New Zealand-born director Lee Tamahori, whose debut feature Once Were Warriors led to a major Hollywood career, has died. He was 75.
Tamahori’s family on Friday said the director died at home after a battle with Parkinson’s disease.
“His legacy endures with his whānau, his mokopuna, every filmmaker he inspired, every boundary he broke and every story he told with his genius eye and honest heart,” the family said in a statement to RNZ, the New Zealand public service broadcaster.
Tamahori broke out internationally with his 1994 tough and at times bleak urban Maori drama Once Were Warriors, which debuted in Cannes and offered an unflinching look at gangs, sex and domestic violence. “A charismatic leader and fierce creative spirit, Lee championed Maori talent both on and off screen,” his family noted.
The success of Once Were Warriors led to a Hollywood directing career with titles like the survival drama The Edge, written by David Mamet and starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin; the political thriller xXx: State of the Union; the Nicolas Cage starring sci-fi thriller Next; and the Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry James Bond franchise pic Die Another Day.
Born in Wellington in 1950, Tamahori started out as a commercial artist and photographer and operated a boom in the late 1970s. He next became an assistant director and directed commercials and TV series during the 1980s with his production banner Flying Fish. And Tamahori directed a short film, Thunderbox, in 1989.
In a 2022 interview on the Paramount lot, Tamahori revealed that he first got interested in movies in New Zealand by skipping school to go to the local cinema, with action movies and American westerns his preference. “That’s what I did in my youth, sneaked into every movie I wasn’t allowed to see and that’s how I became a filmmaker,” he recalled.
His other movie credits included Mulholland Falls, Along Came a Spider and The Devil’s Double, and returned to his Maori roots with The Patriarch and The Convert, a 19th century-set historical drama starring Guy Pearce, and about an English minister who travels to New Zealand to preach at a British settlement only to get caught up in the violence between warring Maori tribes.
He also directed TV episodes of The Sopranos and Billions.
Tamahori is survived by his wife, Justine, and his children, Sam, Max, Meka and Tané.
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