Alexis Kanner

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Alexis Kanner

Born Henri Alexis Kanner
May 2, 1942(1942-05-02)
Bagnères-de-Luchon, France
Died December 13, 2003 (aged 61)
London, England
Other name(s) Henry Leroy, Henri Lucas
Occupation Actor, Director


Alexis Kanner (2 May 1942 in Bagnères-de-Luchon, France - 13 December 2003 in London, England) was a French-born Anglo Canadian actor, most famous for appearing in the ground breaking TV series The Prisoner.

He was born in Nazi-occupied Bagnères-de-Luchon, France in May 1942. In April 1944, shortly before his second birthday, his family escaped with him to Montreal, Canada on the Portuguese ship Serpa Pinto.[1]

Contents

[edit] Career

Kanner made his first impression as an actor in the role of Alex, among a French Canadian cast, in the television drama series Beau Temps, Mauvais Temps (1955-1958).[2]

He moved to England in the late 50s to join the Birmingham Repertory Theatre to further his acting career this then led to the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company where he played Hamlet under the direction of Peter Brook.

He appeared as Stephen in the 1962 film Reach For Glory[3] about the brutal war games of evacuated teenage boys during the second world war. This would lead to him first meeting with the Assistant Director David Tomblin[4] who would be a major influence on the direction of the The Prisoner series six years later.

He had a small role in the 1962 comedy film We Joined the Navy[5] playing Gerrett. The only real notable thing about the film was the amount of future British small screen comedy stalwarts who were acting in either similar small roles or uncredited cameos...

His earliest UK television appearance appears to have been as Peter in the Sunday Night Theatre play Echo From Afar[6] in 1959.

Other plays in which he performed were: Play Of The Week: Birds In The Wilderness[7] as Peter (1962); Television Playhouse: The Interview[8] as The Young Man (1962) and Along Came A Spider[9] as Brian (1963); Drama '63: The Freewheelers[10] as Jeremy (1963); Play Of The Week: The Facing Chair (1963)[11] as Clem Goodwin; Armchair Theatre: Living Image (1963)[12] as John Manders playing a son who wonders if he can love his father even though he violently disapproves of everything he stands for.

He appeared on British television in 1964 in an episode of The Saint, "The Ever Loving Spouse"[13] as Alec Misner and in the first of three episodes in ATV's Love Story, A Future Holiday[14] as Frank Watkins. His other appearances in that series were in the following year in Briefly Kiss The Loser[15] as Big Silver Gardner and in 1967 as Colin Turner in Cinéma Vérité[16].

His film career continued with an appearance in The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders[17] in 1965 as part of a Mohocks gang.

He first came to national prominence in Britain when he appeared as Detective Constable Matt Stone in the first 9 episodes of Softly, Softly in 1966 on BBC TV. This was a spin-off series from Z-Cars. He claimed in interviews later that he left not wanting to be typecast but there are suggestions in the Softly, Softly Wikipedia entry that he alienated cast and crew with erratic behaviour during live transmissions and this may have led to his early departure from the series.

Sadly very little of this television series remains in the BBC archives, due to the BBC's then policy of 'junking' or taping over programmes from the 1960s and 1970s. The reasoning given at the time was that the programmes had limited repeat or overseas resale value, and it was not realised until much later that this material would be of tremendous interest. As a result, many thousands of hours of television programmes were lost (such as early episodes of Doctor Who and Dad's Army). However, one episode featuring Kanner does survive in the BBC archives, 'A-Z' (broadcast 30 March 1966) and one is believed to be held at the NFA, 'It Doesn't Grow On Trees' (broadcast 26 January 1966)[18].

In 1967 he went back to Montreal to star as the lead character Ernie Turner in the film The Ernie Game[19] which was written and directed by Don Owen for the National Film Board of Canada.

[edit] The Prisoner

Patrick McGoohan, impressed with Kanner's acting skills, cast Kanner as the mute psychopathic 'Kid' / No.8 in the episode "Living in Harmony". This led to further appearances in "The Girl Who Was Death" and the final episode "Fall Out", all as different characters.

He portrayed the rebellious 'No.48' in "Fall Out", a role in which the dialogue was either a succession of short lines in response to other short lines or sung.

Kanner also gave an uncredited performance as the photographer in "The Girl Who Was Death", in which he performed a number of stunts on a roller coaster.

[edit] Later career

He starred in a little known short feature film called Twenty Nine[20] in 1969 as Graham Baird in a story of a promiscuous young husband's night out in swinging London. It was only 26 minutes long and co-starred Yootha Joyce. This was shown as the B film in Britain to the feature film if.....[21]. The band Tuesday's Children who had a cameo role in a nightclub scene released the song they played in it called SHE as a single soon afterwards.[22] No copies of this short film are known to exist.

He starred in a number of feature films soon after, including the 1969 movie Crossplot[23] with Roger Moore, Connecting Rooms [24] in 1970 with Bette Davis and Michael Redgrave, and Goodbye Gemini AKA Twinsanity[25] (also 1970).

For some unknown reason his career seemed to tail off in the UK after 1969/1970.

He is wrongly credited with appearing in Invasion:UFO[26] in 1972, a compilation film made up of the episodes from the TV series UFO[27] made in 1970. He had appeared in an episode called The Cat With 10 Lives[28] but no footage of this was used in the "feature film".

He moved back to Canada and his next film was Mahoney's Estate (a.k.a. Mahoney's Last Stand)[29] in 1972 with Sam Waterston[30] and Maud Adams[31], which he also co-wrote and co-directed. The original motion picture soundtrack of the same name [32] was recorded by Ronnie Lane (who was a friend of Alexis) and Ron Wood of The Faces fame, Ron Wood later joined The Rolling Stones. Other famous names who worked on the album included Pete Townshend and Kenney Jones.

He worked again with Patrick McGoohan on the Canadian hostage drama film Kings And Desperate Men[33], in which he starred as well as writing, producing and directing. He apparently spent two years editing the film which, although filmed in December 1977, did not premiere until the 1981 Montreal Film Festival. During the late 80s Kanner sued the producers of the film Die Hard[34] claiming that they stole the idea for that movie from this film (He lost).[35]

His final known film is the Isaac Asimov story Nightfall[36], released in 1988.

He settled back in London in 1996 and was working on a new film project called J R Profitt[37] that never came to fruition.

[edit] Death

He died of a heart attack on 13 December 2003.

He requested that his body be flown and buried in Israel[38].

[edit] References

  1. ^ American Jewish Year Book. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  2. ^ Beau Temps, Mauvais Temps at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  3. ^ Reach For Glory at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  4. ^ David Tomblin at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  5. ^ We Joined The Navy at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  6. ^ Echo From Afar at The BFI. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  7. ^ Birds In The Wilderness at The BFI. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  8. ^ The Interview at The BFI. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  9. ^ Along Came A Spider at The BFI. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  10. ^ The Freewheelers at The BFI. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  11. ^ The Facing Chair at The BFI. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  12. ^ Living Image at The BFI. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  13. ^ The Saint's The Ever Loving Spouse at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  14. ^ A Future Holiday at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  15. ^ Briefly Kiss The Loser at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  16. ^ Cinéma Vérité at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  17. ^ The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  18. ^ BBC Cult TV Treasure Hunt. Retrieved on 2008-02-28.
  19. ^ The Ernie Game at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  20. ^ Twenty Nine at The BFI. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  21. ^ if.... at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  22. ^ Tuesday's Children at CZAR. Retrieved on 2008-01-24.
  23. ^ Crossplot at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  24. ^ Connecting Rooms at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  25. ^ Goodbye Gemini at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  26. ^ UFO:Invasion at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  27. ^ UFO:The TV Series at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  28. ^ UFO Episode: The Cat With 10 Lives at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  29. ^ Mahoney's Estate at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  30. ^ Sam Waterston at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  31. ^ Maud Adams at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  32. ^ Mahoney's Last Stand Album at Wikipedia. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  33. ^ Kings And Desperate Men at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  34. ^ Die Hard at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  35. ^ New York Times: Hollywood Law: Whose idea is it anway?. Retrieved on 2008-01-25.
  36. ^ Nightfall at IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  37. ^ Free For All: Winter Issue 23. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
  38. ^ The Unmutual Website News Archive:17th January 2004. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.

[edit] External links