Henry Jaglom

Henry Jaglom
Born
Henry David Jaglom

(1938-01-26) January 26, 1938 (age 86)
London, England
Occupations
  • Film director
  • playwright
Spouses
Patrice Townsend
​
​
(m. 1979⁠–⁠1983)​
​
(m. 1991⁠–⁠2013)​

Henry David Jaglom[1] (born January 26, 1938)[2] is an English-born American actor, film director and playwright.

Life and career

Jaglom was born to a Jewish family in London, England, the son of Marie (née Stadthagen) and Simon M. Jaglom, who worked in the import-export business.[3] His father was from a wealthy family from Russia and his mother was from Germany. They left for England because of the Nazi regime.[4] Through his mother, he is a descendant of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.[5] Jaglom trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York, where he acted, wrote and directed off-Broadway theater and cabaret before settling in Hollywood in the late 1960s.[6] Under contract to Columbia Pictures,[7] Jaglom featured in such TV series as Gidget and The Flying Nun and acted in a number of films which included Richard Rush's Psych-Out (1968), Boris Sagal's The Thousand Plane Raid (1969), Jack Nicholson's Drive, He Said (1971), Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), Maurice Dugowson's Lily, aime-moi (1975) and Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind (1970–1976; 2018).

Jaglom's transition from acting in films to creating them was largely influenced by his experience watching Federico Fellini's film 8½ (1963), he told Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life.[8]

The film changed my identity. I realized that what I wanted to do was make films. Not only that, but I realized what I wanted to make films about: my own life, to some extent.[9]

Jaglom began his film-making career working with Jack Nicholson on the editing of Hopper's Easy Rider (1969), and made his writing/directing debut with A Safe Place (1971), starring Tuesday Weld, Nicholson, and Welles. His next film, Tracks (1976), starred Hopper and was one of the earliest movies to explore the psychological cost on America of the Vietnam War. His third film, the first to be a commercial success, was Sitting Ducks (1980), a comic romp that co-starred Zack Norman with Jaglom's brother Michael Emil. Film critic David Thomson said of Jaglom's next film, Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983), that it "is an actors' film in that it grows out of their personalities—it is as loose and unexpected as life, but is shaped and witty as a great short story. In truth, a new kind of film." It stars Karen Black.

Jaglom co-starred in four of his most personal films—Always (1985),[10] Someone to Love (1987) starring Orson Welles in his final film performance, New Year's Day (1989), which introduced David Duchovny, and Venice/Venice (1992) opposite French star Nelly Alard.[11]

In 1990, Jaglom directed Eating (1990) about a group of women with eating disorders and how they cope with it and one another. Babyfever (1995) was about the issue of women with ticking biological clocks. Last Summer in the Hamptons (1996) was a Chekhovian look at the life of a theatrical family and starred Viveca Lindfors[12] in her last screen role. Déjà Vu (1997) was about the yearning of people trying to find their perfect soul mate and was the only film in which Vanessa Redgrave and her mother, Rachel Kempson, appeared together. Festival in Cannes (2002) explored the lives and relationships of those involved in the world of film making and was shot entirely at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Going Shopping (2005) explored that subject as the third part of Jaglom's "Women's Trilogy", the others being Eating and Babyfever.

Hollywood Dreams (2007) dealt with a young woman's obsession with fame in the film industry and introduced Tanna Frederick, who then starred in Jaglom's Irene in Time (2009), a look at the complex relationships between fathers and daughters, and Queen of the Lot, the sequel-of-sorts to Hollywood Dreams that co-starred Noah Wyle as well as Christopher Rydell, Peter Bogdanovich, Jack Heller, Mary Crosby, Kathryn Crosby, and Dennis Christopher.[13]

Jaglom's screen adaptation of Just 45 Minutes from Broadway, starring Frederick and Judd Nelson, was released in 2012. He edited The M Word, which stars Frederick, Frances Fisher, Michael Imperioli, Gregory Harrison, and Corey Feldman for a Fall 2013 theatrical release.[14]

In 1983, Jaglom began taping lunch conversations with Orson Welles at Los Angeles's Ma Maison. Edited transcripts of these sessions, which continued until shortly before Welles died in 1985, appear in My Lunches With Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles, edited by Peter Biskind (2013).[15]

Jaglom has written four plays that have been performed on Los Angeles stages: The Waiting Room (1974), A Safe Place[11] (2003), Always—But Not Forever (2007)[16][17] and Just 45 Minutes from Broadway[18] (2009/2010).

Jaglom is the subject of Henry Alex Rubin and Jeremy Workman's documentary Who Is Henry Jaglom? (1997). First presented at numerous film festivals, the documentary premiered on PBS's documentary series POV.[19]

Filmography as Director

Filmography as Actor

Playwright

  • 1974 The Waiting Room
  • 2003 A Safe Place
  • 2007 Always—But Not Forever
  • 2009-2010 Just 45 Minutes from Broadway
  • 2012-2013 The Rainmaker
  • 2014-2015 Train to Zakopané

References

  1. ^ "Henry Jaglom". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2024-05-08.
  2. ^ "Henry Jaglom Filmography and Movies". Fandango. Retrieved 2024-05-08.
  3. ^ "Jaglom Database Bio". Henryjaglom.com. 1938-01-26. Archived from the original on 2013-05-29. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
  4. ^ "Henry Jaglom's '45 Minutes from Broadway'". Jewish Journal. 2012-08-27. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
  5. ^ [1] Archived October 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "Henry Jaglom - About This Person - Movies & TV - NYTimes.com". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-11-02. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
  7. ^ "Henry Jaglom". Movies.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
  8. ^ Elder, Robert K. (2011-01-01). The Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors on Their Epiphanies in the Dark: Robert K. Elder: 9781556528255: Amazon.com: Books. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1556528255.
  9. ^ Jaglom, Henry. Interview by Robert K. Elder. The Film That Changed My Life. By Robert K. Elder. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2011. N. p76. Print.
  10. ^ Always at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  11. ^ a b [2] Archived March 27, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ REGINA WEINREICHPublished: January 14, 1996 (1996-01-14). "A Film Farewell to the Hamptons - New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-01-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ "Henry Jaglom's "Just 45 Minutes from Broadway" Play Opens at Edgemar". Lastheplace.com. October 2009. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
  14. ^ Beck / Smith (2011-12-25). "Tanna Frederick: 'M Word' FeatureDramedy Hits New Menopause Territory". HollywoodNews.com. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
  15. ^ Biskind, Peter (16 June 2013). "Three Courses of Orson Welles". New York magazine. New York Media LLC. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  16. ^ "The day I used the 'N' word". Santa Monica Daily Press. 9 May 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  17. ^ Shaner, Madeleine (24 October 2007). "Always...But Not Forever". Backstage. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  18. ^ "Tanna Frederick Calls Henry Jaglom's New Play Unparalleled | LA STAGE TIMES". Lastageblog.com. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
  19. ^ "Who is Henry Jaglom?". 23 January 1997.
  20. ^ Rechtshaffen, Michael (May 2, 2018). "Review: Henry Jaglom's 'Train to Zakopané' betrays its stage origins". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
Interviews