Tony Scott: Maker of action films, including 'Top Gun' (+video)
Tony Scott, director of 'Top Gun,' 'Crimson Tide,' 'Enemy of the State,' and 'Man on Fire,' died Sunday. Police say the death of Tony Scott was being investigated as a suicide.
Los Angeles
No one ever mistook Tony Scott for a great dramatist. He was a director critics loved to hate for his slick barrage of images at the expense of story. The filmmaker did not dazzle the imagination with visions of lost or alien worlds, like brother Ridley Scott.
Tony Scott was as populist as they come in Hollywood, a man of action films, pure and simple. From Tom Cruise as a daring fly boy in 1986's "Top Gun" to Denzel Washington mutinying against an unstable captain in 1995's "Crimson Tide" or trying to slow a runaway train in 2010's "Unstoppable," director Scott mastered sky, sea and earth in the name of movie adrenaline.
The 68-year-old Scott died Sunday after jumping from a Los Angeles County bridge, authorities said. His death was being investigated as a suicide, Los Angeles County Coroner's Lt. Joe Bale said.
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It was a puzzling end for a filmmaker who had maintained a busy pace, with a sequel to "Top Gun," his biggest hit, in the works.
"I can confirm that Tony Scott has passed away. The family asks that their privacy is respected at this time," Scott's spokesman, Simon Halls, said in a statement.
