The great, pioneering director Elia Kazan has died, aged 94. Born in Constantinople in 1909, Kazan worked on Broadway before directing films such as Gentlemen’s Agreement, with Gregory Peck, and Pinky. His 1951 film of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Marlon Brando, won four Oscars, and three years later he directed Brando again in the powerful On the Waterfront. East of Eden (1955) is considered by many to be Kazan’s masterpiece, and James Dean received the first ever posthumous Oscar nomination for the film. Kazan also courted controversy in 1952 for being one of the first in Hollywood to testify at Senator McCarthy’s anti-communist Senate hearings. Kazan’s other films include Baby Doll, A Face in the Crowd and The Last Tycoon.
