Director John Guillermin, known for The Towering Inferno and the 1976 King Kong, died at his home in the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles. He was 89.

His friend Nick Redman of Twilight Time Movies, which released several of his films on DVD, confirmed his death. On Facebook, his wife Mary called her husband “sensitive and passionate, full of a fierce rapture himself”.

The British director had been active for decades beginning in the late 1940s. His directing credits include 1976’s King Kong starring Jessica Lange, Death on the Nile, The Blue Max and Shaft in Africa.

The Towering Inferno, released in 1974, won Oscars for original song, film editing and cinematography, in addition to Golden Globes for Fred Astaire and Susan Flannery.

Guillermin also was a writer and producer on Melody in the Dark, High Jinks in Society and Paper Gallows. Guillermin’s other writing credits include Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure and Tarzan Goes to India.

Born in London, he attended Cambridge University. He won the Evening Standard British Film Award in 1980 for Death on the Nile.

He is survived by his wife and a daughter.