Blake Edwards Dies at 88

The man who brought Holly Golightly and Inspector Clouseau to the big screen, director Blake Edwards, died Wednesday after suffering complications from pneumonia, according to The Associated Press. Edwards, who was 88, also directed “10” with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek — thus inspiring countless women to attempt the cornrow look on their own heads — and “Victor/Victoria,” starring his wife, Julie Andrews. –KA

AP via Google News:

A child of Hollywood who made his home there, he would forever have a conflicted relationship with the industry he assailed, but to which he kept returning. He dropped in and out of favor, feuded with producers and famously satirized Hollywood in 1981’s scathing “S.O.B.”

“I was certainly getting back at some of the producers of my life,” Edwards, who died Wednesday, once remarked, “although I was a good deal less scathing than I could have been. The only way I got to make it was because of the huge success of ’10,’ and even then they tried to sabotage it.”

But he also made movies that added to Hollywood’s bottom line, particularly in the “Pink Panther” films.

In one of his last public appearances at a tribute from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in October, Edwards opened his remarks with fitting sarcasm: “Can I go now?”

When the academy gave him an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2004, he accepted the award with a slapstick gag right out of his own movies: He careened across the stage in a wheelchair, snagging the statue from Jim Carrey and crashing into the set.

“That felt good,” he said, dusting himself off.

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