James Foley, the Brooklyn-born filmmaker who collaborated with A-list stars like Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Madonna and Mark Wahlberg across a 30-plus-year career in film, TV and music videos, has died. He was 71.
Foley’s rep said Thursday he died “peacefully in his sleep earlier this week” at his Los Angeles home following a “years-long struggle” with brain cancer.
Born on Dec. 28, 1953, and raised in New York, Foley graduated from high school and went on to study film at New York University and then at USC in Los Angeles. It was during his final year of film school that a chance meeting would change the course of his life and jump start his career behind the camera.
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“I was very lucky, and in the perverse calculus of Hollywood I was in the last year of film school and shared a house with a guy. There was a woman who was pursuing my friend so we had this film school party, which consisted of people projecting their student films onto a white wall and getting stoned,” Foley recalled in a detailed anecdote to Film Freak Central. “And this girl came. Hal Ashby was pursuing her — she was pursuing my friend and Hal was pursuing her — and Hal called her up and asked to come to this party full of film students. Just as he walked through the door, my film was showing on the wall. I’ll never know whether he was being polite or anything, but he told me he liked it and stuff and he was going to form a company that was going to produce other people’s movies and what did I want to do? I could write something and direct it.”
Foley admitted that he thought it was all a dream. But by the time he wrote a draft of a screenplay, Ashby had released two films, both of which “bombed terribly,” leading to a lost opportunity for Foley. “But at that time, because Hal Ashby had hired me, I became known to other people in Hollywood and got kind of viable in that weird calculus of Hollywood just because someone else, respected, thought I was viable.”
He was able to ride that momentum to his directorial debut, 1984’s Reckless, starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. He followed it by directing Madonna’s “Dress You Up” music video in what would mark the first of many collaborations with the Material Girl helming many of her iconic music videos, including “Live to Tell,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” “True Blue” and “The Look of Love.” He also directed the 1987 feature film Who’s That Girl starring Madonna opposite Griffin Dunne. It was the latest push in the pop superstar’s acting career following Desperately Seeking Susan and Shanghai Surprise, and it landed with a thud at the box office, leading Foley to reflect on his career. “It was a major life experience. That first failure is so shocking,” he once said.
His follow-up film came in 1986 with the Sean Penn- and Christopher Walken-starrer At Close Range. He went on to direct After Dark, My Sweet starring Jason Patric, Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern and an episode of Twin Peaks before helming 1992’s Glengarry Glen Ross from a script by David Mamet.
Set in the high stakes world of real estate, the film starred Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin and Kevin Spacey. Pacino landed a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his work in the film. Foley and Pacino would go on to collaborate again with 1995’s Two Bits.
In 1996, Foley saw the release of his thriller Fear, starring Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon. Though it grossed just $20.8 million at the box office, the film was credited for fueling the careers of its stars who have gone on to become two of Hollywood’s most successful actor-producers. After Fear, Foley worked with Gene Hackman and Chris O’Donnell on 1996’s The Chamber; again with Wahlberg on 1999’s action-packed The Corruptor, co-starring Chow Yun-Fat; with Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman and Paul Giamatti on 2003’s Confidence; and with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis on the 2007 thriller Perfect Stranger.
His experience on the latter film led him to take a break from movies. “For various reasons, it was not the best experience I’ve had. I kind of withdrew after that moment,” he told FilmInk. Foley then took his talents to the small screen for a spell, directing an episode of Hannibal before checking into Netflix’s inaugural series House of Cards, a gig he said he got after a period of being in “director jail” thanks to the belief of David Fincher. Foley would eventually direct 12 episodes of the acclaimed series. He also jumped behind the camera for two episodes of Showtime’s Billions.
But back to the big screen he went, taking over the Fifty Shades franchise from Sam Taylor-Johnson. He directed the final two films in the franchise, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, Foley talked about the seamless transitions he made throughout his career by moving between TV and film and across various genres.
“What I love is that it’s fluid. I’ve had a very fluid career of ups and downs and lefts and rights, and I always just responded to what I was interested in at the moment and I was very unconscious about genre,” he said while promoting his work in the new Fifty Shades franchise. ” So the thing I would say I least like is there is an understandable tendency to, of course, pigeonhole somebody or identify them as, ‘He does this kind of movie, so if we’re making that kind of movie, we should get him and he’ll make it like the other ones he’s made.’ That is of no interest to me, personally, to repeat myself. So I’ve always just followed my nose, for better or for worse, sometimes for worse.”
In an interview with Movie Habit, Foley said he trusted his gut by taking on projects that he liked and ones he felt audiences would as well. “Not to be eclectic for eclectic’s sake, but if I follow this idea of ‘what do I like?’ I guess it’s going to be eclectic. Looking back, I become conscious of connections between a bunch of films. Obviously, males who are alienated and estranged from the mainstream. Groupings of males and the dynamics among them,” he said of the types of characters featured in his films. “I never thought about it until it was over, but I think Confidence is kind of an interesting cousin to Glengarry, in that it is a group of guys together in pursuit of money, and what their allegiance is, and their betrayals.”
He also credited an attention to detail and involvement in all aspects of filmmaking to his longevity. “I am incredibly hands-on about everything,” he told FilmInk. “You have to know when to apply or relieve pressure. You have to make the actors aware that you’re empathetic. The best actors want to be directed. Once you’re on the same wavelength, you get incredible results.”
Foley is survived by his brother, Kevin; sisters Eileen and Jo Ann; and nephew Quinn (fiancé of Antea Kalinic). He was predeceased by another brother, Gerard (husband of Ann Marie Quinn Foley).
