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Oscar-Winning Director Milos Forman Dies

by Reuters

   PRAGUE --

   Milos Forman, the Czech-born movie director who found fame in Hollywood
   with the Oscar-winning classics One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and
   Amadeus has died at the age of 86, Czech news agency CTK reported
   Saturday.

   Forman died Friday in the United States after a short illness, his
   wife, Martina, told CTK.

   "His departure was calm and he was surrounded the whole time by his
   family and his closest friends," she said.

   Forman was born in the Czech town of Caslav on Feb. 18, 1932, but moved
   to the United States after the Communist crackdown on the "Prague
   Spring" uprising in 1968. He became a U.S. citizen in the 1970s.

   One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which a psychiatric institution
   becomes a microcosm of the contemporary world, and Amadeus, the life of
   18th-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart through the eyes of his
   rival Antonio Salieri, earned 13 Oscars between them, including those
   for best director to Forman.

   His other notable work included the rock musical Hair in 1979, Ragtime
   in 1981 and The People vs Larry Flint in 1996, which was nominated for
   an Academy Award that year.