George P. Cosmatos

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia George Pan Cosmatos January 4 1941 in Florence Italy April 19 2005 in Victoria Canada was a GreekItalian film director After studying film in London he became assistant director to Otto Preminger on Exodus 1960 Leon Uriss epic about the birth of Israel Thereafter he worked on Zorba the Greek 1964 in which Cosmatos had a small part as Boy with Acne Cosmatos grew up in Egypt and Cyprus and is said to have spoken six languages He was famous in Italy for the movies Rappresaglia 1973 with Marcello Mastroianni and The Cassandra Crossing 1976 with Sophia Loren In 1979 he made the famous and successful World War II adventure movie Escape to Athena starring a gigantic all star cast including Roger Moore David Niven Telly Savalas Elliot Gould and Claudia Cardinale Cosmatos was nominated for a 1985 Golden Raspberry Award for his role as director of Rambo First Blood Part II starring Sylvester Stallone He also directed another Stallone vehicle Cobra in 1986 Late in his career Cosmatos received more praise for Tombstone a 1993 Western movie about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp This film was particularly praised for the exceptional performance of Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday After his death it was revealed by Tombstone star Kurt Russell that Cosmatos had ghostdirected the movie on Russells behalf Sylvester Stallone recommended Cosmatos after the departure of the first director and informed Russell that Cosmatos had also ghostdirected Rambo First Blood Part II on Stallones behalf1 George P Cosmatos died of lung cancer on April 19 2005 at the age of 64 Description above from the Wikipedia article George P Cosmatos licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia