No details about his death were immediately available.
“Our hearts are heavy today as we mourn the passing of the acclaimed director, longtime DGA leader and my friend Michael Apted. His legacy will be forever woven into the film and the guild,” said DGA President Thomas Schlamme. said.
“A fearless visionary as director and unparalleled guild leader, Michael saw the course of things when others did not, and we were all the beneficiaries of his wisdom and lifelong dedication,” Schlamme said.
Born in 1941 in Aylesbury, England, Apted had a large amount of work in television, film and documentaries.
He directed the 1980 film “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, which won the Golden Globe for Best Picture in the Music and Comedy category. Sissy Spacek won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in the film.
Other notable works he has directed include ‘Agatha’, ‘Gorky Park’, ‘Gorillas in the Mist’, ‘Nell’ and ‘Enough’.
Apted has directed the 1999 film “The World is Not Enough”, which is part of the James Bond series, as well as the third episode of “The Chronicles of Narnia” film franchise.
Apted’s most famous documentary work was the long series “Up” series. More than a dozen Britons’ lives have been followed over the decades, starting with 14 seven-year-olds in the movie “Seven Up!”
Subsequent films are produced every seven years, looking at how each of the children’s lives changed when they entered adulthood, and later age in the final production, “63 Up”.
In 2003, Apted was elected president of the DGA, serving until 2009. His term of six years was the longest for a DGA president since the 1960s.
Steven Soderbergh, director and co-founder of the Guild’s Independent Directors Committee with Apted, said: “I spent countless hours literally two feet away from Michael and loved every minute of it. Except for his own remarkable work, which he can at the DGA “he put his whole being in the guild and inspired us all to follow his example. We were happy to have him and to know him.”
In 2009 he was made by Queen Elizabeth II a companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for his work in the entertainment industry.
He is survived by his wife Paige and his three children.
CNN’s Travis Caldwell contributed to this report.