...JAMES BOOTH, a veteran English actor who usually plays grumbling and opportunistic scoundrels, has been living in the United States since he came to America in '75 to tour with Tom Stoppard's "Travesties," in which he played James Joyce.
Being a dependable artist, Booth gets choice assignments from time to time. He was chosen best actor in Los Angeles in '83 for his role in the play, "Sus," and was the star of "Aufwiedersehen," [sic] a 13-week TV series which was the No. 1 rated show in England last season.
But Booth is not content to sit around waiting for opportunities to fall into his lap. He has begun writing movie scripts which contain juicy roles for himself. The latest is "Avenging Force" in which he is Adm. Brown, a beady-eyed senior CIA official keeping track of Louisiana fascists, whose organization known as Pentangle includes deranged politicians, maniacal businessmen, mean dilettantes and savage martial-arts experts.
Matt Hunter (played by Michael Dudikoff) is given the task of destroying the group. At the end of the film, four principal members of Pentangle are dead, but the fifth not only gets away, he has not even been identified. Booth's eyes dart back and forth, and the clear inference is that he is the guilty party and that Dudikoff will have to deal with him in a sequel.
Booth also wrote "Pray for Death," the best movie yet from Sho Kosugi, the martial-arts whiz. Booth was the villain, a Cockney-accented Los Angeles gangster of almost inhuman strength and cunningness.
Booth has written "American Ninja II," a sequel to the action flick which made Dudikoff a star, and it's a safe bet that there's a choice role for Booth in it. ..
