He also guided Jack Lemmon to an Academy Award in ‘Save the Tiger’ and helmed the first three ‘Karate Kid’ films.
John G. Avildsen, who won an Academy Award for directing Rocky and helmed the first three original Karate Kid movies, has died.
He was 81.Avildsen died of pancreatic cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son, Anthony, told the Los Angeles Times.
Avildsen also directed Susan Sarandon and Peter Boyle in the ultimately violent drama Joe (1970); guided Jack Lemmon to the Academy Award for best actor in Save the Tiger (1973) in a story about a businessman having a mid-life crisis; and kept things together on the set of The Formula (1980), which starred the temperamental actors George C. Scott and Marlon Brando.
Rocky (1976), of course, starred Sylvester Stallone as a determined Philadelphia club fighter who goes on to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world.
“When this script [also written by Stallone] came to me from an old friend … I said I had no interest in boxing, I think boxing’s sort of a dumb thing,” he said…
The post John G. Avildsen, Oscar-Winning Director of ‘Rocky,’ Dies at 81 appeared first on FeedBox.