Legendary director Robert Altman of M*A*S*H fame dies (Updated)

By Andy Goldberg Nov 21, 2006, 19:32 GMT

Los Angeles - Legendary director Robert Altman, who riled Hollywood and the political establishment with movies such as the black war comedy M-A-S-H, has died at a Los Angeles hospital aged 81, according to a statement from his production company Tuesday.

Altman, who was nominated five times for best director Oscar, won a lifetime achievement Oscar earlier this year in recognition of his unique filmography which included movies like Nashville, The Player, Gosford Park and Short Cuts.

'No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have,' Altman said while accepting the award. 'I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition.'

His last movie, A Prairie Home Companion, was released in May this year, and starred Garrison Keillor as the announcer of a folksy musical show threatened by new owners.

According to the statement from production company Sandcastle 5, Altman died Monday night. No cause of death was given. Married three times, Altman was the father of five children - two sons from his current marriage to wife Kathryn, and a daughter and two more sons from his two previous marriages.

Altman was one of the most prolific directors of the last half century, directing some 40 movies after breaking into feature films with his 1957 debut The Delinquents.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri to a wealthy and devoutly Catholic family, Altman flew B-24 bombers during World War II and made his first break in Hollywood in 1948, when he sold a script he had co-written which became the movie Bodyguard.

After several failed business ventures, he returned to his home town where he became a director for the Calvin Company, the world's largest industrial film production company, for six years. This stint taught Altman the tools needed to film quickly and on budget, and there was no looking back after a local theatre hired him to write and shoot The Delinquents for 63,000 dollars. The film was picked up for release by United Artists and went on to earn 1 million dollars at the box office.

The film was noticed by Alfred Hitchcock who asked Altman to direct several episodes of his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series. Altman went on to direct numerous TV shows, but his name only hit the big time after he directed the caustically funny anti-war movie M-A-S-H, about the characters at a mobile Army hospital unit in the Korean War.

Critic Pauline Kael called M-A-S-H 'the best American war comedy since sound came in,' and The New York Times said it was 'the first American movie openly to ridicule belief in God.'

It was Altman's biggest-ever hit and the epitomy of what became known as the Altman style - a focus on ensemble character development rather than plot, and a naturalistic dialogue with overlapping lines filled with dry wit and anguish.

Among the notable films that followed were McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, Thieves Likes Us and Nashville, the latter of which won Altman a producer's Oscar.

Altman was driven to debunk the myths of Hollywood and wider America in these movies and in films like Buffalo Bill and the Indians, in which he upended the classic narrative of the western.

He continued to garner critical raves but only mediocre box office results throughout the 1980's including a spectacularly unsuccessful live action version of Popeye, starring Robin Williams. His election TV miniseries, Tanner '88, also garnered widespread praise.

The 1990's saw Altman make notable films like The Player, a brilliant analysis of the frailty of actors, and Pret-a-Porter a warts-and-all portrayal of the world of high fashion.

In 2001 he registered his biggest success since M-A-S-H with the British country house murder mystery Gosford Park, and earlier this year he was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Oscar.

After the ceremony, Altman revealed that he had received a heart transplant in 1995 from a younger woman, but kept the operation secret for fear that no-one would hire him to direct a movie again.

Asked which of his movies were most deserving of the Oscar honour Altman gave a reply that summed up his life's work.

'I look at it as a nod to all of my films,' he said. 'To me, I've just made one, long film.'