‘King Kong’ director John Guillermin dies at 89

The British director had been active for decades beginning in the late 1940s.

The filmmaker, best known for The Towering Inferno and the 1976 version of King Kong, passed away after a heart attack on Sunday at his home in the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles. “He was a few weeks shy of his 90th birthday”, reports Entertainment Weekly (EW), adding, “Nick Redman, a friend of Guillermin’s, confirmed the news to EW”.

Other films included House Of Cards, The Blue Max and Shaft In Africa.

She told The Hollywood Reporter that the family would honour his memory with a screening of Rapture (1965), his “his best and least-known film”.

Born in London, Guillermin studied at the University of Cambridge and served within the Royal Air Force earlier than starting his directing profession in France, as a documentary filmmaker. The film also starred Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden and Faye Dunaway. He followed that up with the oft-maligned 1976 remake of King Kong, which saw Jeff Bridges, and Jessica Lange confronting the giant ape.

It won Oscars for original song, film editing and cinematography.

Guillermin also directed Agatha Christie adaptation Death On The Nile, with Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot and another Kong film, King Kong Lives in 1986, which would be his last job as a director.

Guillermin is survived by his wife Mary and a daughter.