Director Robert Altman, who worked in every entertainment medium, including the theater, in his almost 60-year career, died Monday in Los Angeles at age 81. The cause of death was not immediately revealed, but Altman made reference to having had a heart transplant when he accepted an honorary Academy Award earlier this year.
A five-time Oscar nominee known for such classic films as M*A*S*H, Nashville, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Short Cuts, The Player, Gosford Park and the summer 2006 release A Prairie Home Companion, Altman had most recently worked at London's Old Vic Theatre directing Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues. The production, which starred Neve Campbell and Matthew Modine, opened on March 2 and closed early, on April 15.
Altman famously experienced huge ups and downs in his career as a film director. During one period when he fell out of critical favor, he turned his attention to the theater, staging and later filming Ed Graczyk's Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean. In spite of a high-profile cast that included Karen Black, Cher, Sandy Dennis and Kathy Bates, the play ran less than two months at Broadway's Martin Beck now Al Hischfeld Theater in 1982. The following year, Altman produced the one-man show Secret Honor off-Broadway at the Provincetown Playhouse with Philip Baker Hall as Richard Nixon and later directed a film version of the play. In 1983, he filmed David Rabe's Vietnam drama Streamers with a cast that included Modine and David Alan Grier. In 1988, he directed a TV version of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial starring Eric Bogosian, Jeff Daniels, Brad Davis and Peter Gallagher.
Several of Altman's films included segments filmed onstage, including Nashville and A Prairie Home Companion, which Altman reportedly said in a May 3 news conference "is about death." His 2003 release The Company, starring Campbell, focused on a company of dancers at the Joffrey Ballet. Throughout his career, Altman displayed a gift for guiding large, ensemble casts. Accepting his honorary Oscar in March, Altman declared, "No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have."