LOS ANGELES — Mel Ferrer, the tall, darkly handsome star of such classic films as “Lili,” “War and Peace” and “The Sun Also Rises,” as well as producer and director of movies starring his wife, Audrey Hepburn, has died at age 90.
Ferrer died Monday at his ranch near Santa Barbara, family spokesman Mike Mena said.
“It’s a sad occasion, but he did live a long and productive life,” Mena told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
Ferrer’s most impressive film role came in 1953 in “Lili.” He played a carnival puppeteer with whom a French orphan (played by Leslie Caron) falls in love.
In later years, he turned more to directing and producing for movies and TV.
“Acting, at times, depresses Mel,” Hepburn once said. “Directing lifts him. He’s so relaxed at it that I just know it is the job he loves.”
He and Hepburn had become engaged in 1954 when they appeared together in the New York play “Ondine.” They married later that year in Burgenstock, Switzerland.
The pair divorced in 1968 and Ferrer married his fourth wife, Elizabeth Soukhotine, in 1971. She survives him.
Ferrer also produced one of Hepburn’s greatest film triumphs, 1967’s “Wait Until Dark,” a terrifying thriller in which she portrays a blind woman terrorized by drug dealers who break into her home.
Kelley was artist of psychedelic posters
PETALUMA, Calif. — Alton Kelley, an artist who helped created the psychedelic style of posters and other art associated with the 1960s San Francisco rock scene, has died. He was 67.
Kelley died Sunday of complications from osteoporosis in his Petaluma home, according to his publicist, Jennifer Gross.
Kelley and his lifelong collaborator, Stanley “Mouse” Miller, churned out iconic work from their studio, a converted firehouse where Janis Joplin first rehearsed with Big Brother and the Holding Company.
The pair created dozens of classic rock posters, including the famous Grateful Dead “skull and roses” poster designed for a show at the Avalon Ballroom, as well as posters and album covers for Journey, Steve Miller, Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles.
“We were just having fun making posters,” Miller told the San Francisco Chronicle. “There was no time to think about what we were doing. It was a furious time, but I think most great art is created in a furious moment.”
Associated Press
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