ROBERT ALTMAN, the maverick director who earned a reputation as one of America's most original filmmakers with landmark movies such as "MASH," "Nashville," and "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," has died. He was 81.
Altman, who never stopped producing and directing films, died from complications of cancer Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Joshua Astrachan, a producer at Altman's Sandcastle 5 Productions in New York City, announced Tuesday.
Altman, his production office said, had lived and worked with the disease for the last year and a half, during which he made his last film, "A Prairie Home Companion," which opened in June. He also had planned to begin shooting a film in February.
Over the years, Altman earned five Academy Award nominations for best director -- for "MASH," "Nashville," "The Player," "Short Cuts" and, most recently, "Gosford Park."
"Bob's restless spirit has moved on," Meryl Streep, one of the stars who appeared in "A Prairie Home Companion," said in a statement. "I have to say, when I spoke with him last week, he seemed impatient for the future. He still had the generous, optimistic appetite for the next thing, and we planned the next film laughing in anticipation of the laughs we'd have."
Elliott Gould, who starred in "MASH" and "The Long Goodbye" and appeared in other Altman films, said in a statement Tuesday that "he was the last truly great American film director in the tradition of John Ford. I'll always be grateful to him for all the opportunities he gave me. He was my friend."
Asked what made Altman a great director, Gould laughed and told The Times, "He was a riverboat gambler; he dared to show life taking its course. He was quite an innovational artist."
While filming "MASH," Gould recalled, "he was so innovative that Donald [Sutherland] and I almost got him fired. We couldn't handle him, and we were complaining about him. I had never experienced someone doing that." But as a director, he said, "he gave us all more freedom than any of us could ever hope to have experienced. And that was really what gave me my opportunity to fly."
Fellow "MASH" cast member Sally Kellerman told The Times that "there was no one like him; no matter if his films made money or didn't, nothing stopped him. He was a real artist, driven by a creative need. He said making movies was his 'play.' Some people play tennis; for him movies was his fun."
