IT MAY NOT BE FAIR TO RECALL HIM FOR HIS MOVIES...:

Blake Edwards, director of Breakfast at Tiffany's and Pink Panther films, dies at 88: Actor-turned-director found fame with romantic classic but carved out a niche in comedy, particularly his collaborations with Peter Sellers, and with his wife, Julie Andrews (Andrew Pulver, 12/16/10, guardian.co.uk)

Blake Edwards, the director of Breakfast at Tiffany's, 10 and eight Pink Panther movies, has died aged 88. One of Hollywood's most successful specialists in comedy, Edwards never won an Academy award for any of his films, but was given an honorary Oscar in 2004 citing "his writing, directing and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen." He married Julie Andrews in 1969 and directed her in a strings of films – most notably The Tamarind Seed (1974), S.O.B. (1981) and Victor/Victoria (1982).

Edwards was born in Tulsa in 1922 and started off as an actor, appearing in around 30 films between 1942 and 1948. He moved into scriptwriting, starting with the westerns Panhandle and Stampede, and then started directing in the mid-50s, honing his skills across a variety of genres. His aptitude for comedy became apparent with the Cary Grant vehicle Operation Petticoat, and thereafter he never looked back, creating a signature style of loose-limbed, freewheeling humour that astutely worked a fine line between high camp and chic smut.

...which were pretty uniformly bad. Rather, remember him as the creator of a decent tv show: Peter Gunn. The dichotomy makes one wonder if he wouldn't have been a better director during the Code era.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 16, 2010 3:01 PM