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Mark Peploe, Oscar-winning scriptwriter of The Last Emperor, dies aged 82

Screenwriter, whose 1987 collaboration with Bernardo Bertolucci won nine Oscars, was also known for The Passenger directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

Despite its chequered release history, the 1975 film The Passenger, directed by Antonioni and starring Jack Nicholson, has since been acclaimed as one the decade’s cinematic masterpieces, and Peploe went on to forge a regular partnership with Bertolucci, winning an Oscar in 1988 for best adapted screenplay for The Last Emperor. After a brief period living in a villa the family owned in Florence, Peploe studied at Oxford university, and was subsequently hired by London-based Canadian producer Allan King, working on documentaries about a wide range of creative figures including writer Norman Mailer, op-art pioneer Victor Vasarely and Never on Sunday star Melina Mercouri. It was an illusion, but I thought so at the time!” Peploe worked on the script for Jacques Demy’s 1972 musical The Pied Piper (starring Donovan and Diana Dors), and then had his story The Passenger – originally titled Fatal Exit – picked up by Antonioni as the third in the Italian director’s trilogy of English-language films, following Blow-Up and Zabriskie Point.

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