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McQueen and Dunaway made it very clear that they were not to be approached by set visitors

The Towering Inferno had an incredible cast but Steve McQueen and Paul Newman had a fierce and prideful feud. Amid all this, The Great Escape star put out a real fire and insisted on performing an incredibly dangerous stunt himself.

Back in 1974, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman starred opposite each other in the classic disaster movie The Towering Inferno

Joining the impressive cast were William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire and more.

Due to such star power, both McQueen and Dunaway made it very clear that they were not to be approached by set visitors, while Newman simply asked that he not be surprised.
Amazingly, there was an actual real-life fire that broke out on The Towering Inferno set which saw The Great Escape star having to help firemen out.
When one of the firemen recognised the actor, he said, “My wife is not going to believe this!”, to which McQueen replied, “Neither is mine.” The King of Cool even insisted that he do his own stunt of leaping off a helicopter onto the top of the fictional burning building, despite producer Irwin Allen’s strong objections.
And at one point, McQueen was left fuming when he discovered that Newman had 12 more lines than he did. According to the latter’s lifelong pal A E Hotchner, upon hearing this he referred to his co-star as “a chicken s***”.
On top of this, the two Towering Inferno leads were demanding top billing on the poster and credits, alongside Holden – but he didn’t stand a chance having not had a box office hit in a few years. In the end, the main duo had dual top billing with The Great Escape star’s name coming first but his co-lead’s being higher up.
This, therefore, gave the impression that both were the main star depending on if you were reading the poster left-to-right or top-to-bottom. The staggered or diagonal billing was the first of its kind, although it had been considered for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid before McQueen left the project and was replaced by the less well-known Robert Redford. Meanwhile, the King of Cool’s name came first in The Towering Inferno trailer, but Newman’s appeared first in the end credits even though the names were arranged diagonally again.
Additionally, both Hollywood stars were paid an equal fee of $1 million for their roles as Doug Roberts, the Glass Tower architect (Newman) and Michael O’Halloran, SFFD 5th Battalion Chief (McQueen). Filming took place over 14 weeks and according to director John Guillermin, both were very good to work alongside and added much to their parts.
The Towering Inferno was the highest-grossing movie of 1974 and received eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture. The movie went on to win three Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Original Song in We May Never Love Like This Again by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn.PROC. BY MOVIES

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JEFF BRIDGES: I was kind of surrendering to the idea that I might die,” Bridges said of his illnesses


JEFF BRIDGES REFLECTS ON CANCER DIAGNOSIS: ‘CAME PRETTY CLOSE TO DYING’

Over three years after his lymphoma diagnosis, Jeff Bridges reflected on a harrowing set of circumstances that left him on death’s door.

“It’s amazing the way the mind can forget all that stuff,” the 74-year-old actor told Page Six. “I don’t think too much about the past.”

Bridges revealed that during one of his bouts of chemo, he ended up contracting COVID, leaving him hospitalized for five months with extreme pain and very little hope.
“I was pretty close to dying. The doctors kept telling me, ‘Jeff, you’ve got to fight. You’re not fighting,’” he told People in May 2022. “I was in surrender mode. I was ready to go. I was dancing with my mortality.”
“I had no defenses,” he added. “That’s what chemo does—it strips you of all your immune system. I had nothing to fight it. COVID made my cancer look like nothing.”
Thankfully, the chemo session before contracting COVID was his last one, and he was able to go into remission while beginning this new fight. This allowed his body to fully focus on recovering, and with help from a procedure that used blood from other patients who had already beaten the disease, Bridges was finally able to make progress.
Over three years later, the actor is now “feeling” great and fully back into the swing of things, returning to film his upcoming show THE OLD MAN. It was while he was filming this show originally that he discovered he had lymphoma.
“I was doing those fight scenes for the first episode of THE OLD MAN and didn’t know that I had a 9-by-12-inch tumor in my body,” he told AARP Magazine. “You’d think that would have hurt or something, when they were punching me and stuff. It didn’t.”
Jeff Bridges recently walked the red carpet for the premier of his FX show THE OLD MAN, and fans were overjoyed to see the actor back after a series of health struggles.
While filming the show, doctors diagnosed Bridges with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The actor underwent chemotherapy, and during treatment, contracted COVID-19.
“I was kind of surrendering to the idea that I might die,” Bridges said of his illnesses. “That this might be the end of the race kind of thing, because that’s what’s going to happen to all of us at some point and maybe this was my time to go through that and I didn’t know.”
However, Bridges began to recover. The TRUE GRIT actor said that he realized that he still wanted to fight to stay alive.

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Alba will star in the lead role of Parker, who is the Special Forces commando


Netflix, Jessica Alba Team Up For Her First Movie In Five Years

Jessica Alba is coming to Netflix five years after her last feature film.

The streamer announced in a post on X this week that Alba will star in the Netflix original film Trigger Warning, which will debut on June 21.

The official description of Trigger Warning is as follows: “When a skilled Special Forces commando returns home to take over her family’s bar, she soon finds herself at odds with a violent gang running rampant in her hometown.”
Alba will star in the lead role of Parker, who is the Special Forces commando. Netflix also announced that Mark Webber, Tone Bell, Jake Weary, Gabriel Basso and Anthony Michael Hall are also starring in the film.
Trigger Warning is directed by Mouly Surya.
Alba’s last film appearance came in the 2019 crime mystery Killers Anonymous, which also starred Tommy Flanagan, Gary Oldman and Suki Waterhouse.
PROC. BY MOVIES

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Yellowstone’s Kelly Reilly may have won herself a global fanbase as Beth Dutton but not everyone may realise this isn’t actually her real name


Yellowstone’s Kelly Reilly may have won herself a global fanbase as Beth Dutton but not everyone may realise this isn’t actually her real name.

Yellowstone star Kelly Reilly, unlike her counterpart Beth Dutton, shies away from the spotlight, keeping details about her personal life under wraps, including her name.

Beth Dutton is the violent, foul-mouthed, feisty only sister of the Dutton family in the Western Paramount Network drama who certainly is one to fear.

Nevertheless, she has shown her soft side with her desire to protect her dad John Dutton (played by Kevin Costner) at all costs, as well as express her love for Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser).
Fans have loved watching Beth’s development since the show launched in 2018, although Reilly did have a number of other starring roles before its existence.
Some of which included True Detective, Flight, Sherlock Holmes and various appearances in theatrical productions, one of which she received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for.
Despite all of this fame and success, some fans may be surprised to learn that Kelly Reilly isn’t actually the actress’ real name.
Yellowstone actress Kelly Reilly is actually called Jessica Kelly Siobhan Reilly but chooses to go by one of her middle names, rather than her first.
It isn’t known why she was named Jessica but with Irish grandparents, her other middle name Siobhan is thought to have been passed down to her.
The star’s mum was a hospital receptionist, her dad Jack Reilly a police officer and her older brother Neil works as a professional golfer.
It’s quite common practice for celebrities to use their middle names for their stage name.
Other famous faces who have done this are Reese Witherspoon, Brad Pitt, Rihanna, Dakota Fanning and Ashton Kutcher.
But she is believed to be the only member of the Yellowstone cast to do this.
Unfortunately for fans of the award-winning drama, the number of Beth scenes to come is few and far between.
Yellowstone was cancelled last year with the network announcing that season five would be its last.PROC. BY MOVIES

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