Breaking Bad and The Wire director dies at age 88 - The Independent

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Peter Medak, the Hungarian-born director known for his work on acclaimed US dramas Breaking Bad and The Wire, has died at the age of 88.

The filmmaker died in Los Angeles on Tuesday (October 27), it was announced on Wednesday, following a career spanning six decades across British cinema and Hollywood.

Medak directed 27 feature films, including the supernatural horror The Changeling, the British gangster drama The Krays and the satirical comedy The Ruling Class, while also establishing himself as a sought-after television director.

Created by Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad ran for five seasons between 2008 and 2013 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest television dramas of all time.

The hugely popular crime drama starred Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul and followed a chemistry teacher's transformation into a ruthless drug kingpin.

Medak directed the season two episode “Peekaboo”, which originally aired in 2009 and followed Jesse Pinkman, played by Paul, as he confronted a couple responsible for stealing from one of his drug dealers.

The episode also featured a storyline involving Walter White, played by Cranston, as he struggled with his increasingly complicated personal life and criminal activities.

Medak’s television career extended well beyond Breaking Bad.

He also directed episodes of HBO’s The Wire, the Baltimore-set crime drama created by David Simon, which examined policing, drug trafficking, politics and institutions across five seasons.

His work on The Wire included the third-season episode “Back Burners”, which aired in 2004.

Medak also directed episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, another Baltimore-based police drama associated with Simon, and the medical series House, starring Hugh Laurie as the unconventional diagnostician Dr Gregory House.

His television credits additionally included Carnivàle, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and The Sopranos and Hannibal.

The director’s death was confirmed by his family, who said he died peacefully.

No cause of death has been publicly disclosed.

Actor Malcolm McDowell, 83, who worked with Medak on the 1970 film Figures in a Landscape, paid tribute to his longtime friend on Instagram.

McDowell wrote: “One of my oldest and dearest friends, Peter Medak, has left us. He cast me in FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE at the beginning of my career. He was a lovely director. The Krays, The Ruling Class, The Changeling, Romeo is Bleeding. We remained lifelong friends. I loved him very much. RIP.”

Medak’s career began in Britain after he fled Hungary during the 1956 uprising against Communist rule.

He had spent part of the Second World War in hiding with his family in Budapest, while his father was later imprisoned under the country’s Communist government.

After arriving in England, Medak entered the film industry as a trainee and worked his way through production roles before becoming an assistant director.

He subsequently moved to Hollywood and made his feature directorial debut with Negatives in 1968, starring Glenda Jackson.

His 1972 satire The Ruling Class, starring Peter O’Toole, competed for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and earned its leading actor an Academy Award nomination.

Medak later directed The Changeling, the 1980 supernatural thriller starring George C. Scott, which won eight Genie Awards, including best motion picture.

He returned to British crime drama with The Krays in 1990, casting Spandau Ballet musicians Gary Kemp and Martin Kemp as notorious London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

The film earned Medak the Evening Standard British Film Award for best director.

His other feature films included A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Let Him Have It and Romeo Is Bleeding, the 1993 crime thriller starring Gary Oldman.

In 2018, Medak revisited one of the most difficult productions of his career in the documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers, examining the troubled making of the 1970s comedy Ghost in the Noonday Sun.

Discussing that experience in a 2007 interview with the Directors Guild of America, Medak said: “Oh, it was probably the biggest nightmare of my life.”

Medak is survived by his four children – Christopher, Joshua, Karen and Cornelia – and five grandchildren, named Sacha, Marlowe, Ryden, Oliver and Anders.