Critically acclaimed filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. has died at 85 years old. The director passed peacefully in his sleep after years of battling Parkinson's disease, according to his son, Iron Man Robert Downey Jr.
"Dad passed peacefully in his sleep after years of enduring the ravages of Parkinson's," Downey Jr. wrote on Instagram. "He was a true maverick filmmaker, and remained remarkably optimistic throughout."
Downey Sr. is perhaps best known as the director of Putney Swope, a cutting anti-establishment satire that took aim at the world of advertising.
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Putney Swope was described by a New York Times film critic at the time as "funny, sophomoric, brilliant, obscene, disjointed, marvelous, unintelligible and relevant", while the New York Daily News called it "the most offensive picture I've ever seen". That's the kind of range of opinions we love to see. Regardless of its apparent divisiveness, it soon became a cult classic. It was inducted into the National Film Registry of the US Library of Congress in 2016.
Flm scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon hailed Putney Swope as having "paved the way for a generation of filmmakers to come".
"Downey's films during that era were strictly take-no-prisoners affairs," Dixon wrote in the book Film Talk: Directors At Work. "With minimal budgets and outrageous satire, effectively pushing forward the countercultural agenda of the day and bitingly showcasing the inherent hypocrisy of human interaction."
He wrote: "Downey's films during that era were strictly take-no-prisoners affairs, with minimal budgets and outrageous satire, effectively pushing forward the countercultural agenda of the day and bitingly showcasing the inherent hypocrisy of human interaction."
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Downey Sr. also directed a number of episodes of The Twilight Zone, helping to terrify and entire generation in the process. He was multitalented, and worked as an actor and director through the '50s all the way up until 2011. Notable appearances include Boogie Nights, Magnolia and To Live and Die in LA. His final appearance on the big screen came in comedy/crime thriller Tower Heist.
Downey Sr. is survived by Robert Downey, Jr., his daughter Allyson, and his wife, Rosemary.