Thursday, May 9, 2013

Bruce Baron - RIP

Sad news: Bruce Baron passed away on April 14, 2013.

The news was confirmed to Régis Autran of Nanarland by Baron's widow. Bruce Baron had cancer. According to his wife, Bruce Baron prepared his own obituary that has been posted on his facebook profile. However, it's only for friends so I'm not even able to refer to the contents as I'm on that list. Baron was in some of the Filipino films that this site deal with but also other well known cult films. He was in Tsui Hark's amazing DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE. Nanarland did a good interview with him (it's on their site in both French and English). For more info on Bruce Baron check Wiki here and the Nanarland interview here.

Here's Bruce Baron on the cover of the Danish (i.e. from Denmark) vhs for DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE (courtesy of DEVAG fb page).



Introduction to Nanarland's interview with Bruce Baron:
Bruce Baron was a riddle for us during a long time : this Caucasian actor appeared during the eighties in a great number of Asian B-movies, managing to act in some of the most utterly insane flicks ever. Lead actor of Philippines-made Ramboid actioners, mustachioed ninja in Godfrey Ho's bottom-of-the-barrel films, barbarian from beyond in Ruggero Deodato's "Atlantis interceptors", slimy drug smuggler in "Overdose" made by French schlockmeister Jean-Marie Pallardy, Bruce had the most bizarre career before disappearing from the screens in 1989. The most contradictory legends ran amok on the internet : one site described him as a British-born martial artist, another mentioned his death in Sweden from an overdose of diet products... We knew nothing about him, except that he was still alive, judging from the angry e-mails he sent to websites relaying the legend of his death.

We were of course flabbergasted and overjoyed when a French-speaking Bruce Porter Baron wrote us to fill the gaps the bio we had written about him! With biting humour, Bruce gave us some truly fascinating and unheard-of infos about his career as a Caucasian actor in Asia and the world of Oriental B-movies. And there it is, ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate Bruce Baron interview, exclusive full and uncut!

[read the rest via this link]