Francis Ford Coppola has remembered William Friedkin as a “deep-feeling giant of a man” and “my first friend among the filmmakers of my generation”.
The Godfather director said Friedkin’s work “represents true milestones in cinema” and that all of his films were “alive with genius”.
Friedkin, who was the mastermind behind horror classic The Exorcist and The French Connection, died at his home from heart failure and pneumonia on Monday in Los Angeles at the age of 87.
Friedkin, who won the best director Oscar for "The French Connection," died Monday in Los Angeles, Marcia Franklin, his executive assistant for 24 years, told The Associated Press on behalf of his family and wife, former studio head Sherry Lansing.
He was synonymous with the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and ‘70s, when risk-taking young filmmakers wrested creative control from studio suits and shook up the system. He was known for injecting familiar genres with live-wire energy and edge.
He won an Academy Award for directing “The French Connection,” a white-knuckle 1971 crime thriller about a brash New York City narcotics detective played by Gene Hackman. The film, anchored by a deliriously high-octane car chase, also won Oscars for best picture and best adapted screenplay.
Friedkin also directed a series of cult favorites that have earned loyal followings over the years, including the suspenseful “Sorcerer,” the Al Pacino psychodrama “Cruising” and the crime epic “To Live and Die in L.A.” He struggled to reach the commercial and critical highs of his '70s output, though, and in recent years he steadily retreated from the limelight.
He most recently directed The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, which is scheduled to premiere at this year's Venice International Film Festival.
He also directed episodes for such TV shows as The Twilight Zone, Rebel Highway and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Friedkin had started out his career in local television and documentary projects before moving to feature films.
He made his movie debut with the Sonny & Cher film Good Times in 1967.
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