Ulu Grosbard

A diamond cutter before his arrival in the U.S., the Belgian-born Ulu Grosbard, who died March 18 at 83, brought the same lapidary craftsmanship to theater and movie direction. He staged the original Broadway productions of David Mamet’s American Buffalo, Arthur Miller’s The Price, Frank Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses and Woody Allen’s The Floating Light Bulb. On film, he paired Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall as priest and cop brothers in True Confessions and De Niro and Meryl Streep for a fugitive tryst in Falling in Love. At his best, steering Dustin Hoffman in Straight Time and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Deep End of the Ocean to career-finest performances, the diamond cutter was an alchemist.