Ed Sikov | |
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| Born | 1957 (age 66–67) Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Education | Haverford College Columbia University (PhD) |
| Spouse | Bruce Schackman |
Ed Sikov (born 1957, Pennsylvania) is an American film scholar and author. His books include Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers (published in 2002), On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder (published in 1998), and Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedies of the 1950s (published in 1994).
Sikov was born in Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, majored in English at Haverford College, and has a PhD from Columbia University; Sikov has since written eloquently of the difficulties he experienced as a gay student in the 1970s. [1] He has lived in New York City since 1979, and currently resides with his husband, Bruce Schackman. [2]
Sikov's most recent book is a textbook – Film Studies: An Introduction; before that was Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis (Henry Holt, 2007). He recorded a commentary track for the Special Collector's Edition DVD of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard , and is often called upon as a film expert for articles and documentaries, such as the 10-part American Cinema series produced by the New York Center for Visual History in association with the BBC and PBS. He has also written for the British and US editions of Premiere magazine as well as for Out , The Advocate , Connoisseur, Spy , Village Voice and Film Quarterly .
Critical reception to Sikov's books has been appreciative: film historian Jeanine Basinger finds him "a caring biographer" who is exhaustive in his research; [3] his writing has been noted for its unsentimental tone and detailed scholarship. [4] [5] While taking issue with his style, film critic Rex Reed has acknowledged Sikov's accuracy and refusal to "whitewash" facts. [6]
Sikov has taught film studies at several colleges and universities, including Colorado College and his alma maters Columbia University and Haverford College. A course he taught at Haverford between 1995 and 2005, Sex and Gender on Film, earned notice as "one of the most popular courses" at that institution. [7]
Sikov's contributions as an author and teacher have been curtailed by the onset of Parkinson's disease. [8] He stopped writing the Media Circus column in the New York-based Gay City News in early 2020.
Peter Sellers was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show. Sellers featured on a number of hit comic songs, and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series.
All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It is based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr, although Orr does not receive a screen credit.
Billy Wilder was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. He was born in Sucha Beskidzka, Poland, a town in Austria-Hungary at the time of his birth. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hollywood cinema. He received seven Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and two Golden Globe Awards.
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television, and theater. Regarded as one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history, she was noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic, sardonic characters and was known for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, although her greatest successes were her roles in romantic dramas. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, was the first person to accrue ten Academy Award nominations for acting, and was the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. In 1999, Davis was placed second on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American black comedy film noir directed by Billy Wilder and co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett. It is named after a major street that runs through Hollywood.
Sunset Boulevard is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics and libretto by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. It is based on the 1950 film of the same title.
Ace in the Hole, also known as The Big Carnival, is a 1951 American drama film directed by Billy Wilder. The film stars Kirk Douglas as a cynical, disgraced reporter who stops at nothing to try to regain a job on a major newspaper. The film co-stars Jan Sterling and features Robert Arthur and Porter Hall.
Sabrina Fair is a romantic comedy written by Samuel A. Taylor and produced by the Playwrights' Company. It ran on Broadway for a total of 318 performances, opening at the National Theatre on November 11, 1953. Directed by H. C. Potter, with sets and lights designed by Donald Oenslager, it starred Margaret Sullavan and Joseph Cotten, with Cathleen Nesbitt, John Cromwell, and Russell Collins in major supporting roles.
Charles William Brackett was an American screenwriter and film producer. He collaborated with Billy Wilder on sixteen films.
Part of the American Film Institute's 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes is a list of the top 100 quotations in American cinema. The American Film Institute revealed the list on June 21, 2005, in a three-hour television program on CBS. The program was hosted by Pierce Brosnan and had commentary from many Hollywood actors and filmmakers. A jury consisting of 1,500 film artists, critics, and historians selected "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn", spoken by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in the 1939 American Civil War epic Gone with the Wind, as the most memorable American movie quotation of all time.
Billy Wilder (1906–2002) was an Austrian filmmaker. Wilder initially pursued a career in journalism after being inspired by an American newsreel. He worked for the Austrian magazine Die Bühne and the newspaper Die Stunde in Vienna, and later for the German newspapers Berliner Nachtausgabe, and Berliner Börsen-Courier in Berlin. His first screenplay was for the German silent thriller The Daredevil Reporter (1929). Wilder fled to Paris in 1933 after the rise of the Nazi Party, where he co-directed and co-wrote the screenplay of French drama Mauvaise Graine (1934). In the same year, Wilder left France on board the RMS Aquitania to work in Hollywood despite having little knowledge of English.
The 8th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film for 1950 films, were held on February 28, 1951, in the Ciro's nightclub in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard, on the Sunset Strip.
Fedora is a 1978 German-French drama film directed by Billy Wilder and starring William Holden and Marthe Keller. The screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is based on Tom Tryon's novella in the collection Crowned Heads.
Finale: The Last Mantaray & More Show is a live DVD by Siouxsie, released in 2009. It is the last show of the Mantaray and More Tour, which took place on 29 September 2008 at London's KOKO in Camden. Siouxsie said: "We were thinking of filming in South America but that got pulled right at the last minute". That's when she decided they had got to have a document of the show, the band and how she was feeling onstage, "because all the concerts had been going so well". "So I decided to put in a one off show at Koko and film it".
Waltz of the Toreadors is a 1962 film directed by John Guillermin and starring Peter Sellers and Dany Robin. It was based on the play of the same name by Jean Anouilh with the location changed from France to England. It was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay, in 1963.
The British actor and comedian Peter Sellers (1925–1980) performed in many genres of light entertainment, including film, radio and theatre. He appeared in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, recorded a number of hit comic songs and became known internationally through his many film characterisations, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series. English filmmakers the Boulting brothers described Sellers as "the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin".
Thea Roland or The Adventure of Thea Roland is a 1932 German comedy film directed by Henry Koster and starring Lil Dagover, Hans Rehmann and Margarete Kupfer. The film marked the directorial debut of Koster, who was forced to emigrate from Germany by the Nazi party following his next film and later went on to be a leading Hollywood director. Billy Wilder may have also worked on the screenplay, although he remained uncredited.
The Wrong Husband is a 1931 German comedy film directed by Johannes Guter and starring Johannes Riemann, Maria Paudler and Gustav Waldau. It was shot at the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin.
Hilde Maroff was a German stage and film actress. She was the mother of the child actor Peter Bosse.
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