:: Guardian Story :: Oscar-winning director Minghella dies at 54

Anthony Minghella, the Oscar-winning director of The English Patient, has died at the age of 54, his agent said today.
Minghella won the best director Academy award in 1997, the year in which the film won nine Oscars. He was also nominated for the best adapted screenwriting award in 2000 for The Talented Mr Ripley.
He had undergone an operation for cancer of the tonsils and neck last week and the operation seemed to have gone well. But he suffered a fatal haemorrhage at 5am today, his agent Leslee Dart said. "The surgery had gone well and they were very optimistic," she said. "But he developed a haemorrhage last night and they were not able to stop it."

The actor Jude Law, who worked with Minghella on The Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain and Breaking And Entering, said he would miss the director "hugely".
He said: "I am deeply shocked and saddened to hear of Anthony's untimely death.
"I worked with him on three films, more than with any other director, but had come to value him more as a friend than as a colleague.
"He was a brilliantly talented writer and director who wrote dialogue that was a joy to speak and then put it on to the screen in a way that always looked effortless.
"He made work feel like fun. He was a sweet, warm, bright and funny man who was interested in everything from football to opera, films, music, literature, people and, most of all, his family whom he adored and to whom I send my thoughts and love. I shall miss him hugely."
Former prime minister Tony Blair said Minghella, who directed him in a party election broadcast for Labour, was a "wonderful human being".
"Whatever I did with him, personally or professionally, left me with complete admiration for him, as a character and as an artist of the highest calibre," he said.
Fellow film director Lord Puttnam said the death was a "shattering blow" to the industry.
He said: "I am shattered. He was a very important person in the film community because not only was he a fine, fine writer ... and made the transfer into becoming a really excellent director, he was also a really beautiful man. I just spoke to Alan Parker and it was the line Alan used: he was a beautiful man; he was a lot of fun to be with; he was thoughtful and intelligent."
Lord Puttnam said Minghella had been "a storyteller in the classic British tradition". He compared him with David Lean, saying he was particularly good at inspiring great performances from actresses.
The film-maker recently completed work on the Botswana-set comedy, The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which he directed after co-writing with Four Weddings and a Funeral scribe Richard Curtis. An adaptation of the Alexander McCall Smith novel, it had been due to premiere on BBC1 on Easter Monday.
Minghella had two projects in the pipeline: New York, I Love You, a celluloid ode to the Big Apple for which he had written and directed a segment, and the drama The Ninth Life of Louis Drax.
The director was born on the Isle of Wight, the son of Gloria and Edward Minghella, who owned an ice-cream factory.
His father was Italian-Scottish and his mother came from Leeds, although her ancestors were also Italian. Minghella attended Sandown grammar school and St John's college in Portsmouth. He is a graduate of the University of Hull, where he completed undergraduate and graduate courses, but eventually abandoned his doctoral thesis.
Minghella worked as a television script editor before making his directing debut in 1990 with Truly, Madly, Deeply, a comedy about love and grief starring Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman. The made-for-TV production proved so popular that it received a cinematic release.
The director also received critical plaudits for his 2003 film Cold Mountain. While Minghella himself did not receive any nominations, it saw Renée Zellweger take the Oscar for best supporting actress, with Jude Law picking up a nomination for best actor.
Minghella began his career in theatre, working as a playwright as well as a director. The plays of Beckett were a lifelong fascination - Play and Happy Days provided his directorial debut - and Minghella presided over a starry gala tribute to celebrate the playwright's 100th birthday in 2006, as well as writing a radio play to commemorate the occasion.
Two volumes of Minghella's own plays were published by Methuen, and he won a number of awards for his theatre writing in the mid-80s.
He returned to the stage in 2005 with a cinematically lavish staging of Puccini's Madam Butterfly at the English National Opera, which disappointed critics but was enthusiastically received by audiences. Last year, it was announced he would direct and write the libretto for a new work at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the 2011-12 season
At the time of his death Minghella had recently relinquished his role as chairman of the British Film Institute. He was replaced by the former director-general of the BBC, Greg Dyke, on March 1. Minghella was made a CBE in the 2001 Queen's birthday honours list. He was married to Carolyn Choa and had two grown-up children, Max and Hannah.