Anthony Minghella, at 54; writer, filmmaker won Oscar for 'The English Patient'

In addition to "The English Patient," Anthony Minghella directed "Cold Mountain" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley." (file)

Anthony Minghella, who won an Academy Award as director of the film "The English Patient," died early yesterday at a London hospital. According to Mr. Minghella's publicist, he had undergone successful surgery last week for cancer of the tonsils and neck, then suffered a hemorrhage.

Jude Law, whom Mr. Minghella directed in "Cold Mountain" (2003), "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), and "Breaking and Entering" (2006), released a statement calling him "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."

Mr. Minghella was 54.

"An artist of the highest caliber," Tony Blair, former prime minister of Britain, called Mr. Minghella yesterday. Blair became friends with Mr. Minghella when he directed a Labor Party election advertisement in 2005. "Anthony Minghella was a wonderful human being, creative and brilliant, but still humble, gentle, and a joy to be with."

Although best known as a director, Mr. Minghella began as a playwright (and later wrote the screenplays for most of his films). He worked extensively in British television. Among the shows he wrote scripts for was the popular detective series "Inspector Morse."

An adaptation Mr. Minghella had done of Alexander McCall Smith's best-selling novel "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is scheduled to air on the BBC next week and at a future date on HBO. Mr. Minghella directed his first opera, Puccini's "Madama Butterfly," in 2005 at the English National Opera and in 2006 at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

Mr. Minghella's films were notable for their ability to balance intimacy and sweep. The literary adaptations "The English Patient" (1996) and "Cold Mountain" were wartime epics that spanned great distances in time and space. Mr. Minghella can be seen, in certain respects, as heir of another Oscar-winning English director of literate screen spectacles, David Lean.

Yet at the heart of "The English Patient" and "Cold Mountain" were enduring love stories. The much smaller-scale love story in Mr. Minghella's first film, "Truly, Madly, Deeply," (1991) a ghostly comedy, endured death itself.

The son of Italian immigrants, Mr. Minghella imbued his work with a special feeling for outsiderdom and the fractures of class and nationality. Whether it be Ralph Fiennes's Hungarian count and Naveen Andrews's Indian demolition expert in "The English Patient" or Matt Damon's upwardly mobile murderer in "Ripley," Mr. Minghella memorably recorded the usually unspoken intricacies of how groups do, and do not, grant others membership.

The son of Edward and Gloria Minghella, he was born on the Isle of Wight. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Hull but abandoned further studies to work in London theater. Two major influences on his work were the director Peter Brook and the playwright Samuel Beckett (the first two stage works Mr. Minghella directed were Beckett's "Play" and "Happy Days").

Mr. Minghella made the move from experimental theater to mainstream success with the 1986 West End drama "Made in Bangkok," about a British tour group in Thailand.

Another influence was Jim Henson, for whom Mr. Minghella wrote the script of a television miniseries, "The Storyteller: Greek Myths" (1990), an exercise in the magical that led to his directing debut, "Truly, Madly, Deeply."

He had served as chairman of the British Film Institute. With the director Sydney Pollack, he ran a production company, Mirage Enterprises. It produced, in addition to Mr. Minghella's films, "Iris" (2001), "The Quiet American" (2002), and "Michael Clayton" (2007), on all of which he served as executive producer.

Mr. Minghella leaves his wife, Carolyn Choa; a son, Max, an actor; and a daughter, Hannah.

Material from Globe wire services was used in this obituary.