LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Richard Fleischer, director of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and other science fiction classics, has died at the age of 89, local media reported Sunday.
Fleischer died Saturday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, outside Los Angeles, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Fleischer directed "Fantastic Voyage" (1966); "Doctor Dolittle" (1967); "The Boston Strangler" (1968); "Che!" (1969); "The New Centurions" (1972); "Soylent Green" (1973); "Mr. Majestyk" (1974); "Conan the Destroyer" (1984) and "Red Sonja" (1985).
He was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 8, 1916. He was the son of Max Fleischer, a pioneer of short animated works that rivaled the Walt Disney studios in the early 20th century.
Many actors worked under Richard Fleischer, including Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Charles Bronson.
One of his best-known films was for Walt Disney, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954), an adaptation of French author Jules Verne's classic novel.
Fleischer was also a co-director in "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (1970), a dramatization of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941 that brought the United States into World War II.
In 1945, he signed a contract with RKO in Hollywood. There, he directed several documentaries, including "Design for Death" which won an Oscar in 1947 for best documentary.
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