(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Acclaimed American director Robert Jonathan Demme has passed away at the age of 73 due to complications from esophageal cancer.
Demme directed Melvin and Howard (1980), Swing Shift (1984), Something Wild (1986) and Married to the Mob (1988). He became best known for directing The Silence of the Lambs (1991), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. He also directed the acclaimed films Philadelphia (1993) and Rachel Getting Married (2008).
Demme was originally treated for cancer back in 2010, but suffered from a recurrence in 2015, with his condition deteriorating in recent weeks.
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via IndieWire:
Demme maintained a private personal life, but his career was marked by a remarkably versatile creative output that included acclaimed narratives and documentaries films stretching back to the early ’70s. He made his debut with the 1971 biker film “Angels Hard as They Come,” a Roger Corman production during the B-movie producer’s heyday, but his career reached another plane of critical and commercial success with a string of ’80s dramas, including “Melvin and Howard, “Swing Shift,” and “Something Wild.”
Demme reached a new plane of success in the next decade, with the back-to-back releases of “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia.” At the same time, he remained an active documentarian, creating the definitive Talking Heads film “Stop Making Sense,” in addition to three films with Neil Young.
More recently, Demme directed the Meryl Streep comedy “Ricki and the Flash” in 2015 and the concert documentary “Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids” in 2016. He was reportedly in pre-production on a new project, and continued to curate series at the Jacob Burns Film Center, where he was the chairman of the board. His last series was “Saddle Up Saturdays,” a westerns retrospective that ran through March 2017.
Demme is survived by his wife Joanne Howard and their three children.
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Johnathan Demme Cause Of Death: How Did The ‘Silence Of The Lambs’ Director Die?
Esophageal cancer complications.
Demme was originally treated for cancer back in 2010, but suffered from a recurrence in 2015, with his condition deteriorating in recent weeks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YS2ovtUveQ
