Oscar-winning director Minghella dies aged 54

Published Tuesday 18 March 2008 at 14:05 by Michael Quinn

The director, playwright and screenwriter Anthony Minghella has died at the age of 54.

Born to Italian immigrant parents on the Isle of Wight in 1954, Minghella studied English and drama at Hull University and began his writing career in theatre and radio. His 1981 play Whale Music was his first notable success with the West End transfer of Made in Bangkok, his caustic examination of the sex trade in Thailand, winning him a Best Play Award from the London Critics’ Circle in 1986. He won the Giles Cooper Award two years later for his radio play Cigarettes and Chocolate.

In 1992 Truly, Madly, Deeply (for which he won a Bafta for Best Original Screenplay) marked a successful first venture into film, topped by the multi-award-winning The English Patient five years later, which was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and eventually won nine, including Best Director for Minghella.

A string of film hits followed, The Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain among them. An adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which he co-wrote with Richard Curtis and directed, is due to be screened by the BBC over Easter.

In 2005, Minghella made his directing debut in opera with a production of Madam Butterfly for English National Opera.

At the time of his death, Minghella was also chairman of the British Film Institute.

He died this morning at Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith, west London, where he had been admitted last week for an operation on a growth on his neck. Despite the operation seeming to have gone well, he suffered a fatal haemorrhage earlier today and died at 5am.

A full obituary will appear in The Stage newspaper.