British filmmaker John Irvin, best known for adapting John Le Carre’s espionage classic “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” for television, has died aged 86, his producer Claire Evans told U.K. media Wednesday. Irvin, who also directed a string of 1980s action movies including “The Dogs of War”, “Raw Deal” and “Hamburger Hill”, enjoyed a five-decade career that spanned TV, documentaries and cinema. He died “peacefully at home” on August 11, surrounded by his family, Evans confirmed to The Guardian. The pair worked together on the 2016 film “Mandela’s Gun”, which explored the South African ex-president’s experience as a guerrilla fighter for the African National Congress. Irvin, born in northern England in 1940, won two BAFTAs and an Emmy nomination for his 1979 BBC adaptation of Le Carre’s spy novel, which cast Alec Guinness as the shy, monkish hero George Smiley. Its success opened the doors to Hollywood, with Irvin making a number of action-packed movies and other films featuring a host of star names in the decade that followed. They included Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger in “The Dogs of War”, Fred Astaire in horror film “Ghost Story”, Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Raw Deal” and Patrick Swayze and Liam Neeson in crime thriller “Next of Kin”. He is survived by three children and two grandchildren, according to reports.
