{"id":85877,"date":"2025-05-08T23:36:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T23:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/85877\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T23:36:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T23:36:25","slug":"glengarry-glen-ross-director-was-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/85877\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ Director Was 71"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJames Foley, the Brooklyn-born filmmaker who collaborated with A-list stars like Al Pacino<\/a>, Sean Penn<\/a>, Madonna<\/a> and Mark Wahlberg across a 30-plus-year career in film, TV and music videos, has died. He was 71.<\/p>\n

\n\tFoley\u2019s rep said Thursday he died \u201cpeacefully in his sleep earlier this week\u201d at his Los Angeles home following a \u201cyears-long struggle\u201d with brain cancer.<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn on Dec. 28, 1953, and raised in New York, Foley graduated from high school and went on to study film at New York University and then at USC in Los Angeles. It was during his final year of film school that a chance meeting would change the course of his life and jump start his career behind the camera.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was very lucky, and in the perverse calculus of Hollywood I was in the last year of film school and shared a house with a guy. There was a woman who was pursuing my friend so we had this film school party, which consisted of people projecting their student films onto a white wall and getting stoned,\u201d Foley recalled in a detailed anecdote to Film Freak Central. \u201cAnd this girl came. Hal Ashby was pursuing her \u2014 she was pursuing my friend and Hal was pursuing her \u2014 and Hal called her up and asked to come to this party full of film students. Just as he walked through the door, my film was showing on the wall. I\u2019ll never know whether he was being polite or anything, but he told me he liked it and stuff and he was going to form a company that was going to produce other people\u2019s movies and what did I want to do? I could write something and direct it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFoley admitted that he thought it was all a dream. But by the time he wrote a draft of a screenplay, Ashby had released two films, both of which \u201cbombed terribly,\u201d leading to a lost opportunity for Foley. \u201cBut at that time, because Hal Ashby had hired me, I became known to other people in Hollywood and got kind of viable in that weird calculus of Hollywood just because someone else, respected, thought I was viable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was able to ride that momentum to his directorial debut, 1984\u2019s Reckless, starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. He followed it by directing Madonna\u2019s \u201cDress You Up\u201d music video in what would mark the first of many collaborations with the Material Girl helming many of her iconic music videos, including \u201cLive to Tell,\u201d \u201cPapa Don\u2019t Preach,\u201d \u201cTrue Blue\u201d and \u201cThe Look of Love.\u201d He also directed the 1987 feature film Who\u2019s That Girl starring Madonna opposite Griffin Dunne. It was the latest push in the pop superstar\u2019s acting career following Desperately Seeking Susan and Shanghai Surprise, and it landed with a thud at the box office, leading Foley to reflect on his career. \u201cIt was a major life experience. That first failure is so shocking,\u201d he once said. <\/p>\n

\n\tHis follow-up film came in 1986 with the Sean Penn- and Christopher Walken-starrer At Close Range. He went on to direct After Dark, My Sweet starring Jason Patric, Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern and an episode of Twin Peaks before helming 1992\u2019s Glengarry Glen Ross from a script by David Mamet.<\/p>\n

\n\tSet in the high stakes world of real estate, the film starred Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin <\/a>and Kevin Spacey. Pacino landed a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his work in the film. Foley and Pacino would go on to collaborate again with 1995\u2019s Two Bits.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1996, Foley saw the release of his thriller Fear, starring Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon. Though it grossed just $20.8 million at the box office, the film was credited for fueling the careers of its stars who have gone on to become two of Hollywood\u2019s most successful actor-producers. After Fear, Foley worked with Gene Hackman<\/a> and Chris O\u2019Donnell on 1996\u2019s The Chamber; again with Wahlberg on 1999\u2019s action-packed The Corruptor, co-starring Chow Yun-Fat; with Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman and Paul Giamatti on 2003\u2019s Confidence; and with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis on the 2007 thriller Perfect Stranger.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis experience on the latter film led him to take a break from movies. \u201cFor various reasons, it was not the best experience I\u2019ve had. I kind of withdrew after that moment,\u201d he told FilmInk<\/a>. Foley then took his talents to the small screen for a spell, directing an episode of Hannibal before checking into Netflix\u2019s inaugural series House of Cards, a gig he said he got after a period of being in \u201cdirector jail\u201d thanks to the belief of David Fincher. Foley would eventually direct 12 episodes of the acclaimed series. He also jumped behind the camera for two episodes of Showtime\u2019s Billions.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut back to the big screen he went, taking over the Fifty Shades franchise from Sam Taylor-Johnson. He directed the final two films in the franchise, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, starring Dakota Johnson<\/a> and Jamie Dornan.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview<\/a> with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, Foley talked about the seamless transitions he made throughout his career by moving between TV and film and across various genres.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat I love is that it\u2019s fluid. I\u2019ve had a very fluid career of ups and downs and lefts and rights, and I always just responded to what I was interested in at the moment and I was very unconscious about genre,\u201d he said while promoting his work in the new Fifty Shades franchise. \u201d So the thing I would say I least like is there is an understandable tendency to, of course, pigeonhole somebody or identify them as, \u2018He does this kind of movie, so if we\u2019re making that kind of movie, we should get him and he\u2019ll make it like the other ones he\u2019s made.\u2019 That is of no interest to me, personally, to repeat myself. So I\u2019ve always just followed my nose, for better or for worse, sometimes for worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with Movie Habit, Foley said he trusted his gut by taking on projects that he liked and ones he felt audiences would as well. \u201cNot to be eclectic for eclectic\u2019s sake, but if I follow this idea of \u2018what do I like?\u2019 I guess it\u2019s going to be eclectic. Looking back, I become conscious of connections between a bunch of films. Obviously, males who are alienated and estranged from the mainstream. Groupings of males and the dynamics among them,\u201d he said of the types of characters featured in his films. \u201cI never thought about it until it was over, but I think Confidence is kind of an interesting cousin to Glengarry, in that it is a group of guys together in pursuit of money, and what their allegiance is, and their betrayals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also credited an attention to detail and involvement in all aspects of filmmaking to his longevity. \u201cI am incredibly hands-on about everything,\u201d he told FilmInk. \u201cYou have to know when to apply or relieve pressure. You have to make the actors aware that you\u2019re empathetic. The best actors want to be directed. Once you\u2019re on the same wavelength, you get incredible results.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFoley is survived by his brother, Kevin; sisters Eileen and Jo Ann; and nephew Quinn. He was predeceased by another brother, Gerard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Foley, the Brooklyn-born filmmaker who collaborated with A-list stars like Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Madonna and Mark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[10196,4080,4565,77,3990,1490,41323,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-85877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-al-pacino","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-dakota-johnson","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-madonna","13":"tag-obituaries","14":"tag-sean-penn","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}