Film director Anthony Minghella dies

Other awards followed, and in 1991 he made his breakthrough with "Truly, Madly Deeply," a film he wrote and directed for the BBC which crossed over into cinema and won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for best screenplay.

"He was a great guy, a very, very nice man, a brilliant writer, excellent director," film producer David Puttnam told BBC television, calling Minghella's death was a "shattering blow."

"The English Patient," a wartime romance starring Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliette Binoche, earned Minghella an Academy Award as best director in 1997 and an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay.

The film won nine Oscars in all, including the award for best picture and a best supporting actress prize for Binoche.

Three years later, Minghella picked up a second Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay to the high-society thriller "The Talented Mr. Ripley," which he also directed.

He also wrote and directed the 2003 U.S. Civil War-era drama "Cold Mountain."

"Anthony was a realistic romanticist," said friend and colleague Sydney Pollack. "A kind of poet, disciplined by reality, an academic by training, a musician by nature, a compulsive reader by habit, and to most observers, a sunny soul who exuded a gentleness that should never have been mistaken for lack of tenacity and resolve."

"The English Patient," based on author Michael Ondaatje's novel, was an unexpected global hit.

In an interview with Reuters after its release, Minghella said he had struggled to raise the money to make the film, which was nominated in 12 Oscar categories.