It was sad to hear of the passing of British director Tony Scott a couple of weeks ago. Although best known for the thinly-disguised Us Air Force promotional film Top Gun, filled with the memorable characters Goose, Maverick, and Ice-Man (!!!), it is the excellent Tarantino-scripted True Romance that is undoubtedly his finest hour (or two). The tense Christopher Walken/Dennis Hopper trailer-park scene is the stuff of legend. I have to confess to a soft spot for Beverly Hills Cop II as well, which I saw as an impressionable youth in a double header with Robocop, both of which were brought home by a friend's older brother, who owned an RX7, but I digress...

Anyway, what is lesser known about Tony Scott is that like his older – and more critically-celebrated - brother Ridley, he studied at West Hartlepool College of Art and Sunderland Art School. He gained a fine arts degree, graduating from the Royal College of Art with the intention of becoming a painter. The art world's loss was Hollywood's gain, and had Scott not put down the paint brush and picked up the video camera, we may never have heard Kenny Loggin's Danger Zone or been privy to such immortal dialogue as this:

Iceman: "You two really are cowboys."

Maverick: "What's your problem Kazanski?"

Iceman: "You're everyone's problem. That's because every time you go up in the air you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous."

Maverick: "That's right! Ice...man. I am dangerous."