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Jonathan Demme, the eclectic movie director whose work ranged from thrillers like The Silence of the Lambs to documentaries on leading musicians, has died of complications from esophageal cancer, according to his publicist.
The 73-year-old director of the ground-breaking AIDS movie Philadelphia died in his New York City apartment surrounded by his wife, Joanne Howard, and three children.
Demme's most recent feature film was the 2015 comedy Ricki and the Flash, starring Meryl Streep as an ageing rocker.
Streep called him a "big hearted, big tent, compassionate man — in full embrace in his life of people in need," in a statement.
New York-born Demme won a directing Oscar for the 1991 thriller The Silence of the Lambs, which also won Oscars for best picture and for its stars Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.
Foster said she was heartbroken at his death.
"Jonathan was as quirky as his comedies and as deep as his dramas. He was pure energy, the unstoppable cheerleader for anyone creative," she said.
Demme's work was wide-ranging, including comedy and thrillers, to bold fare like the 1993 film Philadelphia — one of the first mainstream Hollywood movies to tackle the AIDS crisis.
The movie saw Tom Hanks win an Oscar for best actor.
Hanks described Demme as "the grandest of men".
"Jonathan taught us how big a heart a person can have, and how it will guide how we live and what we do for a living," Hanks said in statement.
Demme broke into the industry under the B-movie master Roger Corman in the early 1970s and he remained committed to maintaining the spirited, agile curiosity of a low-budget independent film-maker.
He also directed concert and music documentaries for Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Chesney and Neil Young, the band Talking Heads and more recently, Justin Timberlake and the Tennessee Kids.
Demme acknowledged that while he was talentless when it came to playing an instrument, he found he could join the acts he documented with his camera.
His 1984 film Stop Making Sense opened on Talking Heads frontman David Byrne with a guitar and a portable stereo on a bare stage, and swelled into an art-funk spectacular.
"I've come to believe, and I kind of felt this when we did Stop Making Sense, that shooting live music is kind of like the purest form of film-making," he told the Associated Press news agency last year.
"There's not a script to worry about — it's not a documentary, so you don't have to wonder where this story is going and what we can use.
"It's just: here come the musicians — they have it and we get to respond in the best way possible to what they're doing up there."
Steven Van Zandt, a member of Springsteen's E Street Band, described Demme on Twitter as "one of the most beautiful souls on the planet".
Barry Jenkins, who directed the 2017 Oscar best picture Moonlight, recalled Demme's support and warmth when that film was first doing the festival rounds.
"My man, Demme was the kindest, most generous. A MASSIVE soul," Jenkins tweeted.
Demme's other notable films include the 2008 independent drama Rachel Getting Married, the 2004 version of The Manchurian Candidate, 1988 comedy Married to the Mob and the 1998 adaption of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved.
He was born Robert Jonathan Demme on Long Island, New York on February 22, 1944.
After his family moved to Miami, he attended the University of Florida where he wrote movie reviews for the school newspaper.
In 1971, he went to work for Corman, first as a unit publicist on the film, Von Richthofen and Brown and later directing his own films: the women's prison movie, Caged Heart; Crazy Mama, starring Cloris Leachman; and Fighting Mad with Peter Fonda as a farmer.
Demme's breakthrough came with the Oscar-nominated Melvin and Howard in 1980, starring Jason Robards as Howard Hughes.
The film centres on a Nevada service station owner who claims to be the beneficiary of the billionaire.
His publicist Annalee Paulo said Demme's funeral would be private and that in lieu of flowers, the family had asked that donations be made to the group Americans For Immigrant Justice in Miami.
AP/Reuters
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, film-movies, thriller-films, united-states
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