Blake Edwards, a writer-director whose “Pink Panther” comedies with Peter Sellers earned him a reputation as a master of sophisticated slapstick comedy and whose legendary disputes with studio chiefs inspired his scathing Hollywood satire “S.O.B.,” has died. He was 88.Edwards, whose collaborations with his wife, Julie Andrews, included the 1982 comedy “Victor/Victoria,” died of complications of pneumonia Wednesday evening at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, said Gene Schwam, Edwards’ longtime publicist. Andrews and members of the immediate family were at his bedside.A onetime minor movie actor who began writing for films and radio in the late 1940s and a decade later created the TV series “Peter Gunn” and “Mr. Lucky,” Edwards launched his big-screen directing career in 1955.He scored his first box-office hit with “Operation Petticoat,” a 1959 comedy about a World War II submarine crew starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. But a turning point in Edwards’ film career came in 1961 with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”The light, sophisticated romantic comedy based on the Truman Capote novella earned Audrey Hepburn an Academy Award nomination for best actress. Composer Henry Mancini also won an Oscar for his score, and he and Johnny Mercer won Oscars for their memorable song “Moon River.”Displaying his versatility, Edwards followed up that success with the 1962 thriller “Experiment in Terror” and, that same year, “Days of Wine and Roses,” a grim drama about a young couple ( Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick) battling alcoholism. Both Lemmon and Remick received Academy Award nominations, and Mancini and Mercer won Oscars for their title song.But it’s Edwards’ comedies for which he is best known.As co-writer and director of “The Pink Panther” and “A Shot in the Dark” (both released in 1964), starring Peter Sellers as the bumbling French police inspector, Clouseau, Edwards earned a reputation as a modern master of slapstick comedy and sight gags.Other Edwards-directed comedies in the `60s included “The Great Race,” “What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?” and “The Party.”“He’s at the absolute top of comedy filmmaking,” film historian Jeanine Basinger, head of the film studies program at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., who has taught a class on Edwards’ films, told The Times in 2003.“His movie comedies wed the American traditions of physical slapstick and sophisticated, witty dialogue,” said Basinger. “But he also knows how to be funny cinematically through cutting, camera movement and framing. So he’s a consummate comedy film director.”

Blake Edwards, a writer-director whose “Pink Panther” comedies with Peter Sellers earned him a reputation as a master of sophisticated slapstick comedy and whose legendary disputes with studio chiefs inspired his scathing Hollywood satire “S.O.B.,” has died. He was 88.

Edwards, whose collaborations with his wife, Julie Andrews, included the 1982 comedy “Victor/Victoria,” died of complications of pneumonia Wednesday evening at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, said Gene Schwam, Edwards’ longtime publicist. Andrews and members of the immediate family were at his bedside.

A onetime minor movie actor who began writing for films and radio in the late 1940s and a decade later created the TV series “Peter Gunn” and “Mr. Lucky,” Edwards launched his big-screen directing career in 1955.

He scored his first box-office hit with “Operation Petticoat,” a 1959 comedy about a World War II submarine crew starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. But a turning point in Edwards’ film career came in 1961 with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

The light, sophisticated romantic comedy based on the Truman Capote novella earned Audrey Hepburn an Academy Award nomination for best actress. Composer Henry Mancini also won an Oscar for his score, and he and Johnny Mercer won Oscars for their memorable song “Moon River.”

Displaying his versatility, Edwards followed up that success with the 1962 thriller “Experiment in Terror” and, that same year, “Days of Wine and Roses,” a grim drama about a young couple ( Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick) battling alcoholism. Both Lemmon and Remick received Academy Award nominations, and Mancini and Mercer won Oscars for their title song.

But it’s Edwards’ comedies for which he is best known.

As co-writer and director of “The Pink Panther” and “A Shot in the Dark” (both released in 1964), starring Peter Sellers as the bumbling French police inspector, Clouseau, Edwards earned a reputation as a modern master of slapstick comedy and sight gags.

Other Edwards-directed comedies in the `60s included “The Great Race,” “What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?” and “The Party.”

“He’s at the absolute top of comedy filmmaking,” film historian Jeanine Basinger, head of the film studies program at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., who has taught a class on Edwards’ films, told The Times in 2003.

“His movie comedies wed the American traditions of physical slapstick and sophisticated, witty dialogue,” said Basinger. “But he also knows how to be funny cinematically through cutting, camera movement and framing. So he’s a consummate comedy film director.”

(Source: Los Angeles Times)