|
Sci-fi guru Arthur C. Clarke, 90
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka prepared to bury famed sci-fi
writer Arthur C. Clarke on Saturday with the government calling for
a minute’s silence across the island, officials said.
Clarke, 90, who died Wednesday after a brief
illness, will be buried in a plot owned by his Sri Lankan business
partner, with whose family he lived for decades, said his aide of 21
years, Nalaka Gunawardene.
The government asked people to observe a
minute’s silence at 3:30 p.m. (1000 GMT) on Saturday when Clarke
is laid to rest.
The space visionary’s body has been kept at
his home in capital Colombo and a large number of students, fans,
clergy and politicians have paid their respects. Music from sci-fi
thrillers played in the background.
Arthur Charles Clarke shot to fame in 1968 when
director Stanley Kubrick turned his short story “The Sentinel”
into the classic film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Knighted in 1998 in recognition of his status as
the grand old man of science fiction, Clarke settled down in Sri
Lanka in 1956 and became the island’s first resident guest in
1975.
“He always loved it here, the warm climate and
the friendly people,” said his younger brother, Fred Clarke. “He
said he had managed to escape 40 British winters and had no
regrets.”
Trained in physics and mathematics, Clarke
penned more than 100 books and more than 1,000 short stories as well
as essays on space travel, communication technologies, underwater
exploration and future studies over 60 years.
On his 90th birthday in December, Clarke wished
for lasting peace in his adopted homeland, Sri Lanka, which has been
wracked by more than 35 years of fighting between troops and Tamil
separatists.
-- AFP
Oscar winner Paul Scofield, 86
LONDON: British actor Paul Scofield, who won an
Oscar for his role in “A Man For All Seasons” and was one of his
country’s greatest Shakespearean actors, has died at the age of
86, his agent said Thursday.
Scofield died peacefully in a hospital near his
home in the county of Sussex in southeast England, where he was
being treated for leukaemia.
Considered one of the leading classical actors
of a generation that included Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier,
he won an Oscar in 1966 for portraying the Roman Catholic statesman
Sir Thomas More in the film of Robert Bolt’s play.
Scofield made his name on the London stage,
playing many of the greatest roles in theatre.
Critics described him as “monumental but
reassuring” and as having a voice “rumbling up from an antique
crypt”.
His last major film was a 1996 screen version of
Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible”, in which he sported a
crop of wavy white hair and starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and
Winona Ryder.
Judi Dench, a fellow British Oscar winner who
appeared with Scofield in the 1989 film of “Henry V”, led the
tributes to him, saying: “He was a great friend and a great
man.”
Kenneth Branagh, who directed Scofield in
“Henry V”, said the acting profession had lost a “colossus”
and described his stage work as “electrifying.”
“In every medium he graced he was a master . .
. His performance on the film of ‘A Man For All Seasons”
captures his greatness—the humour, the humanity, the intelligence,
the generosity of spirit, the integrity,” he said.
“He made goodness and intellect sexy . . . He
was always his own man.”
-- AFP
|
