THE BEST OF STARS

Horst Buchholz & Maxwell Caulfield

Neither is an American, both made it big in Hollywood, and are best remembered for their stellar roles in a western and a musical film, respectively.

Horst Buchholz and Yul Brynner brace for action.

German actor Horst Buchholz was 27 when he acted in the 1960 western classic The Magnificent Seven, a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954). He is Chico, the youngest and most impulsive, of seven cowboys led by Yul Brynner to defend a poor Mexican village from armed bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach). Chico and his mates are caught in a fierce end-battle with the bandits but he lives to see another day, along with Brynner and Steve McQueen, and decides to stay back in the village to be with the girl he has fallen in love with.

Although Buchholz starred alongside Hollywood greats like Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn and Eli Wallach, he carried the eminently watchable The Magnificent Seven with his exuberant performance.

Buchholz, who acted in more than 60 films, died in March 2003 at the age of 74.



Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer.

English actor Maxwell Caulfield, like Buchholz, was only 23 when he played the part of Michael Carrington in the 1982 hit musical comedy Grease 2, the sequel to the memorable John Travolta-Olivia Newton John starrer Grease.

In Grease 2, his first major film role, Caulfield plays a British exchange student at Rydell High School and is paired opposite Michelle Pfeiffer who, as Stephanie Zinone, is now the leader of the Pink Ladies. Stephanie and her friends move around with the T-Birds, the boys-who-would-be-men from her class, led by Johnny Nogerelli (played by Adrian Zmed). Michael, predictably, falls in love with Stephanie who refuses to date him till he is a T-Bird and rides a bike. He eventually becomes a Cool Rider (catch the song), albeit an elusive and mysterious biker in black disguise, and helps the T-Bird defeat a rival gang.

Caulfied, who, according to IMDB, was chosen from among thousands of applicants to appear as Michael Carrington, has since acted in a number of films, plays and television shows.