French film director Louis Malle died in Beverly Hills of complications of lymphoma. Working on both sides of the Atlantic, Malle feelingly but frankly explored such difficult topics as incest (1971’s “Le Souffle En Coeur”) and child prostitution (“Pretty Baby”, his 1978 American debut). Yet his high-voltage subjects contrasted with an often reflective style, captured in his stateside success “Atlantic City” (1980), starring Burt Lancaster as an aging hood, and 1981’s “My Dinner with Andre”, in which two friends wrestle over the earthly, the transcendent, and some painfully nouvelle cuisine. Malle called “Au Revoir Les Enfants” (1988), an autobiographical account of Jewish children hiding from the Holocaust at a French Catholic School, “the one film I would like to be remembered for.” Candice Bergen, his widow, accompanied his body to France for burial.
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