Influential director Monte Hellman, whose 1971 film Two-Lane Blacktop starring musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson became a counterculture cult classic, died Tuesday.
He was 91.His death at Eisenhower Health hospital in Palm Desert followed a fall at his home, his daughter, producer Melissa Hellman, told The New York Times.While not as well known as other directors of the New Hollywood of the late ’60s and early ’70s, Hellman was nonetheless influential.
His sparse Two-Lane Blacktop , a post-Easy Rider character study about two street racers (Taylor is known only as The Driver, while the Beach Boys’ Wilson is The Mechanic) became a cornerstone among American existentialist road movies.Hellman worked with the best actors of that New
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