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ANTHONY MINGHELLA Director of The English Patient and Cold Mountain is dead at age 54
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British film director Anthony Minghella (Truly Madly Deeply; The English Patient; Cold Mountain) died in a London hospital on Tuesday (March 18) from complications following surgery last week for cancer of the tonsils and neck. He was 54. ''The surgery had gone well and they were very optimistic,'' the director's agent, Leslee Dart, told the Associated Press. ''But he developed a hemorrhage last night and they were not able to stop it.''

Minghella won an Oscar in 1996 for directing the The English Patient, and he received an Oscar nod for writing the screenplay for 1999's The Talented Mr. Ripley. He had been filming an adaptation of the Alexander McCall Smith novel The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which was due to be shown in the U.K. on the BBC on Easter Sunday and on HBO in the U.S.

See the EW.com photo gallery reviewing the small but vibrant onscreen legacy of Anthony Minghella.


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Posted Mar 18, 2008 | Order Article Reprints