James Foley has died at 71 years old.
The director, responsible for box office hits like Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, passed away earlier this week after a years-long battle with brain cancer, per Deadline.
Foley has been a staple in Hollywood for decades. His directorial debut was Reckless, a 1984 filmstarring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah.
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In the following years, Foley directed major motion pictures like At Close Range, Glengarry Glen Ross, Fear, Confidence, and Perfect Stranger.
In addition to Foley’s notable films, he also had a very successful career in television and music videos. He directed episodes of Twin Peaks, House of Cards, and Billions.
As for music videos, Foley was the visionary behind Madonna’s “Live to Tell,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” and “True Blue.”
He also directed the pop star, 66, in the 1987 film Who’s That Girl.
Though he had a remarkable career, Foley remained a humble man. “Seriously, if you cast the right friggin’ people and they’re good actors, it’s amazing how little you have to do but stay out of the way,” he said in a 2003 interview.
As to whether or not Foley preferred directing film or television, he seemed to enjoy the transition between the two.
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“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 mused to The Hollywood Reporter in 2017.
“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,” he continued. “So I’ve always just followed my nose, for better or for worse, sometimes for worse.”
Foley is survived by his brother, Kevin, his sisters, Eileen and Jo Ann, and his nephew, Quinn.
