its Oct. 16 release, the $65 million picture, which stars Winfrey as a runaway slave whose nightmares continue well beyond the Civil War, earned a disappointing $22.5 million. Its failure, just 10 months after the fast fade of Steven Spielberg's "Amistad," another harrowing film about the slave experience, has prompted a rethinking of the market for prestigious, black-themed films.

A "Welcome to Bawlmer, Hon" party seemed a perfect way to welcome the cast and crew of "Washington Square" to town. You can expect to see movie cameras rolling through mid-August. In this film, Baltimore doubles for New York City circa 1850.The party was given by the Producers Club, a private non-profit group which helps the Maryland Film Commission attract film and television productions to Maryland. One of the perks of membership is to be invited to parties like this one held at City Life Museums.

AS A STUDIO EXECUTIVE: " Philadelphia" ( Jonathan Demme's movie starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer dying of AIDS): "It was based in part on an idea that I came up with. I did it with the group that had done "The Silence of the Lambs," but it was a very risky undertaking.…There were distribution challenges in many parts of the world, where its subject matter was taboo. It was a landmark not just because of the Oscars for Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen. It also was a great entertainment that changed the way people viewed a segment of the population.

PHIL LUCAS, 65 Film producer Mr. Lucas, an award-winning film producer and director who made a career of telling the stories of American Indians, died Sunday in Bellevue, Wash., of complications after heart surgery, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Seattle Times. In his four decades as a filmmaker, Mr. Lucas wrote, produced or directed more than 100 feature films, television series and documentaries in an industry that often stereotyped Indians. Among them were The Broken Chain, about the Iroquois Confederacy, and The Honour of All, a documentary about how the Alkali Lake Indians in British Columbia became almost entirely sober in the 1980s after being 100 percent alcoholic 20 years before.

The guy in the dark glasses, knit cap and rumpled cargo pants sways in apparent ecstasy, his hands coaxing improvised rhythms from a bongo-like drum. The percussive sounds echo off the walls and the high ceiling, turning the atrium of the historic Senator Theatre into a noise chamber on a chilly midafternoon. It's not exactly the way you expected to meet actor Matthew McConaughey, who's in town for a couple of days to spread the word about his soon-to-be-released movie. Then again, the 35-year-old star-turned-producer has been following his own instincts when it comes to bringing Sahara, a wry, big-budget action picture slated to open April 5, to the public's consciousness.

It was a shotgun wedding of sorts, with an HBO executive playing pastor. I was there to get a book that I had written, an account of a year on a Baltimore drug corner, made into television. I had another writer with me, a trusted college friend with experience in episodic drama. David Mills had worked a few years on NYPD Blue, just as I had a couple years under Tom Fontana on Homicide. And we had already hired a line producer who would help us put film in the can. So why was I being ushered to this New York office to meet another producer?

The 1950s were a time of great change for the movies: greater use of color, the inception of wide-screen Cinemascope, the influence of Method actors and directors and increasingly more self-conscious approaches to style and form. James Harvey's Movie Love in the Fifties (Knopf, 448 pages, $35), is a brilliant and original book that examines this period of American social history through its movies. Many of the traditional forms -- Musicals, Westerns, war films, family comedies and mystery films -- remained strong in the 1950s, but Harvey explains how they were modified and subverted by certain directors and actors who wanted not to just entertain audiences but to challenge and astonish them.

In conjunction with its screening of "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies," TCM has put together a slate of 19 films, including three of Scorsese's own works: 1974's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (3: 30 a.m. tonight), 1977's "New York, New York" (3 a.m. tomorrow night) and 1978's "The Last Waltz" (4 a.m. Wednesday night). Other highlights: Vincente Minnelli's "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1953), a tempestuous look at the art vs. commerce tug-of-war in Hollywood, with Kirk Douglas as a perfectly corruptible film producer (9: 30 p.m. tonight)

''Rich Girl,'' a film that opens here Friday, is a ''Michael B London production.'' That's Michael B. London, formerly of Baltimore, now of California.London, 36, was born and raised in Baltimore. He attended Pikesville High School. Later, he went to the University of Miami, then Georgetown Law School, where he earned his law degree. He took it to California where he worked for several law firms, then decided to become a film producer.''I represented a number of producers in court. I felt I could be one, too,'' he said.

Felix JacksonWriter and producerWOODLAND HILLS, Calif. -- Felix Jackson, 90, a movie and television writer and producer, died of congestive heart failure Dec. 4 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital here.He wrote the screenplays of several classic films for Universal Pictures and MGM, including "Destry Rides Again" (1939), "Appointment for Love" (1941) and "Back Street" (1941).His credits as a film producer include "His Butler's Sister" (1943) and "Lady on a Train" (1945).Many of his films starred Deanna Durbin, who was briefly married to Mr. Jackson.

What becalmed "Beloved"? Launched with galas and cover stories and borderline-reverent reviews, the Oprah Winfrey epic that arrived wrapped in Oscar predictions has been anything but beloved at the box office.In the five weeks since its Oct. 16 release, the $65 million picture, which stars Winfrey as a runaway slave whose nightmares continue well beyond the Civil War, earned a disappointing $22.5 million. Its failure, just 10 months after the fast fade of Steven Spielberg's "Amistad," another harrowing film about the slave experience, has prompted a rethinking of the market for prestigious, black-themed films.

A "Welcome to Bawlmer, Hon" party seemed a perfect way to welcome the cast and crew of "Washington Square" to town. You can expect to see movie cameras rolling through mid-August. In this film, Baltimore doubles for New York City circa 1850.The party was given by the Producers Club, a private non-profit group which helps the Maryland Film Commission attract film and television productions to Maryland. One of the perks of membership is to be invited to parties like this one held at City Life Museums.