Director Ted Demme Dies
Ted Demme, director of last year's film "Blow" and nephew of Oscar-winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme, has died at age 38 after suffering an apparent heart attack, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said Monday.
Demme collapsed while playing basketball at the private Crossroads School Sunday and was pronounced dead shortly afterward at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, said Scott Carrier, spokesman for the coroner's office.
A spokesman for the hospital said he was brought in around 5:05 p.m. PST (8:05 p.m. EST) in full cardiac arrest. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at 5:28 p.m. PST (8:28 p.m. EST).
The cause of death has not been determined and an autopsy will be conducted, said Lt. Cheryl MacWillie of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.
Dr. Matthew Budoff, a cardiologist at Harbor UCLA Medical Center, said it appeared Demme suffered from what is commonly referred to as "sudden cardiac death," which afflicts 250,000 Americans each year.
"In 250,000 Americans, the first signs of heart disease is sudden death, and up to 50,000 of those people die at a very young age, like Ted Demme," Budoff said.
Demme was best known for directing "Blow," a film starring Johnny Depp about the life of George Jung, a small-time marijuana dealer who became one of America's drug kingpins during the 1970s.
He also directed the 1996 ensemble drama, "Beautiful Girls," which starred Matt Dillon, Uma Thurman, Mira Sorvino, Timothy Hutton and Rosie O'Donnell. Demme, who lived in West Hollywood was a director on the 1999 television series "Action."
Demme, who co-directed Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia" music video, made his feature directorial debut with the 1993 film "Who's the Man?", a broad comedy billed as the "first hip-hop whodunit" starring MTV rap veejays Ed Lover and Doctor Dre.
He also directed a television version of comedian Denis Leary's one-man act "No Cure for Cancer," which aired on the Showtime network in 1992, and the 1997 follow-up, "Denis Leary: Lock 'N' Load."
Demme's uncle, Jonathan Demme, directed the 1993 AIDS drama "Philadelphia," which earned Tom Hanks an Oscar, and the 1991 hit thriller "Silence of the Lambs," for which Demme won an Academy Award as best director.
Budoff said the heart condition which presumably ended Ted Demme's life was "was a detectable disease that could have been treated before he suffered an early death."
He said the young director probably had plaque building up in his arteries for years. "It's a process that occurs over months or years and most likely occurs from a combination of genetic factors, plus cholesterol, plus blood pressure. Lifestyle plays a role as well, but plays the smallest role of these factors," he said.
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