James Foley, a journeyman director greatest identified for “Glengarry Glen Ross,” has died. He was 71.
He died earlier this week after a yearlong battle with mind most cancers, his consultant, Taylor Lomax, mentioned Friday.
In his lengthy and diverse profession, Foley directed Madonna music movies, 12 episodes of “House of Cards” and the 2 “Fifty Shades of Grey” sequels, but it surely was his 1992 adaptation of David Mamet’s foulmouthed Pulitzer Prize profitable play that stood above the remaining. Though it wasn’t a success on the time, “Glengarry Glen Ross” wormed its manner into the tradition and grew into an oft-quoted cult favourite, particularly Alec Baldwin’s made-for-the-film “always be closing” monologue.
Critic Tim Grierson wrote 20 years after its launch that it stays “one of the quintessential modern movies about masculinity.” He added, “while there are many fine Mamet movies, it’s interesting that the best of them was this one — the one he didn’t direct.”
Born on Dec. 28, 1953, in Brooklyn, Foley studied movie in graduate college on the College of Southern California. Legend has it that Hal Ashby as soon as wandered into a movie college celebration the place his quick occurred to be enjoying on the time and he took a liking to him. Foley would later attribute his capability to make his first function, “Reckless,” a 1984 romantic drama about mismatched youngsters in love starring Daryl Hannah, Aidan Quinn and Adam Baldwin, to the Ashby stamp of approval. It was additionally the primary screenplay credited to Chris Columbus, although there have been studies of artistic variations.
He adopted it with the Sean Penn crime drama “At Close Range,” the Madonna and Griffin Dunne screwball comedy “Who’s That Girl” and the neo-noir thriller “After Dark, My Sweet,” with Jason Patric. Critic Roger Ebert included “After Dark, My Sweet” in his nice films checklist, calling it “one of the purest and most uncompromising of modern film noir” regardless of having been “almost forgotten.”
He additionally directed a number of music movies for Madonna together with “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Live to Tell,” and “Who’s That Girl,” and an episode of “Twin Peaks.”
Foley tailored John Grisham and labored with Gene Hackman on “The Chamber” and made the Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg teenage love-gone-scary thriller “Fear,” in addition to the largely derided Halle Berry and Bruce Willis psychological thriller “Perfect Stranger,” which was launched in 2007.
It will be a decade earlier than his subsequent movie was launched, when he was given the reigns to the “Fifty Shades of Grey” sequels, “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed.”
“For me, what’s most challenging is stuff that doesn’t involve the actors, oddly enough — in three, there’s a big car chase and there’s different stunts and stuff and that stuff really bores me,” he advised The Related Press on the UK premiere of “Fifty Shades Darker.” “So when the actors aren’t around, that’s difficult because the actors give me so much energy and kind of engagement and a car driving by doesn’t do the same thing.”
Foley was not an simply definable director, however that was by design. In 2017, he advised The Hollywood Reporter that he had little interest in repeating himself.
“I’ve always just followed my nose, for better or for worse, sometimes for worse,” Foley mentioned. “What’s best and what’s worst (about the industry) are almost the same to me. What’s worst is you get pigeonholed and what’s best is I haven’t been. It means that I’m still making movies, despite hopping all over the place.”
Foley is survived by his brother, Kevin Foley, and sisters Eileen and Jo Ann.
