Peter Medak, Director of The Ruling Class and The Changeling, Dies at 88

Peter Medak, the Hungarian-born film director behind The Ruling Class and The Changeling, died in Los Angeles at the age of 88, his family announced. The Hollywood Reporter carried the news.

Medak was born on 23 December 1937 in Budapest, Hungary. In 1956 he fled to England, the start of a life and career that would be built largely in British and American filmmaking.

He made his feature directing debut with Negatives in 1968. Four years later he directed The Ruling Class, a satire starring Peter O'Toole. It remains the film most often linked to his name in Britain.

Medak then turned to American cinema. The Changeling, a 1980 ghost story, starred George C. Scott. Scott played a composer who moves into an old house in Seattle and finds himself drawn into its past. The film has since become a cult favourite among horror fans.

His range stretched well beyond those two titles. In 1990 he directed The Krays, a crime drama about the notorious London gangster twins, starring brothers Gary Kemp and Martin Kemp. Three years later came Romeo Is Bleeding, a crime thriller with Gary Oldman in the lead role.

Medak also turned his camera on his own past. He directed the documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers, which centres on Ghost in the Noonday Sun, a film he made with the comic actor Peter Sellers that was never released. The documentary was reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter when it appeared in 2018.

For many film fans, Medak's career is a reminder of how much filmmaking happens outside the big studio headlines. He moved between British productions, American studio pictures and smaller projects, across more than four decades. His death is a loss to the many people who worked with him and to those who still watch his films.

Medak's family has not announced funeral or memorial arrangements.