Production designer Ruth De Jong has joined The Skouras Agency, Santa Monica for exclusive representation….Independent film sales company Arclight Films, with offices in Los Angeles, Sydney, Hong Kong and Toronto, has hired Clay Epstein as VP of sales & acquisitions. Epstein who will report directly to COO Chris Perry, will play a key role in acquiring content at all stages and identifying new co production opportunities. His sales duties will primarily include all rights in Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia and UK as well as TV library sales worldwide. He will collaborate with the complete sales team for all rights in North America. Epstein has been working with A-list directors, producers and actors since getting his start in the entertainment industry in 1999 at Kushner-Locke. In 2001 he was hired by First Look Media and swiftly moved his way up to director of operations and later to sales executive where he handled operations for over 400 titles and coordinated and attended all of the major markets and festivals on behalf of the company. In 2005 Epstein joined The Little Film Company as VP of sales and acquisitions where he was key in the growth of the business and responsible for international sales for a long list of films including Oscar-winner Tsotsi, Lucy Walker’s Blindsight, Davis Guggenheim’s It Might Get Loud, Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station and most recently Fred Schepisi’s Eye of the Storm starring Geoffrey Rush. Epstein was also instrumental in packaging, developing and executive producing new projects including Wrecked starring Adrien Brody and the forthcoming A Doll’s House starring Ben Kingsley and Julian Sands….
Stage and Film Actor Tony Roberts Dies At 85
Tony Roberts, a versatile, Tony Award-nominated theater performer at home in both plays and musicals and who appeared in several Woody Allen movies โ often as Allen's best friend โ has died. He was 85.
Roberts' death was announced to The New York Times by his daughter, Nicole Burley.
Roberts had a genial stage personality perfect for musical comedy and he originated roles in such diverse Broadway musicals as "How Now, Dow Jones" (1967); "Sugar" (1972), an adaptation of the movie "Some Like It Hot," and "Victor/Victoria" (1995), in which he co-starred with Julie Andrews when she returned to Broadway in the stage version of her popular film. He also was in the campy, roller-disco "Xanadu" in 2007 and "The Royal Family" in 2009.
"I've never been particularly lucky at card games. I've never hit a jackpot. But I have been extremely lucky in life," he write in his memoir, "Do You Know Me?" "Unlike many of my pals, who didn't know what they wanted to become when they grew up, I knew I wanted to be an actor before I got to high school."
Roberts also appeared on Broadway in the 1966 Woody Allen comedy "Don't Drink the Water," repeating his role in the film version, and in Allen's "Play It Again, Sam" (1969), for which he also made the movie.
Other Allen films in which Roberts appeared were "Annie Hall" (1977), "Stardust Memories" (1980), "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" (1982), "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986) and "Radio Days" (1987).
"Roberts' confident onscreen presence โ not to mention his tall frame, broad shoulders and brown curly mane โ was the perfect foil for Allen's various neurotic characters, making them more funny and enjoyable to watch," The Jewish Daily Forward wrote in 2016.
In Eric Lax's book "Woody... Read More