Monte Hellman
He also helmed 'The Shooting' and 'Ride in the Whirlwind,' two sparse Westerns starring a young Jack Nicholson.
Monte Hellman, the maverick director and protege of Roger Corman who helmed the existential cult classics
The Shooting and
Two-Lane Blacktop, died Tuesday. He was 91.
Hellman died at Eisenhower Health hospital in Palm Desert a week after he had fallen in his home, his daughter, Melissa Hellman, a producer, told
The Hollywood Reporter. "He was my best friend," she said.
Cahiers du Cinema, the influential French magazine, once called Hellman the most gifted American filmmaker of his generation, and critics likened the idiosyncratic director to Michelangelo Antonioni and Sam Fuller.