Tributes as director Minghella dies at 54

TRIBUTES poured in yesterday for Oscar-winning film director Anthony Minghella who died yesterday at the age of 54.

The British director, whose films include The English Patient, Truly Madly Deeply and Cold Mountain, died in the early hours of the morning.

He suffered a fatal haemorrhage at Charing Cross Hospital in west London after last week undergoing an operation on a growth in his neck.

His agent Judy Daish said: “He was operated on last week for a growth in his neck and the operation seemed to have gone well.

“At 5am today he had a fatal haemorrhage.”

Jude Law, who worked with Minghella on The Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain and Breaking And Entering, said he would miss the director “hugely”.

“He was a brilliantly talented writer and director who wrote dialogue that was a joy to speak and then put it on to the screen in a way that always looked effortless,” he said.

Minghella was married to Carolyn Choa and had two grown-up children, Max and Hannah.

He established his name firmly on the world stage in 1997 when The English Patient stole the headlines at the Oscars.

Ralph Fiennes, whose role in the film earned him a Best Actor nomination, said he was “devastated and shocked” by the news.

“Anthony possessed a sensitivity and alertness to the actor’s process that very few directors have,” he said.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “He was one of Britain’s greatest creative talents, one of our finest screenwriters and directors, a great champion of the British film industry, and an expert on literature and opera. I counted him as a great friend...”

Born of Italian parents, Minghella, one of five children, grew up above the family’s ice cream shop on the Isle of Wight.

A worker at one of the family’s chain of shops said the news of Minghella’s death was “really raw” for all those who knew him and his family.

And a woman at the family home in Ryde on the Isle of Wight said they were too upset to comment.

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow, speaking at a Prince’s Trust event in London’s Leicester Square, said: “He was a wonderful man, so incredibly talented. He was dedicated to making the best through art.”

Actor Richard E Grant told Sky News: “He was a man of extraordinary breadth and talent. He had a real generosity of spirit.”

Minghella was an ardent fan of Portsmouth Football Club, often writing about his passion for the Fratton Park team.

He helped the club survive financial problems and is believed to have been planning to watch them play in next month’s FA Cupsemi-final at Wembley.

The club’s chief executive Peter Storrie said: “This is terribly sad news.”

A successful career that began on children’s TV

FROM children’s dramas to box-office hits, Anthony Minghella’s career spanned both ends of the television and film spectrum.

After leaving Hull University, he entered the small-screen world as a scriptwriter and director, as well as making a name for himself as a playwright.

He cut his teeth on the classic BBC children’s television series Grange Hill and ITV’s Boon.

He also regularly contributed to the ITV Inspector Morse series starring John Thaw as Oxford’s classical music-loving detective.

Minghella’s writing talents were also in demand when he collaborated with The Muppets creator Jim Henson on his 1988 programme The Storyteller.

In 1984, Minghella won the London Theatre Critics’ most promising playwright title, following it up by winning the 1986 London Theatre Critics’ Award for his play Made in Bangkok, which made it on to the West End.

Minghella’s debut as a film director came in 1991 with the tear-jerker Truly, Madly, Deeply, starring Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson.

The darkly comic and painfully moving story of love and ghosts put him on the map and won him a Bafta and a Writers’ Guild of Great Britain trophy, which were followed by several other big awards.

In 1993, he directed Mr Wonderful, with Matt Dillon and Mary Louise Parker, about an electrician who tries to find a husband for his ex-wife in order to reduce his financial obligations to her.

But when The English Patient stole the headlines at the Oscars in 1997, it was clear Minghella had established his name firmly on the world stage.

The film, an adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel, almost swept the board at the ceremony, winning nine awards including Best Picture.

Starring Ralph Fiennes as a badly wounded soldier in World War 11, the story contrasts his memories of past passions with his present situation as an immobile narrator.

It featured Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliette Binoche as the two very different women inFiennes’s life.

Minghella went on to direct hugely successful films including The Talented Mr Ripley in 1999, with Matt Damon and Jude Law, and a star-studded cast including Law and Nicole Kidman in American Civil War epic Cold Mountain in 2003. He was also an executive producer on Iris in 2001 and The Quiet American in 2002.

More recently he worked in Botswana with fellow Englishman Richard Curtis making The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, an adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s hit novel. The film is due to be screened on BBC One over Easter.

Last month it was announced Minghella was to step down as chairman of the British Film Institute after five years in the role.