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Sad news, unfortunately. GD
Director Stanley Kubrick Dies
By ROBERT BARR
.c The Associated Press
LONDON (AP) -- Stanley Kubrick, the director of ``2001: A Space Odyssey'' and
``A Clockwork Orange'' whose films often puzzled and shocked audiences only to
end up as classics, died Sunday at his home in England, his family said. He
was 70.
Police were summoned to Kubrick's rural home north of London on Sunday
afternoon, said authorities in Hertfordshire, where he was certified dead.
``There are no suspicious circumstances,'' police said.
Kubrick's family announced his death, and said there would be no further
comment.
Kubrick's films included ``Spartacus'' in 1960, ``Lolita'' in 1962, ``Dr.
Strangelove,'' in 1964, ``2001'' in 1968 an ``A Clockwork Orange'' in 1971.
He also made ``Barry Lyndon,'' released in 1975, ``The Shining'' in 1978 and
``Full Metal Jacket'' in 1987.
His latest film, ``Eyes Wide Shut,'' is still slated for release on July 16,
Warner Bros. said Sunday. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman star in the story of
jealousy and obsession, which Kubrick made in great secrecy.
``He was like family to us and we are in shock and devastated,'' Cruise and
Kidman said in a statement released by their publicist.
Kubrick was born July 26, 1928, in New York.
At 17, he was hired as a staff photographer by Look magazine, which had been
impressed by a picture Kubrick had snapped on the day President Franklin D.
Roosevelt died.
While working at Look, he studied film by attending screenings at the Museum
of Modern Art.
``I was aware that I didn't know anything about making films, but I believed I
couldn't make them any worse than the majority of films I was seeing. Bad
films gave me the courage to try making a movie,'' Kubrick once said.
In 1951, he sold a 16-minute short documentary about a boxer, ``Day of the
Fight,'' to the RKO film studio.
Kubrick was drafted by actor Kirk Douglas into the film ``Spartacus'' when the
production -- then the most expensive ever mounted in the United States -- ran
into trouble. The film, about a slave revolt in ancient Rome, included some
footage shot by the original director, Anthony Mann, and Kubrick did not
regard the finished product as a great success.
``I tried with only limited success to make the film as real as possible but I
was up against a pretty dumb script which was rarely faithful to what is known
about Spartacus,'' Kubrick told an interviewer.
``Lolita,'' starring James Mason and Shelley Winters, was based on Vladimir
Nabokov's controversial novel about a professor who is sexually obsessed with
a 12-year-old girl. The work was filmed in Britain, in part because of
censorship problems, and thereafter Kubrick was based in Britain.
``Dr. Strangelove,'' starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, was a black
comedy about nuclear war released in the early '60s during a period of great
fears over the bomb and Cold War tensions.
``2001,'' a science fiction film about the evolution of man and humanity's
place in the universe, used dazzling visual imagery and an inspired use of
music proved to be a great success for Kubrick.
In an interview with Playboy magazine, Kubrick said he had ``tried to create a
visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly
penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content ... just
as music does.
``A Clockwork Orange,'' set in a violent future, is a graphic film about a
young thug who carries out rapes and beatings before being sent to prison
where he is brainwashed.
The film was one of Kubrick's most controversial -- it was even disparaged by
Anthony Burgess, whose novel was the basis of the film, and Kubrick eventually
removed it from screens in Britain. One of Kubrick's memorable touches was to
have his hero sing ``Singin' in the Rain'' while dishing out a brutal beating.
Kubrick married Suzanne Harlan in 1958, and they had three daughters. Details
about funeral arrangements were not immediately available.
AP-NY-03-07-99 1433EST
Director Stanley Kubrick Dies
By ROBERT BARR
.c The Associated Press
LONDON (AP) -- Stanley Kubrick, the director of ``2001: A Space Odyssey'' and
``A Clockwork Orange'' whose films often puzzled and shocked audiences only to
end up as classics, died Sunday at his home in England, his family said. He
was 70.
Police were summoned to Kubrick's rural home north of London on Sunday
afternoon, said authorities in Hertfordshire, where he was certified dead.
``There are no suspicious circumstances,'' police said.
Kubrick's family announced his death, and said there would be no further
comment.
Kubrick's films included ``Spartacus'' in 1960, ``Lolita'' in 1962, ``Dr.
Strangelove,'' in 1964, ``2001'' in 1968 an ``A Clockwork Orange'' in 1971.
He also made ``Barry Lyndon,'' released in 1975, ``The Shining'' in 1978 and
``Full Metal Jacket'' in 1987.
His latest film, ``Eyes Wide Shut,'' is still slated for release on July 16,
Warner Bros. said Sunday. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman star in the story of
jealousy and obsession, which Kubrick made in great secrecy.
``He was like family to us and we are in shock and devastated,'' Cruise and
Kidman said in a statement released by their publicist.
Kubrick was born July 26, 1928, in New York.
At 17, he was hired as a staff photographer by Look magazine, which had been
impressed by a picture Kubrick had snapped on the day President Franklin D.
Roosevelt died.
While working at Look, he studied film by attending screenings at the Museum
of Modern Art.
``I was aware that I didn't know anything about making films, but I believed I
couldn't make them any worse than the majority of films I was seeing. Bad
films gave me the courage to try making a movie,'' Kubrick once said.
In 1951, he sold a 16-minute short documentary about a boxer, ``Day of the
Fight,'' to the RKO film studio.
Kubrick was drafted by actor Kirk Douglas into the film ``Spartacus'' when the
production -- then the most expensive ever mounted in the United States -- ran
into trouble. The film, about a slave revolt in ancient Rome, included some
footage shot by the original director, Anthony Mann, and Kubrick did not
regard the finished product as a great success.
``I tried with only limited success to make the film as real as possible but I
was up against a pretty dumb script which was rarely faithful to what is known
about Spartacus,'' Kubrick told an interviewer.
``Lolita,'' starring James Mason and Shelley Winters, was based on Vladimir
Nabokov's controversial novel about a professor who is sexually obsessed with
a 12-year-old girl. The work was filmed in Britain, in part because of
censorship problems, and thereafter Kubrick was based in Britain.
``Dr. Strangelove,'' starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, was a black
comedy about nuclear war released in the early '60s during a period of great
fears over the bomb and Cold War tensions.
``2001,'' a science fiction film about the evolution of man and humanity's
place in the universe, used dazzling visual imagery and an inspired use of
music proved to be a great success for Kubrick.
In an interview with Playboy magazine, Kubrick said he had ``tried to create a
visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly
penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content ... just
as music does.
``A Clockwork Orange,'' set in a violent future, is a graphic film about a
young thug who carries out rapes and beatings before being sent to prison
where he is brainwashed.
The film was one of Kubrick's most controversial -- it was even disparaged by
Anthony Burgess, whose novel was the basis of the film, and Kubrick eventually
removed it from screens in Britain. One of Kubrick's memorable touches was to
have his hero sing ``Singin' in the Rain'' while dishing out a brutal beating.
Kubrick married Suzanne Harlan in 1958, and they had three daughters. Details
about funeral arrangements were not immediately available.
AP-NY-03-07-99 1433EST