TROY director Wolfgang Petersen has died at 81 following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
His production company confirmed on Tuesday that the German filmmaker passed away after a glittering career in Hollywood.
Petersen is understood to have died peacefully after battling pancreatic cancer last Friday at his Brentwood, CA, home and was in the arms of his wife of 50 years, Maria Antoinette, reports Deadline.
The German was best-known for directing blockbuster films with star names such as Air Force Once, In the Line of Fire and Troy.
He is survived by his second wife Maria-Antoinette – who he wed in 1978 – his son Daniel Petersen and two grandchildren.
Petersen was born on 14 March 1941 in Emden, Germany and began directing plays in the 1960s at Hamburg’s Ernst Deutsch Theater.
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He eventually attended the Film and Television Academy in Berlin, and produced films for German television after graduating.
His first feature film came in 1974, the psychological thriller One or the Other of Us, which was based on the novel Einer von uns beiden by Horst Bosetzky.
And Petersen’s 1982 anti-war masterpiece, “Das Boot” was nominated for six Oscars, including for Petersen’s direction and his adaptation of the best-selling novel.
In 1984, his fantasy film The NeverEnding Story was the most expensive film produced outside of the United States.
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Growing up on the northern coast of Germany, the sea long held fascination for Petersen.
And the decorated filmmaker would return to it in the 2000 disaster film, “The Perfect Storm,” a true-life tale of a fishing boat lost at sea.
