Director Peter Medak, whose sprawling career spanned gritty British crime features, Hollywood satires, and television classics including Breaking Bad and The Wire, has died. His family confirmed he died peacefully, though no cause of death has been publicly disclosed.
From Budapest Upheaval to British Cinema
- Peter Medak fled Hungary during the 1956 uprising against Communist rule, having spent part of World War II in hiding in Budapest with his family while his father was imprisoned.
- After arriving in England, he started as a trainee in the film industry, eventually making his feature directorial debut in 1968 with Negatives, starring Glenda Jackson.
- His work crossed multiple genres, earning acclaim for the 1972 satire The Ruling Class starring Peter O’Toole and the 1980 supernatural thriller The Changeling starring George C. Scott.
Medak’s television footprint included directing the 2009 Breaking Bad season two episode “Peekaboo,” which followed Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul, confronting drug thieves, alongside Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, navigating complex personal fallout. His television resume also featured episodes of HBO’s The Wire, including “The Buys,” alongside credits on The Sopranos, Homicide: Life on the Street, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, House, Carnivàle, and two episodes of Hannibal.
🇭🇺🇺🇸 Peter Medak, who directed episodes of Breaking Bad, The Wire, House, and The Sopranos, has died at 88.Born in Hungary, he fled after the failed 1956 uprising against communist rule and built a career in Britain and Hollywood, directing 27 films, including the horror… pic.twitter.com/5ohm8kKcSZ
| Project | Role / Notable Episode | Year / Era |
|---|---|---|
| The Ruling Class | Feature Film (Director, starring Peter O’Toole) | 1972 |
| The Changeling | Feature Film (Director, starring George C. Scott) | 1980 |
| The Krays | Feature Film (Director, Evening Standard Award winner) | 1990 |
Actor Malcolm McDowell, 83, who worked with Medak on the 1970 film Figures in a Landscape, paid tribute on Instagram. “One of my oldest and dearest friends, Peter Medak, has left us,” McDowell wrote. “He cast me in FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE at the beginning of my career. He was a lovely director. The Krays, The Ruling Class, The Changeling, Romeo is Bleeding. We remained lifelong friends. I loved him very much. RIP.”
Later in life, Medak confronted his own cinematic history in the 2018 documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers, which detailed the troubled production of his 1970s comedy Ghost in the Noonday Sun. Reflecting on that production in a 2007 interview with the Directors Guild of America, Medak admitted, “Oh, it was probably the biggest nightmare of my life.” He is survived by his four children, Christopher, Joshua, Karen, and Cornelia, and five grandchildren, named Sacha, Marlowe, Ryden, Oliver and Anders.
