TV, Film Director Stuart Rosenberg, 79

Mar 19, 03:31 PM

Current Headlines: By SPECIAL FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

LOS ANGELES Stuart Rosenberg, a prolific director of episodic television who is best known for directing the 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke," has died. He was 79.

Mr. Rosenberg died Thursday of a heart attack at his Beverly Hills home, his son, Benjamin, said.

Mr. Rosenberg began directing television episodes in the 1950s for such series as "The Defenders," "The Untouchables," "Naked City," "The Twilight Zone" and "Bus Stop." He racked up more than 300 TV directing credits and won an Emmy Award in 1963 for an episode of "The Defenders." But after completing his first feature film "Cool Hand Luke" he never went back to the small screen.

A gritty, riveting tale about life on a chain gang, the film stars Paul Newman as a non-conformist who becomes a reluctant hero to his fellow inmates.

The film received four Academy Award nominations although none for Mr. Rosenberg with George Kennedy winning for best supporting actor. It also provided one of the most quoted lines of that film era, spoken by the camp's warden, played by Strother Martin: "What we've got here is failure to communicate."

Mr. Rosenberg's film was nominated for the Directors Guild Award but lost to Mike Nichols' "The Graduate."

Critics gave Mr. Rosenberg high marks for "Cool Hand Luke" and also praised some of his later efforts, including "Voyage of the Damned" (1976), "Brubaker" (1980) and "The Pope of Greenwich Village" (1984).

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