Bird (film)

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Bird
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Clint Eastwood
Produced by	Clint Eastwood David Valdes
Written by	Joel Oliansky
Starring	Forest Whitaker Diane Venora Michael Zelniker Sam Wright Keith David
Music by	Lennie Niehaus
Cinematography	Jack N. Green
Editing by	Joel Cox
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	September 30, 1988
Running time	161 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Bird is an Academy Award-winning 1988 U.S. film directed by Clint Eastwood.

The film is a biopic, a tribute to the life and music of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, written by Joel Oliansky. It is constructed as a collage of scenes from Parker's life, from his childhood in Kansas City, through his marriage to Chan Richardson, to his early death at the age of thirty-four.

In the middle of the 1980s, Charlie Parker's friend and colleague Teddy Edwards shared his reminiscences of the saxophonist to director and screenwriter Joe Oliansky, who had wanted to make a bio-pic about Charlie Parker starring actor Richard Pryor ^[1]. The production was postponed continuously, until the producer/actor Clint Eastwood took over the film project.

Forrest Whitaker's performance as Parker earned him the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Globe nomination. [1] In addition, the film also won an Academy Award for Best Sound.

[edit] Cast

• Forest Whitaker — Charlie "Bird" Parker
• Diane Venora — Chan Parker
• Michael Zelniker — Red Rodney
• Samuel E. Wright — Dizzy Gillespie
• Keith David — Buster Franklin
• Michael McGuire — Brewster
• James Handy — Esteves
• Damon Whitaker — Young Bird
• Morgan Nagler — Kim
• Arlen Dean Snyder — Dr Heath
• Sam Robards — Moscowitz
• Penelope Windust — Bellevue Nurse
• Glenn Wright — Alcoholic Patient (as Glenn T. Wright)
• George Orrison — Patient with Checkers
• Bill Cobbs — Dr Caulfield

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Bird at the Internet Movie Database
• Bird at Allmovie
• Bird — from ClintEastwood.net

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