August 15, 2011

Blake Edwards, Prolific Writer-Director of Classic Films and TV series

Before making such acclaimed movies as Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, 10 and the Pink Panther series, Edwards created TV series Peter Gunn and Richard Diamond.

Blake Edwards, a director and writer who worked extensively in television, and went on to make such feature films as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 10 and the Pink Panther series, died December 15, 2010, at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California. He was 88.

According to news reports, the cause was complications of pneumonia. Edwards’ wife, Julie Andrews, and other family members were at his side. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks.

At the time of his death, Edwards was said to be working on two Broadway musicals, one based on the Pink Panther movies. The other, Big Rosemary, was to be an original comedy set during Prohibition.

Edwards was a third-generation filmmaker — his stepfather's father, J. Gordon Edwardw, was a silent-film director, and his stepfather, Jack McEdwards, was a stage director and movie production manager.

Although he is widely known for his farcical comedies, including the popular Pink Panther series, starring Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, Edwards worked in other genres as well. Days of Wine and Roses was a corrosive drama about alcoholism; The Great Race was a comedic adventure; and Victor/Victoria was an outlandish, gender-bending musical comedy.

He was nominated for two Academy Awards, and received a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2004, “for his writing, directing and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen.”

He also earned two Primetime Emmy nominations, both for his work on the first season of the detective series Peter Gunn, which he created.

Peter Gunn, which premiered in 1958, starred Craig Stevens and featured a memorable theme song by Henry Mancini, a frequent collaborator of Edwards. The series ran until 1961 and spawned a 1967 feature film titled Gunn.

Edwards was born July 26, 1922, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The family moved to Hollywood three years later, and he grew up on his father’s movie sets.

He began in films as an actor, with small roles in such movies as A Guy Named Joe and Ten Gentlemen From West Point. After 18 months in the Coast Guard in World War II, he returned to acting but decided he lacked the talent to excel, so he changed course. With John Champion, he wrote a Western, Panhandle, which he produced and acted in, followed by another, called Stampede.

In 1947, for radio, Edwards created Richard Diamond, Private Detective for Dick Powell. In 1957, it became it a television series with Powell reprising the title role. His secretary was played by Mary Tyler Moore, whose legs were seen, but never her face.

Other TV credits included Mr. Lucky, Four Star Playhouse, The Ford Television Theatre, Justin Case and The Dick Powell Theatre.

In the late 1950s he shifted to feature films, his realm for the majority of his career. His first feature, Bring Your Smile Along, led to such notable early efforts as The Perfect Furlough, starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, and Operation Petticoat, with Cary Grant and Curtis.

Next came Breakfast at Tiffany’s, followed by Experiment in Terror, Days of Wine and Roses and The Great Race.

After a period during which his principal successes were Pink Panther films, he rebounded in 1979 with 10, starring Dudley Moore as a middle-aged man who becomes obsessed with a beautiful young woman played by Bo Derek, followed in 1982 by Victor/Victoria, starring Andrews as a woman who impersonates a man who impersonates women. It was later which was reinvented later as a Broadway musical starring Andrews, with himself as director.

Andrews and Edwards married in 1968. She had a daughter, Emma, from her marriage to Broadway designer Tony Walton. Edwards had a daughter, Jennifer, and a son, Geoffrey, from his marriage to Patricia Edwards. He and Andrews adopted two Vietnamese children, Amy and Jo.

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