LOS ANGELES - Robert Altman, a five-time Academy Award nominee for best director whose vast, eclectic filmography ranged from the dark war comedy "M-A-S-H" to the Hollywood farce "The Player" to the British murder mystery "Gosford Park," has died of complications from cancer. He was 81.

Altman died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, surrounded by his wife and children.

Director Robert Altman poses Oct. 3, 2006, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Altman, the caustic and irreverent satirist behind 'M-A-S-H,' 'Nashville' and 'The Player' who made a career out of bucking Hollywood management and story conventions, died at a Los Angeles Hospital, his Sandcastle 5 Productions Company said Tuesday,Nov 21, 2006. He was 81. [AP]

He had worked with the disease for the last 18 months, including during the making of this year's "A Prairie Home Companion," the director's Sandcastle 5 Productions in New York said in a statement. The death was a surprise, Sandcastle said.

When he received a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2006, Altman revealed he'd had a heart transplant a decade earlier. "I didn't make a big secret out of it, but I thought nobody would hire me again," he said after the ceremony. "You know, there's such a stigma about heart transplants, and there's a lot of us out there."

Altman was to begin work on "Hands on a Hardbody," a fictionalized version of the documentary about a Texas contest in which people stand around a pickup truck with one hand the vehicle, and whoever lasts the longest wins it. The film would have been vintage Altman.

While he was famous for his outspokenness, which caused him to fall in and out of favor in Hollywood over his nearly six decades in the industry, he was perhaps even better known for his influential method of assembling large casts and weaving in and out of their story lines, using long tracking shots and intentionally having dialogue overlap.

His most recent example of this technique, this year's "A Prairie Home Companion," starred such varied performers as Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Kline and Lindsay Lohan. It was based on the long-running radio show from Garrison Keillor, who said Altman's love of film clearly came through on the set.

"Mr. Altman loved making movies. He loved the chaos of shooting and the sociability of the crew and actors - he adored actors - and he loved the editing room and he especially loved sitting in a screening room and watching the thing over and over with other people," Keillor, who also wrote and co-starred in the film, told The Associated Press. "He didn't care for the money end of things, he didn't mind doing publicity, but when he was working he was in heaven."

"He was very good at letting actors think that they had more control than they actually did," said "Prairie Home Companion" co-star Tommy Lee Jones.

"From a filmmaker's point of view, he had a great many lessons to teach - presence of mind and relaxation around the camera and planning, preparedness," Jones added.

Tim Robbins, who starred in the "The Player" and also appeared in "Short Cuts" and the fashion-world comedy "Pret-a-Porter," described Altman as "a great friend and inspiration to me since I had the honor of meeting him in 1990. His unique vision and maverick sensibilities in filmmaking have inspired countless directors of my generation and will continue to inspire future filmmakers."

Altman received best-director Oscar nominations for "M-A-S-H," "Nashville," "The Player," "Short Cuts" and "Gosford Park." No director ever got more nominations without winning a competitive Oscar, though four other men - Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Clarence Brown and King Vidor - tied with Altman at five.

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