By: Bridey Heing Category: FILM Date: 2.Jul.2014

Screenwriter and director Paul Mazurksy passed away Monday due to pulmonary cardiac arrest, according to the family’s spokesperson. His critically and commercially successful career began with an acting role in Stanley Kubrick’s 1953 debut Fear and Desire before transitioning to TV writing and eventually screenwriting with 1968’s I Love You, Alice B. Toklas.

With a body of work spanning some of the most unsettled decades of American culture, including the 1970s, Mazurksy captured the changing nature of society and relationships through witty satire and observant comedic drama. His directorial debut, 1969’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, remains a cultural touchstone for the end of the buttoned-up 1960s and the beginning of the exploratory 1970s. His 1978 film An Unmarried Woman, which explored the emotional duality of pain and freedom in the wake of divorce, was hailed by the women’s movement and was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay.

Mazurksy’s extensive catalogue includes numerous films that were hits with critics and at the box office, as he genuinely and lightheartedly captured the times in which he lived. In February of this year he was given the
Writers Guild of America’s Screen Laurel Award in recognition of his prolific career, presented to him by Mel Brooks.