Blake Edwards is Dead

88 years of age, so a great run, though I am sure he would have liked to work more.  He seemed to have a severe falling out with Hollywood, and Hollywood with him, which is a shame.

Probably the most important director in my life from ages 13 (when I started to understand what a Director did) to probably 17 or so, as his films were ubiquitous and irresistible to me at that juncture.  The Great Race was my favorite film for years (saw it, like, seven times in three years owing to its constant presence on King 5's 3:00 weekday movie).   Mister Cory, the (still) terrifying Experiment in Terror, A Shot in the Dark, the widely analyzed The Party, Gunn, What Did you Do in the War Daddy, The Wild Rovers...on and on.  A genre film maker making personal films in an unforgivably impersonal Hollywood system.  That is what we call these days an Auteur. 

Edwards moved with ease from comedy to drama, and, indeed, his great Grey Beard period movies 10 and S.O.B. (the latter of which either contributed to or commented upon his disillusionment with Hollywood) have a gravitas about them that belie their wacky slapsticky trappings.  

He was, perhaps, the last of his kind.