Nicolas Roeg

A legendary visionary behind the camera, director Nicolas Roeg was born in London. Though he would later become one of the most influential creative forces in cinema, Roeg's entree into film was mainly coincidental. After his father lost a great deal of money following a bad investment, Roeg began looking for work and found a job as a tea boy for the studio across the road from his home in Marylebone. He would eventually work his way up to assistant cameraman and focus puller, and eventually became a camera operator, shooting many scenes in the photographic masterpiece "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962). Roeg would eventually become a cinematographer in his own right, serving as director of photography on films like "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964) and "Fahrenheit 451" (1966) before making his directorial debut with the crime drama "Performance" (1970), starring James Fox and Mick Jagger in his first major film role. Roeg would follow this with "Walkabout" (1971), but he would make far greater waves with his next project, the groundbreaking horror film "Don't Look Now" (1973), which would quickly become one of the most influential movies of the 1970s. Next came another iconic film, "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976) starring superstar musician David Bowie. Roeg would continue to work regularly as a director in the decades to come, collaborating with his wife actress Theresa Russell on several films including "Bad Timing" (1980), "Insignificance" (1985), and "Track 29" (1988). Roeg also directed the dark children's classic "The Witches" (1990) and the drama "Two Deaths" (1995). Nicolas Roeg died in November 2018. He was 90 years old.