British filmmaker Nicolas Roeg dies at 90
Nicolas Roeg, a director of provocative and otherworldly films who gave Mick Jagger and David Bowie enduring screen roles, has died. He was 90.
The British director of Don’t Look Now and many other films died Friday night, his son, Nicolas Roeg Jr., told Britain’s Press Association.
“He was a genuine dad,” Roeg Jr. said Saturday. “He just had his 90th birthday in August.” He didn’t provide details about his father’s death during a brief telephone call with the association.
During the 1970s, Roeg sent Jenny Agutter and his son Luc Roeg on the Australian Outback odyssey “Walkabout;” gave Jagger a big-screen role in the thriller “Performance,” which was co-directed with Donald Cammell; and plunged Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland into psychological horror in the Venice-set “Don’t Look Now.”
Don’t Look Now became famous for its realistic depiction of sex. Roeg said later that rumors the sex had been real were “very flattering” because that meant people felt the film was authentic.
“He was a liberating joy to work for,” Sutherland said in a statement. “I fell in love with him then and will love him forever.”
Bowie’s son, filmmaker Duncan Jones, wrote on Twitter: “Just heard another great storyteller, the inimitable Nicolas Roeg left us today. What an incredible body of work he’s left us with!”
Roeg’s later films include the intellectually playful Insignificance, in which Albert Einstein matched wits with Marilyn Monroe. His last major film was The Witches, in 1990, a Roald Dahl adaptation which starred Anjelica Huston.
The British Film Institute has named Don’t Look Now and Performance as two of the greatest films in Britain’s Top 100 film poll.
The institute paid tribute to Roeg in a tweet: “RIP to Nicolas Roeg, a pioneering force of cinema who created some of the most affecting moments of beauty, terror and sadness ever seen. A true great if ever there was one.”
Born in London in 1928, Roeg worked his way into directing after winning acclaim as a cinematographer. He began his career as an editing apprentice in 1947 — among his duties was serving tea.
Roeg worked on major films including Lawrence of Arabia and Fahrenheit 451 before he entered the directing ranks in 1970.







