Thursday, December 16, 2010

Blake Edwards aka William Blake "Blackie" Crump

Film director, producer and writer -- via the Washington Post. His name will be irretrievably linked to the "Pink Panther" movies series, but he accomplished quite a lot more than that.

He began in radio, working with Orson Welles, and later created and wrote the snappy, popular "Richard Diamond, Private Detective" radio series for Dick Powell, and contributed to other hard-boiled series such as "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar." He then broke in to film and TV as a writer, scripting "My Sister Eileen," for instance, and creating shows such as a TV version of "Richard Diamond," "Mr. Lucky" and "Peter Gunn." (Mary Tyler Moore's first big break was playing Richard Diamond's secretary, Sam -- seen mostly as a pair of shapely legs!)

Then the films began, and Edwards was as good at drama as he was at comedy. He directed "Breakfast at Tiffany's," the highly under-regarded "Experiment in Terror," and the film version of "The Days of Wine and Roses." (Trivia question: who directed the original "Playhouse 90" teleplay? John Frankenheimer.)

His career exploded, and became bogged down, by the Inspector Clouseau series. Still, he managed to make very funny, and sometimes insightful and melancholy, studies of desperate people -- "'10'," "S.O.B.," "Victor/Victoria" and "Sunset," to name a few. His career was uneven, but only because he kept trying new things.

Here's his Oscar presentation --

And, when push comes to shove, he would like us to remember him with a laugh. So here we go:

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