Mort Sahl, a trailblazing political satirist whose biting wit and uncompromising intellect broadened the world of conventional standup comedy, died Tuesday in Mill Valley, Calif. He was 94.

The New York Times confirmed his death with his friend, Lucy Mercer.

In 1953, when Sahl first appeared at the Hungry i, a San Francisco folk singer’s hangout, he was an unknown with little stage experience. But his rapid-fire monologues about politics, social trends and fads quickly earned him the nickname “Rebel Without a Pause.”

“The three great geniuses of the period were Nichols and May, Jonathan Winters and Mort Sahl,” Woody Allen told New York magazine in 2008. Allen credited Sahl’s intellectual brand of humor for getting him into comedy. “He was the best thing I ever saw,” Allen said in another interview. “He totally restructured comedy. He changed the rhythm of the jokes.”

In 2011, his live 1955 recording “Mort Sahl at Sunset...

Sharon Tate's short life came to an end when she was brutally murdered by members of Charles Manson's infamous "family" in August 1969. The stunning 26-year-old Texas native was on the verge of making it big in Hollywood; she had starred in movies like Don't Make Waves and The Wrecking Crew and was possibly best known for her role as aspiring actress Jennifer North in Valley of the Dolls. Sharon was married to disgraced film director Roman Polanski, and at the time of her death, she was eight and a half months pregnant with their son. Along with Sharon, four other people - Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, and Steven Parent - were killed by Manson followers Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian. They broke into Sharon and Roman's Benedict Canyon home and murdered them with both guns and knives. It was revealed earlier this...

Sixties screen siren Claudia Cardinale talks to Steve Rose about entrancing Fellini, spurning Brando – and why appearing in 135 films still isn't enough

There's nothing Claudia Cardinale hates more than staying still, but for the past two months she's had to do exactly that. She broke her foot on holiday in Tunisia and has since been holed up in her Paris flat. "It was stupid," she says, in her distinctive Mediterranean rasp. "I was playing volleyball. There was water on the edge of swimming pool, and I slipped. I like to be active, so when I have to sit for two months without going out, it's terrible. I had many places to go and I had to refuse: Venice, Kiev, Osaka. Now it's Ok. Yesterday I went out for the first time, but the weather is ugly."

Cardinale is a survivor from the era when movie giants walked the earth – most of them alongside her.

Jimmy's End | Alexander Mackendrick | Princefest | Barbican Cinemas 2 & 3

Jimmy's End, Nationwide

Alan Moore has been notoriously dismissive about movie adaptations of his comic-book masterpieces, often with good reason. V For Vendetta, Watchmen, From Hell, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: none of them have approached the power of their source material. So now Moore's gone and had a go himself. The prelude, Act Of Faith, and the half-hour Jimmy's End, are the first in what's promised to be a series of films, directed by his regular collaborator Mitch Jenkins and set in the same dreamy, non-linear world. They've generously put it online so you can try and work it out for yourself.

Alexander Mackendrick, Edinburgh

Born in the Us and raised in Scotland, Mackendrick flitted between both during his stilted but eventful career, and the best of his work combines the two national sensibilities. He's best known for his three first-class Ealing comedies: Whisky Galore!

When I met Rita Moreno in her suite at the Waldorf Towers in New York, I immediately noticed three things: She looks at least 20 years younger than her age. She moves with a lithe grace that bears witness to decades of dancing. And she was wearing pajamas: cherry-red with a floral, Japanese-inspired print.

It was fashion as metaphor: At age 80, Moreno has let go of the need to make a certain impression.

"I was always the darling, please-like-me kid," Moreno said. "It's the immigrant syndrome; it comes from being Puerto Rican, being on the outside. 'Don't make waves, don't make noise' -- my mother was very conscious of that. I was brought up trying to please the world. The greatest lesson I ever learned is that you don't die from not being liked. I wanted to world to like me."

That's a goal Moreno has accomplished in spades. Perhaps...

Actor whose good looks and charm took him to the heights of Hollywood with films such as Some Like It Hot and The Defiant Ones

Born into a family of Hungarian Jews who had emigrated to the Us, Bernard Schwartz – the boy who became the actor Tony Curtis – could scarcely have dreamed of the wealth, fame and rollercoaster life that awaited him. Curtis, who has died aged 85, starred in several of the best films of the 1950s, including Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958) and Some Like It Hot (1959). He enjoyed a long career thanks to his toughness and resilience (despite insecurities that demanded years of therapy).

He grew up in the Bronx, New York, the eldest of three sons. As a child, he was ill-treated by his mother, Helen, and spent time in an orphanage. One of his brothers, Robert, was a schizophrenic and the other, Julius, was...