Angelina Jolie to Direct Actor Jack O'Connell in World War II Film Unbroken

Angelina Jolie is set to direct her second film, World War II-era flick Unbroken. Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty
Angelina Jolie is a woman on the go! The actress, activist, and mother-of-six will be donning a director's cap once more this fall after confirming that her sophomore directorial effort, Unbroken, has both a distributor and a lead, British actor Jack O'Connell.

Jolie, 37, will begin filming for the World War II-era drama this fall, and was seen scouting for locations in Hawaii as recently as Monday, July 8.

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The film will also have some major Hollywood writing muscle behind it. Oscar winners Joel and Ethan Coen -- who took home the top prize for No Country for Old Men in 2008 -- will be adapting the script, based on a novel by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand called Unbroken: A World War II Story of Surivival, Resilience, and Redemption.

Jolie's first film was 2011's In the Land of Blood and Honey, which told the story of Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs in the Bosnian War.

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The tale will follow the life story of Olympian and war hero Louis "Louis" Zamperini (O'Connell) as he survives a fatal plane crash aboard a raft for 47 days before being captured by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.

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"I've had the privilege of spending a great deal of time with Louie Zamperini, who is a hero of mine, and now -- I am proud to say -- a dear friend," the actress said in a statement, according to Yahoo News. "I am deeply honored to be telling his extraordinary story, and I will do my absolute best to give him the film he deserves. I am grateful to Universal for making this film a priority."

Unbroken will mark Jolie's first major project since undergoing a double mastectomy earlier this year, a preventative procedure that dropped her chances of developing breast cancer from 87 percent to 5 percent.

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"I can tell my children that they don't need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer," she wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times in May. "It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars and that's it. Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was."

Tom Hanks: See the Actor Play Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks

In Saving Mr. Banks, Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) shows Disneyland to Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson).
The resemblance is uncanny: Tom Hanks suits up (and sports a mustache) to portray the legendary Walt Disney in the upcoming movie Saving Mr. Banks. In the first official still from the film, the actor shows author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) around Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.

When Disney's daughters begged him to make a movie of their favorite book, Travers' Mary Poppins, he promised to deliver. It took him 20 years to obtain the rights -- and when he did, he was forced to deal with its curmudgeonly, uncompromising author. "She's the most difficult person I've ever played," Thompson, 54, tells TIME of her character. "She was a woman of quite eye-watering complexity and contradiction."

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The film tells the story of Disney's quest to make the classic 1964 Mary Poppins movie that starred Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.

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"Often I play people who are controlled by some very clear guiding moral principles," says Thompson, a two-time Academy Award winner. "There are very clear moral prisms these women pour life through, and I understand that very well. And [Travers] was not like that at all. She was far more chaotic and confused and morally various."

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Directed by John Lee Hancock, the film also stars Colin Farrell, Rachel Griffiths, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak. Saving Mr. Banks will be released nationwide on Dec. 20, 2013.

‘Waltons’ Actor Joe Conley Dies at 85

Joe Conley, who played general store proprietor Ike Godsey on the beloved CBS family drama The Waltons, has died, his co-star Mary Beth McDonough reported Monday on her Facebook page. He was 85.

Conley died July 7. No other details of his death were immediately known.

Conley appeared in 172 of the 212 episodes of Earl Hamner Jr.’s The Waltons -- which debuted with a December 1971 pilot and then ran for nine seasons through June 1981 -- as well as in all six of the Lorimar series’ reunion telefilms. (Woodrow Parfrey played Ike in the series’ two-hour pilot titled “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.”)

As the owner of General Merchandise in the years following the Great Depression, Conley rode a 1927 motorcycle, did a bit of singing and suffered a heart attack in a memorable season-seven episode. His character got married to the bossy Corabeth Walton (Ronnie Claire Edwards) in the third season.

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., whose grandfather was a traveling medicine man and mother a vaudevillian, Conley broke into show business as a child radio star.

He moved west in 1945 to attend Loyola University and appeared in college plays, then served in the Korean War and was wounded. Later, while at Arizona State, he was cast in a production of The Sound of Fury and landed a small role in the Lloyd Bridges film that was released in 1950, jumpstarting his career.

Conley went on to appear on dozens of TV shows, including six episodes of Mister Ed and stints on The People’s Choice, Lassie, Make Room for Daddy, Dragnet, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Dennis the Menace, Gunsmoke and Green Acres.

His résumé also includes the films Crime of Passion (1957), Blueprint for Robbery (1961) and Cast Away (2000) and scores of TV commercials.

A successful businessman, Conley at one time owned a string of real estate offices and a restaurant in the San Fernando Valley.

Survivors include by his wife of 44 years, Louise, and children Kevin, Julie, Erin and Jana.

'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' Actor Elliott Reid Dies at 93

Elliott Reid, best known for his roles in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Absent-Minded Professor, died Friday at the age of 93.

He passed away from heart failure at the assisted-living facility in Studio City, Calif., where he lived, his nephew told the Los Angeles Times.

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Reid starred opposite Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and alongside Fred MacMurray in The Absent-Minded Professor.

He also had roles in Son of Flubber and Inherit the Wind and appeared in episodes of I Love Lucy, Perry Mason and Murder, She Wrote, among others.

Reid even impersonated John F. Kennedy at a 1962 dinner with the president in the audience. JFK was reportedly "convulsed" by the performance.

Reid was born Edgeworth Blair Reid on Jan. 16, 1920, in New York City, later taking "Elliott" as his stage name.

 

'American Idiot' Actor Joins Stephen King Adaptation 'A Good Marriage'

Rising actor Theo Stockman has joined Joan Allen and Anthony LaPaglia in A Good Marriage, the indie adaptation of Stephen King’s 2010 novella.

The movie, currently in production, is being directed by Peter Askin and sees Allen play a woman named Darcy, who discovers the sinister and gruesome double life that her husband and the father of their two children, played by LaPaglia, has been living.

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Stockman is playing their son, a man who made a name for himself in the advertising world and is enjoying his newfound success.

King wrote the screenplay.

Stockman has appeared in shows such as Blue Bloods, Private Practice, CSI, Nurse Jackie and 30 Rock. He also appeared in Broadway productions of American Idiot and Hair.

He is repped by APA and Gregory Russell at Regarding Entertainment.