Milos Forman, director of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' dies at 86

Oscar-winning director Milos Forman died on Friday, April 13, after suffering from an illness. He was 86 years old.

Milos Forman will be best known for directing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975 and Amadeus in 1984, both of which he won Best Director for at the Oscars (and are still heavily studied by film students and enthusiasts to this day).

Forman also directed The People vs. Larry Flynt (which earned him another Best Director nomination), Man on the Moon, Hair, Visions of Eight, Ragtime and Audition.

“Milos was truly one of ours. A filmmaker, artist, and champion of artists’ rights. his contribution to the craft of directing has been an undeniable source of inspiration for generations of filmmakers. His directorial vision deftly brought together provocative subject matter, stellar performances and haunting images to tell the stories of the universal struggle for free expression and self-determination that informed so much of his work and his life,” said Thomas Schlamme, President of the Directors’ Guild.

Prior to his breakout in America, Forman directed several films that gained all kinds of international attention — including Black Peter (1964), The Lovers of a Blonde (1965) and The Firemen’s Ball (1967, and also another Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film).

In 2002, Forman gave an interview about Amadeus, a film about the never-ending battle for greatness between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri.

“I was used to seeing the Russian and Czech films about composers, and they were the most boring films,” he said. “Communists love to make films about composers because composers compose music and don’t talk subversive things.”

Forman was married three times: first to actress Jana Brejchova, then to Vera Kresadlova (whom he had twins Peter and Matej with) and then Martina Zborilova. In 1988 he had a second set of twins with Zborilova — Andrew and James.