Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of Silence of the Lambs, has passed away. He died this morning in New York from esophageal cancer and complications from heart disease. He was 73 years old.

Demme, who began his career working with Roger Corman after turning away from a career as a veterinarian in college, directed over 20 films during his lifetime, including most recently Meryl Streep’s Rikki and the Flash. Aside from Lambs, he’s best known for Philadelphia (which merited Tom Hanks an Oscar), the Manchurian Candidate remake, Married to the Mob, and Rachel Getting Married (which fetched Anne Hathaway an Oscar nomination). In fact, he directed eight actors to Oscar noms over the course of his career. In addition to his movies, he also directed a number of music videos (Bruce Springsteen’s “Murder Incorporated,” among them), and documentaries, including Swimming in Cambodia and his concert film covering the Talking Heads 1983 tour, Stop Making Sense, which won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Documentary. More recently, he directed the critically beloved Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids.

Of Philadelphia, Rolling Stone wrote in 1994 that the movie was fueled by Demme’s most deeply held convictions: “that helping out people who are having a hard time is less a duty than a pleasure; that bigotry is more the result of ignorance than evil; and that for all the country’s political outrages, goodness is deep in the American grain.”

Demme leaves behind a wife, Joanne Howard, and three children. He also leaves behind a legacy as one of the best directors of his generation. RIP Jonathan Demme.

Very sad to hear of the passing of the great Jonathan Demme. Admired his movies, his documentaries, his concert films. He could do anything.

— edgarwright (@edgarwright) April 26, 2017

RIP Jonathan Demme, here he is feeding Anthony Hopkins a french fry on the Silence of the Lambs set pic.twitter.com/fVFrAXtasv

— Indy Film (@TheIndyFilm) April 26, 2017

via Indiewire

Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.

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