'The Sound of Music' director dies

Robert Wise, director of classics like 'West Side Story' and 'The Sand Pebbles', has died of heart failure.

Sep 15 2005

Robert Wise, the Oscar-winning director of 'West Side Story' and 'The Sound of Music', died of heart failure at the UCLA Medical Centre on Wednesday. He was 91.

The Hollywood legend, who directed 39 films in a career that spanned over 50 years, was nominated for a total of seven Oscars in that time, winning on four occasions.

Starting out in the sound department at RKO, Wise made his name in editing, working on the Orson Welles classics 'Citizen Kane' and 'The Magnificent Ambersons'.

But it was as a director that his career really took flight, working in all manner of genres, from sci-fi ('The Day the Earth Stood Still') and horror ('The Haunting'), to war ('The Sand Pebbles') and sport ('Somebody Up There Likes Me').

Musicals brought Wise his greatest success however, with both 'West Side Story' and 'The Sound of Music' breaking box office records around the world and receiving 15 Oscars between them.

In later years, he also directed the first of the Star Trek films, 'Star Trek - The Motion Picture'.

A legend in the truest sense of the word, Wise was awarded a special Oscar for sustained achievement in 1966 and more recently received the Directors Guild of America's DW Griffith Award in 1988.

• 
•