Harry Dean Stanton, Quintessential American Actor, Dies At 91

The Hollywood Reporter offers a piece on the life and work of Harry Dean Stanton, one of my favorite character actors, who has died.

Harry Dean Stanton, the character actor with the world-weary face who carved out an exceptional career playing grizzled loners and colorful, offbeat characters in such films as Paris, Texas and Repo Man, has died. He was 91.

Stanton, who also was memorable in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), John Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981) and John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink (1986) — in fact, what wasn’t he memorable in? — died Friday afternoon of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his agent, John Kelly, told The Hollywood Reporter.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/harry-dean-stanton-dead-paris-texas-star-91-766020 

Note: Below is a link to a brief video clip from Repo Man, where Harry Dean Stanton offers his view of “ordinary people.” Classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwSxBiS0rHY 

John le Carre: Why I Brought Back Guillam, Smiley And The Cold War

Nick Miller at the Brisbane Times offers on a piece on spy novelist John le Carre ad why he wrote a Legacy of Spies.

Recently, John le Carre found himself sitting in the bleak banality of an old Stasi interrogation room in Berlin. It wasn't much to look at: small, peeling linoleum, plain furniture. The horror comes from imagining the psychological torture inside those walls a generation ago.

Le Carre went to the headquarters of the secret police of the former East Germany to remind himself. Partly he wanted to check details – he hates those smug letters from readers informing him that, for example, the church in his latest novel should have faced west. For the same reason he tracked down the old Berlin safe houses he remembered from his time working for MI6 in Germany in the '60s – one he found ("much tarted up"), the others he had to go to the old Stasi files to track down, much to his amusement.

But at Stasi HQ he wanted more than just geography.

"I had time alone in those horrible little rooms," he says. "It gave me back the smells, and the fear. And also – which can easily go missing – the justification for what we did. Because this was a foul regime."

This trip down nightmare lane was not for old times' sake. Le Carre was researching his new book, A Legacy of Spies.

It's a companion piece to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, revisiting and (literally) interrogating the events from those two classics of spy fiction. Peter Guillam, loyal lieutenant to the legendary George Smiley, is called to account over their old schemes by a new generation of spies for whom the Cold War is a story, not a life's work.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/books/john-le-carre-why-i-brought-back-guillam-smiley-and-the-cold-war-20170912-gyfjb5.html 

You can also read my Washington Times review of A Legacy of Spies via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/09/my-washington-times-review-of-john-le.html

And you can read my Washington Times review of John le Carre: The Biography via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2015/12/my-washington-times-review-of-john-le.html 

Anatomy Of Terror: From The Death Of Bin Laden To The Rise Of The Islamic State

Joshua Sinai offers a review of Ali Soufan’s Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State in the Washington Times.

Al Qaeda’s horrendous attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 represented a transformative moment in the history of international terrorism, with a foreign terrorist group daring to deploy its operatives from its training camps in Afghanistan to inflict catastrophic damage on its adversary’s soil, and with America deciding to counter this terrorist threat with all means necessary, including pursuing such terrorists wherever they operate.

With the 9/11 tragedy commemorated this week, we are fortunate to have Ali Soufan’s “Anatomy of Terror,” a comprehensive and interesting account of al Qaeda’s history and the emergence of its equally genocidal offshoot, the Islamic State (ISIS). Mr. Soufan is a highly regarded former FBI special agent who was one of the first to investigate al Qaeda prior to 9/11. He is currently head of The Soufan Group, a consultancy on these issues in New York City.

There is much to commend in this important account, beginning with the author’s discussion of the key individuals responsible for the evolution and current state of al Qaeda and ISIS.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/13/book-review-anatomy-of-terror-from-the-death-of-bi/ 

Mob Talk Sitdown 5: On Latest 'Mob Talk' Episode: Conflict Brewing Among Philly Factions?

The online publication PhillyVoice offers a piece and a link to veteran organized crime reporters George Anastasia and Dave Schratweiser’s latest Mob Talk Sitdown.

You can read the piece and watch the video via the below link:

http://www.phillyvoice.com/on-latest-mob-talk-episode-conflict-brewing-among-philly-factions/  

DHS Statement On The Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act

Dave Lapan, the Department of Homeland Security’s press secretary, offered the below statement:

 WASHINGTON - Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke applauds the U.S. House of Representatives on its passage of the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act. This bill promotes public safety by denying criminal alien gang members admission into the United States and allowing law enforcement officers to quickly remove them from the United States when they are encountered here.

This legislation will greatly help the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to target and dismantle transnational gangs, like MS-13, who pose a direct threat to public safety.

MS-13 gang members are notorious for exploiting the communities in which they live and operate – victimizing community members through violence and intimidation, extorting local business owners, recruiting young children into the gang lifestyle, and creating a magnet for violence from rival gangs.  Their members are involved in myriad criminal activities, including murder, extortion, narcotics and weapons trafficking, human smuggling and human trafficking, and other crimes with a nexus to the border.

This legislation will help DHS in its continued efforts to identify, arrest, imprison and/or remove transnational gang members and to suppress violence and prosecute criminal enterprises. 

Frank Vincent, Actor Who Portrayed Mobsters In 'The Sopranos,' 'Goodfellas,' Casino' And 'Raging Bull," Dies

The Hollywood Reporter offers a piece on the death of Frank Vincent, a fine actor who portrayed convincingly mobster ‘Billy Batts’ in Martin Scorsese’s crime classic Goodfellas and other mobsters in Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Casino, as well as a mobster on HBO's The Sopranos, has died. .

Frank Vincent, who played the vicious mob boss Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos, has died. He was 78.

Vincent died Wednesday of complications from heart surgery in New Jersey, according to reports from The Blast and TMZ.

Vincent also portrayed tough guys for director Martin Scorsese in Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990) — as the real-life Gambino gangster Billy Batts, he with the memorable line, "Go home and get your shine box!" — and Casino (1995). On HBO's The Sopranos, Leotardo often butted heads with James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano as he eventually rose to become boss of the Lupertazzi crime family.  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/frank-vincent-dead-phil-leotardo-sopranos-was-78-1038726

Note: Frank Vincent was also the author of A Guy's Guide to Being a Man's Man. 

On This Day In History Francis Scott Key Penned The Star-Spangled Banner

As History.com notes, on this day in 1814 Francis Scott Key penned the Star-Spangled Banner from the deck of a British ship as the British attacked Baltimore.

On this day in 1814, Francis Scott Key pens a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The poem, originally titled “The Defence of Fort McHenry,” was written after Key witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812. Key was inspired by the sight of a lone U.S. flag still flying over Fort McHenry at daybreak, as reflected in the now-famous words of the “Star-Spangled Banner”: “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our Flag was still there."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/key-pens-star-spangled-banner?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2017-0913-09132017&om_rid=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa&om_mid=239187358&kx_EmailCampaignID=14624&kx_EmailCampaignName=email-hist-tdih-2017-0913-09132017&kx_EmailRecipientID=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa

Note: If you want to learn more about Key and the battle in the War of 1812 that inspired Key, you should read Steve Vogel's Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks That Saved the Nation.