Academy Award winning filmmaker Curtis Hanson has passed away at the age of 71 this week, with natural causes being cited as the cause of death. Paramedics found Hanson at his Hollywood Hills home at about 5 p.m. local time (0200 CET). In recent years he had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.
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Curtis Lee Hanson was born on March 24, 1945, in Reno, Nev., but grew up in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. He is also well known for movies like 8 Mile, Wonder Boys, The River Wild, In Her Shoes, and HBO’s Too Big to Fail. “After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own”.
Wonder Boys followed in 2000 with Michael Douglas playing a novelist in search of inspiration and that also starred a young Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes. His critically acclaimed adaptation of James Ellroy’s intricately plotted novel about police corruption in 1950s Los Angeles earned him and co-writer Brian Helgeland an Oscar for adapted screenplay. Thank you for believing in me & standing your ground.
As a producer of the stylish 1997 period film, Hanson also shared the nomination for best picture and was nominated for best director.
Other stars to pay tribute to Hanson included L.A. Confidential star Russell Crowe, who wrote on Twitter: “RIP Curtis Hansen (sic)”.
He later scored successful films in the early 1990s such as Bad Influence and The River Wild.
Hanson made his directorial debut in 1972 with the horror movie Sweet Kill starring Tab Hunter, while his last completed film was the Eric Bana-Robert Duvall poker drama Lucky You. “Confidential” who took our lines, gave them emotion, humor, life”, Hanson said in his Oscar acceptance speech. Our story is about hip-hop fans. After suffering complications from heart surgery in fall 2011, he had to back out of directing duties on the Gerard Butler surfing movie Chasing Mavericks mid-production; British director Michael Apted (The World Is Not Enough) stepped in for the final few weeks of principal photography.
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“While I was checking him out, he was certainly checking me out”, Hanson said in the Guardian interview.
