Thursday, May 21, 2009

Spider-Man Suicide



Spider-Man 3 is a 2007 film written and directed by Sam Raimi, with a screenplay by Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent. The character Jennifer Dugan, a reporter in the film, was played by Lucy Gordon.



On Wednesday, May 20, 2009, Gordon died by suicide in her Paris apartment, France-Info radio reported on Thursday. She was found in her flat in the city's 10th (district) arrondissement. Gordon lived in a £2,000-a-month two bedroom rented apartment in that bohemian arrondissement of Paris, an up-and-coming area popular with young professionals on the Right Bank of the Seine.

Gordon took her own life, just two days before her 29th birthday. Police said her boyfriend, told them he woke to find her hanging.

He was still being questioned Wednesday night, but the spokesman stressed it was believed Gordon died by suicide.

Neighbors said the boyfriend told them Gordon had been deeply affected by the recent suicide of a friend in Britain. But one neighbor said she had heard "a couple rowing" the night before her body was found, according to the Daily Mail.

UPI is running with the graphic headline, "U.K. actress Lucy Gordon found hanged."

Lucy Gordon left two suicide notes before hanging herself in the Paris flat she shared with her cinematographer boyfriend, her father said today.

Gordon detailed her last wishes regarding her estate on one piece of paper and left a letter for her parents on another.

Her father Richard Gordon said a post-mortem examination proved she had died from hanging and that no other marks were found on her body. He spoke today to end speculation that the death might be anything other than suicide.

Lucy Gordon’s boyfriend, revealed today as top cinematographer Jerome Alveras, was asleep in the Paris apartment when the actress hanged herself on Tuesday night.

Her father said: "We speak to him daily and he is also distraught."

Almeras - the cinematographer behind last year's Kristin Scott Thomas hit film I've Loved You So Long - has spent two days since the suicide being questioned by police about his 28-year-old lover’s apparent suicide.

Almeras, a Frenchman in his 40s, rushed out of the two-bedroom rented flat and alerted a nearby shopkeeper, but it was too late to save Gordon.

An experienced camera operator, Mr Almeras has worked on numerous films, including Cineman, in which Miss Gordon had a role.

The film, a comedy, is currently in post-production. It was not clear if the couple had met on the set or if they knew one another previously.

Since Gordon's debut in the 2001 movie Perfume, Gordon appeared in about a dozen films, including French director Cedric Klapisch's The Russian Dolls, American filmmaker John Krasinski's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, as well as Spider-Man 3. Other films she did include Frost, The Four Feathers*, and Serendipity.

Lucy Gordon starred with Audrey Tautou in Les poupées russes, The Russian Dolls (2005). Tautou played Sophie Neveu in the 2006 thriller The Da Vinci Code, paired with Tom Hanks.

Gordon recently wrapped production on Joann Sfar's anticipated biopic about late French singer Serge Gainsbourg (April 2, 1928 – March 2, 1991) entitled, Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life. In the film, Lucy Gordon plays Gainsbourg's lover -- actress and film director Jane Birkin.

Gainsbourg died of a heart attack. Birkin, born December 14, 1946, is still alive. Gainsbourg and Birkin are the parents of actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (born July 21, 1971).

Birkin was first married, from 1965 until 1968, to John Barry, an English composer who wrote the musical score to the James Bond movies. Their daughter, the photographer Kate Barry, was born in 1967. In 1982, Birkin gave birth to her third daughter, Lou Doillon, from her relationship with the director Jacques Doillon.

"The film 'Gainsbourg (a heroic life)' owes a lot to Lucy Gordon's generosity, kindness and the immense talent," Sfar and the film's producers Marc du Pontavice and Didier Lupfer said in a press release sent out late Wednesday night in France. The film will hit Gallic theaters next year.

Lucy Gordon (May 22, 1980 – May 20, 2009) was born in Oxford, England.



[Watching Spider-Man getting hammered by the giant Sandman...]
Jennifer Dugan: It's hard to believe what's happening. The brutality of it. I-- I don't know how he can take anymore.
Anchorman: This could be a tragic day for the people of New York. It could be the end of Spider-Man.

*Updates:

The Four Feathers is a 2002 American drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur, starring Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, Djimon Hounsou, Kate Hudson and Lucy Gordon (who played Isabelle), a historical drama about cowardice.



Lucy Gordon is shown at the premiere of The Four Feathers with the poster visible behind her with images of Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson.

Heather Ledger died between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, New York City, on January 22, 2008.


Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter.
Rue Lafayette,
Paris, 1891

Thanks for linkages from Todd Campbell and Theo Paijmans, as per the comments.

Also, please see Pseudoccultmedia's Lucy Gordon posting. Notes about the age being the same for Gordon & Ledger, Birkin's father being an intelligence officer, butterfly & other imagery and much more are detailed.



:-) Thank You.

4 comments:

  1. Appeared in "Four Feathers" with Heath Ledger...

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  2. So sad. My condolences to her family.

    What a tragic way to go.

    RIP, Ms. Gordon.

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  3. Her body was found in her flat in the city's 10th district. Through the 10th district runs the street named Rue La Fayette. Rue La Fayette gives access to the Rue Cadet, where on number 16 we find the masonic lodge of the Grand Orient de France. The Musée du Grand Orient is located at the same address.

    Symbolist artist Edvard Munch's 1891 oil painting 'Rue Lafayette' is interpreted by one art critic as follows: "...one can find in this early work a reflection of the loss of individuality that is symptomatic of life in the metropolis..." Two years later Munch's most famous painting 'Scream' saw the light of day.

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  4. The spider man comics are the basis for the movie series .

    ReplyDelete