Legendary actor and director Richard Attenborough dead at 90

Legendary actor and Oscar-winning filmmaker Richard Attenborough died this past weekend at the age of 90.

Lord Attenborough's passing was confirmed by his son Michael, and was said to come at the end of a long illness.

He was a star in his home of Britain long before he became an international figure, originating the role of the detective in Agatha Christie's stage play The Mousetrap, and playing would-be-mobster Pinkie in 1947's Brighton Rock.

In 1963 he starred opposite Steve McQueen as breakout mastermind in The Great Escape, earning him many fans abroad. He followed it up with a performance in The Flight of the Navigator before earning Golden Globes in 1966 and 1967, for The Sand Pebbles and Doctor Dolittle, respectively. Richard Attenborough was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) that same year. A decade later, he was knighted.

He moved away from acting to try his hand at directing in the late 1960s, personally collecting two Oscars for 1982's Gandhi (Best Picture and Best Director), for which he had to mortgage his house to bolster the budget. The film won eight Academy Awards in total.

A then-unknown Ben Kingsley won Best Actor for starring in Gandhi. He had this to say of Lord Attenborough's passing:

Richard Attenborough trusted me with the crucial and central task of bringing to life a dream it took him twenty years to bring to fruition. When he gave me the part of Gandhi, it was with great grace and joy. He placed in me an absolute trust and in turn, I placed an absolute trust in him and grew to love him. I, along with millions of others whom he touched through his life and work, will miss him dearly.

A Chorus Line, Cry Freedom and Chaplin followed Gandhi, though Lord Attenborough's most popular late 20th century effort was not behind the camera. He returned to acting for Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park, then the highest grossing film of all time, to play the idealistic millionaire funding the failed dinosaur zoo.

Spielberg also paid tribute to Lord Attenborough, saying:

Dickie Attenborough was passionate about everything in his life. Family, friends, his country and career. He made a gift to the world with his emotional epic Gandhi and he was the perfect ringmaster to bring the dinosaurs back to life as John Hammond in Jurassic Park. He was a dear friend and I am standing in an endless line of those who completely adored him.

Lord Attenborough is survived by his wife Sheila Sim, with whom he'd been living in a care home at the time of his death, his brother, David, the renowned naturalist documentarian, and his children Michael, Jane and Charlotte.

LINK:	http://blog.quickflix.com.au/2014/08/25/legendary-actor-and-director-r...
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