Mar 8, 2006, 14:25 GMT
Los Angeles - US filmmaker and photographer Gordon Parks, the first black director to achieve success in Hollywood, has died at his New York City home at the age of 93.
Relatives said Parks, who made the movie Shaft but was also known for his photographs depicting the effects of poverty in the United States and abroad, died Tuesday after several years of ill health, news reports said.
With the detective John Shaft, he created in 1971 the first black American cinema hero. The hit brought a wave of so-called blaxploitation films, which starred African Americans and were made primarily for an African American audience.
It followed his 1969 film, The Learning Tree, based on his autobiography of growing up in the American Midwest. The first major Hollywood studio film to be directed by an African American dealt with racism and first love.
Before delving into film, however, Parks made a name for himself as a photographer in his two decades at Life magazine, where he captured everything from fashion trends and sporting events to such icons as Muhammad Ali and the effects of poverty.
Born on November 30, 1912, in Fort Scott, Kansas, Parks worked as a bus boy and a piano player in a Minnesota bordello before his career behind the camera. He harboured a wide variety of interests and also composed music and wrote novels, poetry and scripts.
But it was Shaft that made him a cultural icon. It starred Richard Roundtree as the leather-wearing detective in the New York underworld and featured a plot about drugs, guns and mobsters as well as Isaac Hayes' music, including the still-popular, Oscar-winning title track with the words, 'Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft! Ya damn right!'
Your Talkback on this Story