*Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme, best known for helming 1991’s “the Silence of the Lambs” and the Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks film “Philadelphia,” has died of cancer complications, his publicist revealed Wednesday. He was 73.
Following “The Silence of the Lambs,” (only the third film in history to win Academy Awards in all the top five categories – picture, actor, actress, director, and adapted screenplay), Demme used his clout to make “Philadelphia,” one of the first major studio films to tackle the AIDS crisis and a movie that won Hanks his first Oscar for playing a gay lawyer.
The director most recently made 2015’s “Ricki and the Flash,” starring Meryl Streep as an aging rocker who must return home to Indiana due to a family crisis. The film disappointed at the box office and reviews were muted.
Demme also directed “Beloved,” the 1998 adaptation of Toni Morrison’s award-winning book starring Oprah Winfrey. In 2004, he directed Denzel Washington again in a remake of “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Via Variety:
Robert Jonathan Demme was born in Baldwin, Long Island, New York, and attended the University of Florida. Like John Sayles, he began his directing career in Roger Corman’s stable, helming women’s prison exploitation film “Caged Heat” in 1974; nostalgic road trip film “Crazy Mama,” starring Cloris Leachman, in 1975; and Peter Fonda action film “Fighting Mad” in 1976.
In 2006 Demme was presented with the National Board of Review’s Billy Wilder Award. Demme’s nephew, director Ted Demme, died in 2002 at age 38.
Demme was married to director-producer Evelyn Purcell. He is survived by second wife Joanne Howard and their three children: Ramona, Brooklyn and Jos.
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