British director Michael Apted has died at the age of 79.
The filmmaker and documentary was known for films such as Gorillas in the Mist and Coal Miner’s Daughter, as well as his long series of Up documentaries.
His death was confirmed by the agency to the Hollywood Reporter. No further details are known yet.
Apted’s career began on the small screen in the 1960s, and in 1964 he helped with the show Seven Up! as part of the current affairs program World in Action. He helped director Paul Almond interview 14 seven-year-olds, and continued to visit them independently every seven years throughout their lives. The latest, 63 Up, was released in 2019 and the director referred to it as “the most important thing I’ve ever done”. The series as a whole won the 2012 Peabody Award.
“The series was an attempt to do a long-standing view of English society,” Apted said in an interview last year. “The class system needs the back.”
To promote the latest installment, Apted has expressed a desire to continue in another seven years, saying it will continue as long as it ‘can breathe and talk’.
In the 1970s, Apted made its debut on the big screen, directing the second world war drama The Triple Echo, starring Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson. But he saw his first major film success in 1980 with Coal Miner’s Daughter, a Loretta Lynn biography starring Sissy Spacek. It was nominated for seven Oscars, and won one for Spacek as Best Actress.
Apted directs Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist, a film that also garnered five Oscar nominations; Nell, who earned an Oscar nomination for Jodie Foster; the Kate Winslet drama Enigma; the Jennifer Lopez thriller Enough and, most recently, the action film Unlocked starring Noomi Rapace.
“What I like about women in the middle of movies is that I find that a female character brings a lot of emotion into a story, no matter what a story is,” he said in a 2017 interview. “Whether it’s a woman with gorillas or a country music singer, a woman’s emotional life – at least on the surface – is more dramatic than a man’s.”
He was also the director of the James Bond adventure The World is Not Enough and the fantasy sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Apted was remembered by his peers on Twitter, including Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids.
“So very very sad to hear of the death of Michael Apted,” Feig wrote. “He was always so kind to me and I was such a big fan of his work.”
Gale Anne Hurd, producer of Aliens and The Terminator, tweeted: “Another legendary filmmaker is gone … a brilliant documentary and a wonderful colleague. Do yourself a favor and take a look at his amazing filmography. ‘
Apted is survived by his wife, Paige Simpson, sons Jim and John, and daughter Lily Mellis.