| LONDON
(CNN) -- Stanley Kubrick, director of "A Clockwork Orange" and "2001: A
Space Odyssey," died Sunday at the age of 70.
Kubrick's family said he died at
his rural Hertfordshire
home north of London. "The family has asked us to release the news of his
death, to let people know," a spokesman for the Hertfordshire police said.
Kubrick, born in the Bronx section
of New York in 1928, launched his film career -- using a second-hand camera
-- with the documentary "Day of the Fight" in 1950. The film was a 15-minute
look at the last hours before a fight of middleweight boxer Walter Cartier
and was based on a photograph Kubrick took for Look magazine.
Kubrick had honed his visual craft
as a still photographer, selling his first picture to Look when he was
16. He joined Look's staff a year later after dropping out of City College
of the City of New York.
RKO Pathe News was impressed with
Kubrick's first attempt at moving pictures, and agreed to back his next
documentary. His first full length film was the 1953 war picture "Fear
and Desire," which was not a popular success. |
After the
critical success of "The Killing" and the Kirk Douglas vehicle "Paths of
Glory," Kubrick filmed the epic "Spartacus" in 1960, with Tony Curtis,
Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier and other Hollywood headliners.
Kubrick tempted fate and the Hollywood
censors in 1962, filming the controversial Vladimir Nabokov novel "Lolita,"
about an older man's love for a teen-age girl. Some critics were disappointed
with the result, saying the film, starring James Mason, Shelley Winters
and Sue Lyon, softened the theme of the book.
Next, Peter Sellars starred in 1964's
"Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,"
a satire about an American college professor who rises to political power.
Kubrick finished the 1960s with "2001: A Space Odyssey" in 1968, then opened
the 1970s with the violent "A Clockwork Orange."
He also made "Barry Lyndon," released
in 1975, "The Shining" in 1978 and "Full Metal Jacket" in 1987.
Kubrick recently finished filming
"Eyes Wide Shut" with the husband-and-wife acting team of Tom Cruise and
Nicole Kidman in London. The film, made in secrecy, was slated to be released
in July. |
