Biographic - Sunday March 22, 2009 Comic Strip Licensing and Permissions

Transcript

Pirates have sailed across the screen since the early days of filmmaking, and the annals of movies and tv are peppered with the adventures of swashbuckling buccaneers. Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. brought "The Black Pirate" to life in a 1926 silent classic that saw one of the first introductions of technicolor. The talkies made Australian Errol Flynn a star, he soared to fame as the lead in 1935's "Captain Blood" and went on to sail the seas in the likes of "The Sea Hawk" "Against All Flags," and "The Master of Ballantrae." Interestingly, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. starred in 1947's "Sinbad The Sailor" while Errol Flynn's son, Sean, actually starred in 1962's low-budget sequel "The Son of Captain Blood." In the decades that followed the second worldwar, pirates became a staple of the screen, with everyone from Christopher Lee to Yul Brynner sailing the seven seas. Gene Kelly brought dance to the equation, and the likes of The Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello mined the genre for laughs. The acrobatic team of Lang and Caravat toured the nightclub and vaudeville circuits, as well as performing with several circuses. When Lang found Hollywood stardom as Burt Lancaster, the diminutive Nick Caravat teamed up with him again in movies such as 1952's "The Crimson Pirate" however, Caravat's Brooklyn accent was so strong, he wa invariably cast as a mute! The small screen harbored pirates in the 1950's. On "The Buccaneers" future "Jaws" star Robert Shaw was captain Dan Tempest, sailing the high seas at the helm of The Sultana. Long John Silver is one of the screen's most ubiquitous characters and has been portrayed by Wallace Beery, Charlton Heston, Jack Palance and Orson Welles, among others. Robert Newton brought Robert Louis Stevenson's irascible "Treasure Island" villain to life in TV's Long John Silver." Newton, who also starred in the 1952 movie "Blackbeard the Pirate" and had played Silver in two previous movies, is widely acknowledged as the originator of the stereotypical pirate voice. Even The Muppets have tackled "Treasure Island." Piracy has not been a male preserve, as evidenced by a string of 1950's movies and 1995's "Cutthroat Island" starring the statuesque Geanna Davis. In recent years, the genre has scaled dizzying heights with the multi-billion dollar success of "The Pirates of The Caribbean" movies.

Tags