Blake Edwards, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" Director, Dies at 88
LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) Blake Edwards, the director and writer known for "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "10" and the "Pink Panther" movies, is dead at age 88.
The longtime husband of Julie Andrews died from complications of pneumonia at about 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, publicist Gene Schwam said. Andrews and other family members were at his side. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks.
Edwards had knee problems, had undergone unsuccessful procedures and was "pretty much confined to a wheelchair for the last year-and-a-half or two," Schwam said. That may have contributed to his condition, he added.
At the time of his death, Edwards was working on two Broadway musicals, one based on the "Pink Panther" movies, Schwam said. The other, "Big Rosemary," was to be an original comedy set during Prohibition.
"His heart was as big as his talent. He was an Academy Award winner in all respects," said the publicist, who knew Edwards for 40 years.
A third-generation filmmaker, Edwards was praised for evoking classic performances from Jack Lemmon, Audrey Hepburn, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, Lee Remick and Andrews, his wife of nearly half a century.
He directed and often wrote a wide variety of movies including "Days of Wine and Roses," a harrowing story of alcoholism; "The Great Race," a comedy-adventure that starred Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood; and "Victor/Victoria," his gender-bender musical comedy with Andrews.
He was also known for an independent spirit that brought clashes with studio bosses. He vented his disdain for the Hollywood system in his 1981 black comedy, "S.O.B."
Although many of Edwards' films were solid hits, he was nominated for Academy Awards only twice, in 1982 for writing the adapted screenplay of "Victor/Victoria" and in 1983 for co-writing "The Man Who Loved Women." Lemmon and Remick won Oscar nominations in 1962 for "Days of Wine and Roses," and Hepburn was nominated for "Breakfast at Tiffany's" in 1961.
The motion picture academy selected Edwards to receive a lifetime achievement award in 2004 for "his writing, directing and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen."
When he collected the award, he jokingly referred to his wife, saying. "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, and the beautiful English broad with the incomparable soprano and promiscuous vocabulary thanks you."
Edwards and Andrews married in 1969. It was the second marriage for both. She had a daughter, Emma, from her marriage to Broadway designer Tony Walton. Edwards had a daughter, Jennifer, and a son, Geoffrey, from his marriage to Patricia Edwards. He and Andrews adopted two Vietnamese children, Amy and Jo.
