James Foley, the filmmaker best known for directing Glengarry Glen Ross, has died at the age of 71. According to his rep, Foley died “peacefully in his sleep earlier this week following a yearslong struggle with brain cancer.” Very sad news.
Foley made his feature directorial debut with Reckless, a romantic drama starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. From there, he moved to working with Madonna and directed several of her biggest music videos, including Live to Tell, Papa Don’t Preach, and True Blue. He also directed her in Who’s That Girl, a screwball comedy released in 1987.
He also directed At Close Range, After Dark, My Sweet, Two Bits, The Chamber, Fear, The Corruptor, Confidence, Perfect Stranger, and took over the Fifty Shades franchise from Sam Taylor-Johnson, helming the final two movies, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.
Foley also made the leap to the small screen, directing episodes of Twin Peaks, Hannibal, Wayward Pines, and Billions, but it was Netflix’s House of Cards where he made his mark. He ultimately directed a dozen episodes of the series. In 2017, he spoke about his career with THR, mentioning his tendency to leap between genres in the realm of both movies and television.
“What I love is that it’s fluid. I’ve had a very fluid career of ups and downs and lefts and rights, and I always just responded to what I was interested in at the moment and I was very unconscious about genre,” Foley said. “So the thing I would say I least like is there is an understandable tendency to, of course, pigeonhole somebody or identify them as, ‘He does this kind of movie, so if we’re making that kind of movie, we should get him and he’ll make it like the other ones he’s made.’ That is of no interest to me, personally, to repeat myself. So I’ve always just followed my nose, for better or for worse, sometimes for worse.“
He continued, “What’s best and what’s worst [about the industry] are almost the same to me. Because what’s worst is you get pigeonholed, and what’s best is I haven’t been. It means that I’m still making movies, despite hopping all over the place, so there’s a great thing about Hollywood where it’s not so purely linear, in terms of a director having a success critically and commercially and continuing that in an unbroken stream, which is true of no one.“
It’s been a long time since I watched Glengarry Glen Ross. Perhaps tonight’s the night. Our thoughts and condolences go out to James Foley’s family and friends. He will be deeply missed.
