Jennifer: He wasn't very old.
David Lightman: No, he was pretty old. He was 41.
Jennifer: Oh yeah? Oh, that's old.
from WARGAMES, written by Lawrence Lasker & Walter F. Parkes.
David Lightman: No, he was pretty old. He was 41.
Jennifer: Oh yeah? Oh, that's old.
from WARGAMES, written by Lawrence Lasker & Walter F. Parkes.
Actor John Wood has passed away peacefully in his sleep, aged 81. To me, and anyone approximately in my generation, this means that the wonderful Professor Stephen Falken is no longer with us.
Wood was always an impeccable presence in films, on the stage and TV, and was acting up until the last couple of years. His gracious manner, and incredible voice (which will forever exclaim "Mmmmmmm-yesssssss, number of players zero" in my head) blessed many productions.
His first screen appearance is in the rather obscure 1952 Hammer plastic surgery melodrama Stolen Face. His was the Doctorly type even then, and his 1963 gig as a solemn explaining-why-any-pre-marital-sex-leads-to-VD GP in That Kind of Girl has recently surfaced on BFI blu-ray.
Because Hollywood loves an upper-class English bad guy (even when they're supposed to be French or Russian), he can be seen menacing the true love of part-time animals in Richard Donner's well-intentioned Ladyhawke and Whoopi Goldberg in Jumpin' Jack Flash - which I haven't seen since it was on ITV in the early 1990s. He graced high-profile, serious dramas too, like Shadowlands, The Madness of King George and Richard Loncraine's underrated McKellen action flick version of Richard III.
But it's for WarGames that I suspect he'll most fondly be remembered. Even when sunk in melancholia, his character always reassured me, and it's nice to remember a film in which the world is saved by really smart people (and a sarcastic General who actually IS right all along and isn't an unreasonable dick). And Wood actually played the film's antagonistic computer too - recording each word separately and in reverse order to give the WOPR its clinical yet searching voice.
I don't watch a lot of TV, so the last time I saw John Wood was a brief appearance as Trubshaw, tailor to Ralph Fiennes' equally impeccable John Steed in The Avengers, which everyone else in the world hates, but I'm quite fond of, not in the least because of Wood's brief scenes.
John Wood will always have a place in film history for many people, and thankfully, lived to many more years than he was supposed to have in the quote that opened this piece.
How about a nice game of chess?
Wood was always an impeccable presence in films, on the stage and TV, and was acting up until the last couple of years. His gracious manner, and incredible voice (which will forever exclaim "Mmmmmmm-yesssssss, number of players zero" in my head) blessed many productions.
His first screen appearance is in the rather obscure 1952 Hammer plastic surgery melodrama Stolen Face. His was the Doctorly type even then, and his 1963 gig as a solemn explaining-why-any-pre-marital-sex-leads-to-VD GP in That Kind of Girl has recently surfaced on BFI blu-ray.
Because Hollywood loves an upper-class English bad guy (even when they're supposed to be French or Russian), he can be seen menacing the true love of part-time animals in Richard Donner's well-intentioned Ladyhawke and Whoopi Goldberg in Jumpin' Jack Flash - which I haven't seen since it was on ITV in the early 1990s. He graced high-profile, serious dramas too, like Shadowlands, The Madness of King George and Richard Loncraine's underrated McKellen action flick version of Richard III.
But it's for WarGames that I suspect he'll most fondly be remembered. Even when sunk in melancholia, his character always reassured me, and it's nice to remember a film in which the world is saved by really smart people (and a sarcastic General who actually IS right all along and isn't an unreasonable dick). And Wood actually played the film's antagonistic computer too - recording each word separately and in reverse order to give the WOPR its clinical yet searching voice.
I don't watch a lot of TV, so the last time I saw John Wood was a brief appearance as Trubshaw, tailor to Ralph Fiennes' equally impeccable John Steed in The Avengers, which everyone else in the world hates, but I'm quite fond of, not in the least because of Wood's brief scenes.
John Wood will always have a place in film history for many people, and thankfully, lived to many more years than he was supposed to have in the quote that opened this piece.
How about a nice game of chess?
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