He liked to put music stars in his films, including David Bowie and Mick Jagger. Among his other admired 1970s movies were “Don’t Look Now” and “Walkabout.”
Nicolas Roeg, a British director acclaimed for a string of films in the 1970s that included the rite-of-passage tale “Walkabout,” the psychological thriller “Don’t Look Now” and the David Bowie vehicle “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” died on Friday. He was 90.
A son, Nicholas Jr., confirmed the death to Britain’s Press Association. The cause and location were not given.
Mr. Roeg came up through the filmmaking ranks, spending 20 years as a camera operator and cinematographer before serving as one of two directors (along with Donald Cammell) of “Performance,” a 1970 drama about the London rock world.
It starred Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, and Mr. Roeg would go on to feature other singers in acting roles — Mr. Bowie in “The Man Who Fell to Earth” in 1976 and Art Garfunkel in “Bad Timing” in 1980.Mr. Roeg maintained that the seeming challenge wasn’t all that formidable.
“The fact is that Jagger, Bowie and Garfunkel are all extremely bright, intelligent and well educated,” he told The New York Times in 1980. “A long way from the public stereotype.”
If Mr. Roeg was known for casting rock stars, he also made an impression with one particular sex scene, in the 1973 film “Don’t Look Now,” about a grieving couple played by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. The scene, which featured lots of crosscutting, was graphic for the time — so much so that as recently as this year Mr. Sutherland still felt compelled to deny persistent rumors that the sex in it was not simulated.
“The takes were 15 seconds long, maximum,” he told The Daily News.
Nicolas Jack Roeg was born on Aug.
