Joel Schumacher: Batman and Robin and The Lost Boys director dies aged 80
Written by News on 23/06/2020
Hollywood director Joel Schumacher, who made two Batman films after rising to fame with hits including St Elmo’s Fire and The Lost Boys, has died aged 80.
A representative for the flamboyant US filmmaker said he died in New York on Monday after a year-long battle with cancer.
The director’s first film St Elmo’s Fire in 1985 helped make a name for the so-called “Brat Pack” group of young actors as it starred Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy.
Schumacher became one of the pre-eminent filmmakers of the 1990s after directing the 1987 vampire horror comedy The Lost Boys.
The filmmaker directed Flatliners and A Time To Kill as well two Batman films – 1995’s Batman Forever and 1997’s Batman & Robin – which were considered among the most cartoonish movies in the DC Comics franchise.
Schumacher also helmed the thrillers Tigerland and Phone Booth, along with The Phantom Of The Opera in 2004.
More recently. he directed two episodes of Netflix’s House of Cards in 2013.
Schumacher was raised by his mother in Queens, New York, after his father died when he was four-years-old.
He quickly became entangled in the city’s nightlife as a teenager.
Schumacher told New York magazine earlier this year: “The street was my education.
“You could ride your bike over the 59th Street Bridge then. So I rode my bike everywhere.
“I was in Manhattan all the time and all over Queens. If you’re a kid on a bike, anything can happen, and predators come out of the woodwork, my God. I looked very innocent, but I wasn’t.”
Schumacher later went on to dress New York department store windows before turning his hand to filmmaking.
(c) Sky News 2020: Joel Schumacher: Batman and Robin and The Lost Boys director dies aged 80
