Research Guru / Moderator
Posted:
Mar 18, 2007, 1:20 PM
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Stuart Rosenberg, 79, directed "Cool Hand Luke"
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Cool Hand Luke director Stuart Rosenberg died Thursday of a heart attack at his Beverly Hills, California home, his son Benjamin said Saturday.
Besides Cool Hand Luke (1967), his first feature film, he directed Paul Newman three more times, in WUSA (1970), Pocket Money (1972) and The Drowning Pool (1975).
He started directing TV episodes in the 1950s for such dramatic series as The Untouchables, Naked City, The Twilight Zone and Bus Stop. In 1963, he won an Emmy for an episode of The Defenders. However, he never returned to the small screen after completing his Cool Hand Luke -- which received four Oscar nominations (but none for Rosenberg), with George Kennedy winning for best supporting actor.
He was nominated for the Directors Guild Award, but lost to Mike Nichols and The Graduate.
"He was as good as anybody I ever worked with," Newman said in a statement Saturday. (Newman's other directors included Martin Scorsese, George Roy Hill and Sidney Lumet).
Rosenberg gained critical praise for Voyage of the Damned (1976), Brubaker (1980) and The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984). However, such other movies as The Laughing Policeman (1973) and The Amityville Horror (1979) were successful with audiences, but not reviewers.
Stuart Rosenberg was born August 11, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York and studied Irish literature at New York University. He becmae an apprentice film editor while attending graduate school and teaching at NYU in the early 1950s.
He met his wife, the former Margot Pohoryles, at NYU. They married in 1950 and had one son, Benjamin.
Rosenberg's son Benjamin, an assistant film editor, worked with him on several of his later films.
"He would have preferred I had been a doctor, lawyer or Indian chief," said Benjamin Rosenberg. However, "we had a terrific time working together."
Besides his wife and son, Stuart Rosenberg is survived by four grandchildren. Services will be private.
(Photos from Rusty at Entertainment Insiders)
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