The great director, screenwriter and producer Blake Edwards died last Wednesday from the complications of pneumonia.

William Blake McEdwards – this was his birth name – was born on July 26, 1922. His grandfather J. Gordon Edwards was a director of silent movies, his father Jack McEdwards was a stage director. Blake Edwards career started as a radio actor and screenwriter, working for example with Orson Welles in “The War of the Worlds”.

In the following years Blake Edwards started working for television and especially for cinema, also starting his working relationship with composer Henry Mancini, who created the soundtracks for almost all his movies.

In 1953 Blake Edwards married Atricia Walker, who gave him two children.

In 1955 Edwards directed his first movie, “Bring Your Smile Along”, but the great success arrived with comedies such as “Operation Petticoat” in 1959 and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” in 1961. In 1963 he started the Pink Panther series with the character of the clumsy inspector Clouseau played by an extraordinary Peter Sellers.

Again with Peter Sellers playing the protagonist, Blake Edwards directed the mordant comedy “Hollywood Party” in 1968.

In 1967 Edwards and his wife divorced and in 1969 he married actress Julie Andrews.

The following years were marked by various movies that had various problems because Blake Edwards had to fight producers who wanted to impose their choices on him. As a consequence Edwards worked for some time in Great Britain, where he directed some movies of the Pink Panther series.

Back to Hollywood, Edwards directed more successful movies such as “10”, “S.O.B.” and “Victor/Victoria”.

Blake Edwards career went on for several more years but with limited success and in the second half of the ’90s he retired from directing to devote himself to sculpting.

In 2004 Edwards received an Oscar for his career.

We lost a great director and also a person who never accepted to submit to interferces from Hollywood producers much more interested in making money than in the artistic value of movies.