Fifty Shades director James Foley dies aged 71 after ‘years-long struggle’

James Foley is known for his work on the Fifty Shades franchise (Picture: Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock)

Filmmaker James Foley has died aged 71 after a ‘years-long struggle’ with brain cancer.

The director, who is best known for being at the helm of sequels Fifty Shades of Grey: Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed as well as Who’s That Girl starring Madonna, had been fighting the disease for several years.

On Thursday, his publicist confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Foley ‘died peacefully in his sleep earlier this week’ after a ‘years-long struggle’.

His official cause of death is yet to be confirmed.

As well as his cinematic work, Foley also worked with the Queen of Pop on her Live to Tell, Papa Don’t Preach and True Blue music videos under the name Peter Percher.

He was also best man at her wedding to now-former husband Sean Penn in 1985.

His career was launched by a chance meeting (Picture: Pierre Villard/Sipa/REX/Shutterstock)

After graduating from  New York University and then USC in Los Angeles, he was able to jumpstart his career thanks to a chance meeting.

He told Film Freak Central: ‘I was very lucky, and in the perverse calculus of Hollywood I was in the last year of film school and shared a house with a guy.

‘There was a woman who was pursuing my friend so we had this film school party, which consisted of people projecting their student films onto a white wall and getting stoned.

Foley had a ‘years-long struggle’ with cancer before his death (Picture: Hayoung Jeon/EPA/REX/Shutterstock)

‘And this girl came. Hal Ashby was pursuing her — she was pursuing my friend and Hal was pursuing her — and Hal called her up and asked to come to this party full of film students. Just as he walked through the door, my film was showing on the wall.

‘I’ll never know whether he was being polite or anything, but he told me he liked it and stuff and he was going to form a company that was going to produce other people’s movies and what did I want to do? I could write something and direct it.’

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