Oscar-winning ´Silence of the Lambs´ director dies

NEW YORK: Jonathan Demme, Oscar-winning director of "The Silence of the Lambs" whose four-decade career produced a staggering array of work from romantic comedy to social and political documentaries, died Wednesday. He was 73.

Demme passed away in New York surrounded by his family after a battle with cancer, his publicist announced. He will be laid to rest in a private, family funeral.

He remains best known for the smash-hit 1991 horror-thriller starring Anthony Hopkins as serial killer Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as FBI agent Clarice Starling. The movie was box office gold and a dazzling critical success.

It swept the 1992 Academy Awards, winning five Oscars including best picture, best actor for Hopkins and best actress for Foster.

"I am heart-broken to lose a friend, a mentor, a guy so singular and dynamic you´d have to design a hurricane to contain him," Foster wrote in a statement published by Variety magazine online.

"JD, most beloved, something wild, brother of love, director of the lambs. Love that guy. Love him so much," she wrote.

Demme´s publicist said he died from complications from esophageal cancer and is survived by his three children, Jos, 21, Brooklyn, 26, Ramona, 29.

The director´s success with "Silence of the Lambs" gave Demme the commercial springboard to direct "Philadelphia" in 1993, a ground-breaking Hollywood blockbuster that won Tom Hanks his first Academy Award for playing a gay lawyer fired for contracting HIV and fighting for justice.

US critics say the movie changed the way Hollywood portrayed the AIDS crisis and revolutionized mainstream film´s portrayal of gay and lesbian characters.

Demme´s most recent feature film was the less well received "Ricki and the Flash," starring Meryl Streep as a divorced mom who ditches her family to follow her dream of rock-n-roll stardom before a crisis compels her to return.