The US film director Robert Altman has died at a Los Angeles Hospital, it was announced today. He was 81.
The caustic and irreverent satirist behind M-A-S-H, Nashvilleand The Playerwho made a career out of bucking Hollywood management and story conventions, died last night, a producer at Altman's Sandcastle 5 Productions in New York City, confirmed today.
The cause of death wasn't disclosed.
A five-time Academy Award nominee for best director, most recently for 2001's "Gosford Park," he finally won a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2006.
"No other film-maker has gotten a better shake than I have," Altman said while accepting the award. "I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for film-making has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition."
Altman had one of the most distinctive styles among modern filmmakers. He often employed huge ensemble casts, encouraged improvisation and overlapping dialogue and filmed scenes in long tracking shots that would flit from character to character.
Perpetually in and out of favor with audiences and critics, Altman worked ceaselessly since his anti-war black comedy M-A-S-Hestablished his reputation in 1970, but he would go for years at a time directing obscure movies before roaring back with a hit.
After a string of commercial failures including The Gingerbread Manin 1998, Cookie's Fortunein 1999 and Dr. T & the Womenin 2000, Altman took his all-American cynicism to Britain for 2001's Gosford Park.
A combination murder-mystery and class-war satire set among snobbish socialites and their servants on an English estate in the 1930s, Gosford Parkwas his biggest box-office success since M-A-S-H.
Besides best-director, Gosford Parkearned six other Oscar nominations, including best picture and best supporting actress for both Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith. It won the original-screenplay Oscar, and Altman took the best-director prize at the Golden Globes for Gosford Park.
Altman's other best-director Oscar nominations came for M-A-S-H, the country-music saga Nashvillefrom 1975, the movie-business satire The Playerfrom 1992 and the ensemble character study Short Cutsfrom 1993. He also earned a best-picture nomination as producer of Nashville.
No director ever got more best-director nominations without winning a regular Oscar, though four other men - Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Clarence Brown and King Vidor - tied with Altman at five.