Cool Hand Luke film director dies

Stuart Rosenberg, pictured with Faye Dunaway, won an Emmy Award

Stuart Rosenberg, who directed the Paul Newman film classic Cool Hand Luke and haunted house hit The Amityville Horror, has died at the age of 79.

He suffered a heart attack at his home in Beverly Hills on Thursday, his son told the Associated Press news agency.

Cool Hand Luke, the 1967 drama starring Newman as a chain gang inmate who defied sadistic guards, was Rosenberg's first feature film.

"He was as good as anybody I ever worked with," Newman said in a tribute.

Cool Hand Luke was nominated for four Academy Awards, with George Kennedy taking the statuette for best supporting actor.

Rosenberg was nominated for a Directors' Guild Award for the film but lost out to Mike Nichols, who had made The Graduate.

Prolific director

Rosenberg started out directing TV episodes in the 1950s and had more than 300 directing credits for series such as The Untouchables, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone.

He won an Emmy Award in 1963 for an episode of The Defenders.

The Amityville Horror was a major hit in 1979 and has inspired seven sequels to date.

Rosenberg also directed Robert Redford in the 1980 prison film Brubaker and Mickey Rourke in 1984's The Pope of Greenwich Village.