ROMANIA: The British actor David Hemmings, renowned for his film roles in the 1960s cult classics Blow-Up and Barbarella, has died of a heart attack while filming in Romania.
Hemmings (62) was on the set of the movie Samantha's Child. "He had just finished his final shots of the day and was going back to his dressing room, as far as we know," said his agent, Ms Liz Nelson. "He had only recently returned to acting," she added. "He opted for a number of years to work on his own projects, directing and producing."
His wife Lucy was with him on location. Paramedics tried to treat him at the scene but were unable to revive him.
Hemmings won international fame in 1966 as the photographer of sexy models in Blow-Up, Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's classic portrait of Swinging London. Two years later he played a fashionably offbeat leading man opposite Jane Fonda in Roger Vadim's Barbarella. He also starred in The Charge of the Light Brigade, the tale of one of the biggest disasters in British military history.
He had matinee idol good looks in his youth but was corpulent in later years. After his 60s heyday, he took up directing but recently returned to acting, most notably playing Cassius in Ridley Scott's Oscar-laden epic Gladiator. His latest role was opposite Sean Connery in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Hemmings was a professional singer by the age of nine and an exhibited painter at 15. Composer Benjamin Britten wrote several songs for him. He first entered the movie business in 1950.In the 1980s, he launched another career as a TV director for series like Magnum P.I. and The New Mike Hammer.