RIP Trini Lopez

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T_Bone0806
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RIP Trini Lopez

#1 Post by T_Bone0806 » Tue Aug 11, 2020 10:03 pm

COVID-19 claims another life, this one being the singer of Lemon Tree and If I Had A Hammer.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... y-1042985/
"#$%&@*&"-Donald F. Duck

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Re: RIP Trini Lopez

#2 Post by silverscreenselect » Wed Aug 12, 2020 5:24 am

Lopez had a brief acting career, which consisted primarily of an unlikely role as one of The Dirty Dozen, but his main contribution to the film was a song he sang during the R&R scene. He isn't even in the last third of the movie, which covers their mission in France (his character supposedly dies in the parachute jump when they land).

He had a very nice, romantic singing voice. RIP.
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Re: RIP Trini Lopez

#3 Post by frogman042 » Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:16 am

silverscreenselect wrote:
Wed Aug 12, 2020 5:24 am
Lopez had a brief acting career, which consisted primarily of an unlikely role as one of The Dirty Dozen, but his main contribution to the film was a song he sang during the R&R scene. He isn't even in the last third of the movie, which covers their mission in France (his character supposedly dies in the parachute jump when they land).

He had a very nice, romantic singing voice. RIP.
I heard several reasons as to why he was written out - supposedly he would have had a much bigger role in the final third but his agent was demanding more money under the assumption that he was at the time a fairly big name and the producers balked and just revised the ending by having him break his neck off camera in the parachute jump.

Either way - I always enjoyed his singing and his performance in TDD - RIP.

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Re: RIP Trini Lopez

#4 Post by silverscreenselect » Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:49 am

Interesting trivia to name the actors who played the Dirty Dozen. The first seven are fairly easy since they were star billed.
Spoiler
Charles Bronson
Jim Brown
John Cassavetes
Trini Lopez
Telly Savalas
Donald Sutherland
Clint Walker
The other five are a lot tougher
Spoiler
Tom Busby
Ben Carruthers
Stuart Cooper
Colin Maitland
Al Mancini

None of them had a particularly distinguished acting career (they, along with Donald Sutherland, primarily worked in England at the time), and the only one who had any notable scenes in the movie was Mancini. The soldiers were arranged by height, so Clint Walker was #1 and Mancini, who was the shortest (referred to as a "malignant dwarf" in an early scene) was #12. John Cassavetes was #11 and when they squared off for hand-to-hand combat training, Cassvetes mocked the shorter Mancini until Clint Walker stepped in and asked Cassavetes if he wanted to try his bullying with Walker. Naturally, Cassavetes backed down.

In the original script, Trini Lopez had a major self-sacrificing death scene in which he blew himself up to destroy the German radio tower. However, when he was written out of the final script, the scene was reassigned to Ben Carruthers instead.
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Re: RIP Trini Lopez

#5 Post by frogman042 » Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:17 am

silverscreenselect wrote:
Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:49 am
Interesting trivia to name the actors who played the Dirty Dozen. The first seven are fairly easy since they were star billed.
Spoiler
Charles Bronson
Jim Brown
John Cassavetes
Trini Lopez
Telly Savalas
Donald Sutherland
Clint Walker
The other five are a lot tougher
Spoiler
Tom Busby
Ben Carruthers
Stuart Cooper
Colin Maitland
Al Mancini

None of them had a particularly distinguished acting career (they, along with Donald Sutherland, primarily worked in England at the time), and the only one who had any notable scenes in the movie was Mancini. The soldiers were arranged by height, so Clint Walker was #1 and Mancini, who was the shortest (referred to as a "malignant dwarf" in an early scene) was #12. John Cassavetes was #11 and when they squared off for hand-to-hand combat training, Cassvetes mocked the shorter Mancini until Clint Walker stepped in and asked Cassavetes if he wanted to try his bullying with Walker. Naturally, Cassavetes backed down.

In the original script, Trini Lopez had a major self-sacrificing death scene in which he blew himself up to destroy the German radio tower. However, when he was written out of the final script, the scene was reassigned to Ben Carruthers instead.
From IMDB:
The scene where one of the dozen pretends to be a General inspecting Robert Ryan's troops was initially written for Samson Posey (Clint Walker). However, Walker was uncomfortable with this scene, so director Robert Aldrich decided to use Donald Sutherland instead. The scene was directly responsible for Sutherland being cast in MASH (1970), which made him an international star.

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Re: RIP Trini Lopez

#6 Post by silverscreenselect » Wed Aug 12, 2020 10:35 am

frogman042 wrote:
Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:17 am
The scene where one of the dozen pretends to be a General inspecting Robert Ryan's troops was initially written for Samson Posey (Clint Walker). However, Walker was uncomfortable with this scene, so director Robert Aldrich decided to use Donald Sutherland instead. The scene was directly responsible for Sutherland being cast in MASH (1970), which made him an international star.
Unlike the lesser-known members of the Dirty Dozen cast, Sutherland had a substantial resume in British TV and film work before getting the role (he is Canadian). After the release of the Dirty Dozen, he again went back to working in England until Jim Brown got him a role in the heist movie, The Split. It was a small part, but it attracted notice and also helped him land the lead in MASH.

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