My Girl maker Zieff dies at 81

US film-maker Howard Zieff, who directed Private Benjamin and My Girl, has died at the age of 81.

He worked in advertising before moving to Hollywood in the 1970s, making a series of comedies including Slither and The Main Event.

He retired from the industry in 1994, shortly after filming My Girl 2 due to worsening Parkinson's Disease.

Private Benjamin star Goldie Hawn said: "He had a special talent for directing comedies, always a rare gift."

'Limitless imagination'

He made his name in the 1960s working on Madison Avenue in print advertising - one of the original Mad Men.

Zieff was known for what Time magazine called his "zany sense of humour and an apparently limitless imagination".

As a director of TV commercials he consistently used unknown actors rather than models, as he thought they looked more like the average customer.

Zieff gave Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Richard Dreyfuss some of their first work on screen.

In film he directed a range of leading comic actors including Jeff Bridges, Dudley Moore, Walter Matthau and Barbra Streisand.