Stuart Rosenberg, Director of “Cool Hand Luke” and “The Amityville Horror,” Dies at 79

Stuart Rosenberg, the director of such big screen classics as “Cool Hand Luke” and “The Amityville Horror” has died of an apparent heart attack on Thursday. Rosenberg was 79-years-old.

While Rosenberg won an Emmy in 1963 as a director for the popular television show “The Defenders” he will always be remembered for his 1967 directorial debut in film with “Cool Hand Luke.” The film, starring Paul Newman, Strother Martin, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon and a young Dennis Hopper brought countless lines into American culture, the most famous being “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate..”

“Cool Hand Luke” earned Kennedy an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor and Newman a nomination as Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Rosenberg went on to work with Newman in “WUSA,” “Pocket Money” and “The Drowning Pool” before directing “The Amityville Horror” in 1979. Many still regard “The Amityville Horror” as one of the finest horror movies ever made.

Rosenberg’s final film was 1991’s “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.”

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