The Celebrity Truth

Oscar-winning film director Anthony Minghella passed away in a London hospital on Tuesday after a short battle with cancer, aged 54.

Minghella died from complications following surgery last week for cancer of the tonsils and neck, agent Leslee Dart has confirmed.

"The surgery had gone well and they were very optimistic," Dart said. "But he developed a haemorrhage last night, and they were not able to stop it."

Minghella was married to Carolyn Choa and had two adult children, Max and Hannah.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was a close friend of the director, said he was "deeply saddened".

"He was one of Britain’s greatest creative talents, one of our finest screen writers and directors, a great champion of the British film industry and an expert on literature and opera. He will be deeply missed," Brown said.

Minghella, who won an Academy Award for Best Director in 1996 for ‘The English Patient’, said at the time that the film was an unexpected hit, after he had struggled to secure funding to make the film, which eventually won 12 Oscar nominations.

"It was a very hard job to get someone to give us the money for this," he said.

"It was a very unpromising document: a European film about a man haunted from his war-time past, good actors but no stars and a director who had little experience. It was understandable that people (in Hollywood) had no faith in the film. But they were all completely wrong."

The director and writer had been filming an adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s novel, ‘The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’. It was due to be shown on the BBC on Easter Sunday and on the HBO network in the United States.

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