Frank Pierson, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Dog Day Afternoon and Cool Hand Luke, has died at the age of 87.
His family said he died of natural causes in Los Angeles following a short illness.
He won an Academy Award for writing 1975's Dog Day Afternoon, which starred Al Pacino and John Cazale as robbers who get holed up in a bank with a number of hostages when their heist goes wrong.
The title refers to the "dog days of summer", and the film was based on the real life escapades of bank robbers John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile.
Pierson was nominated for his screenplays for Cool Hand Luke and Cat Ballou, and he wrote and directed the 1976 rock musical A Star Is Born.
The movie tells the story of a young woman who enters showbusiness (Barbra Streisand), and meets and falls in love with an established male star (Kris Kristofferson), only to find her career ascending while his goes into decline.
The in-fighting between himself, Streisand, Kristofferson and producer Jon Peters, who was Streisand's boyfriend at the time, led him to write the article My Battles With Barbra And Jon.
He also used the article to explain how Kristofferson's character is doomed because he measures himself solely by his work.
He wrote: "His career is ... what gives him his sense of who he is. Without it, he is lost and confused; his demons eat him alive. That's why he is a little less than a man.
"And it is not that her success galls him, or that she wins over him; the tragedy is that all her love is not enough to keep alive a man who has lost what he measures his manhood with."
Pierson most recently worked as a writer and consulting producer on TV shows Mad Men and The Good Wife.
He directed several notable films produced for television, including Dirty Pictures, Citizen Cohn, Conspiracy and Somebody Has To Shoot The Picture.
He also directed the movie Soldier's Girl, based on the true story of US paratrooper Barry Winchell and Calpernia Addams.
Winchell was murdered by a fellow soldier after it emerged he was dating Addams - a male-to-female transgender showgirl.
A pre-operative transsexual character featured in Dog Day Afternoon.
Pierson served as president of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences from 2001 to 2005 and served as governor of its writers branch for 17 years.
He is survived by his wife, two children and five grandchildren.
