John Avildsen, the Oscar-winning director who made Hollywood's quintessential underdog story in 1976 boxing saga Rocky with a then-unknown Sylvester Stallone, and crafted another inspiring tale in The Karate Kid, died on Friday at age 81, his family said.
Avildsen had been suffering pancreatic cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his son, Anthony, said by phone.
Avildsen won the Academy Award for best director for Rocky while the film was named best picture and other successes included the The Karate Kid series in the 1980s. He directed seven actors to Oscar nominations.
In the years before Rocky, Avildsen won praise for two dark character studies: Joe (1970) with Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon and Save the Tiger (1973) starring Jack Lemmon, who won the Academy Award for best actor for the role.
He also had his share of career setbacks, directing some clunkers and being fired as director of 1970s classics Saturday Night Fever and Serpico because of disputes with producers.
Rocky proved to be as much of an underdog success story as the fictional Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa portrayed by Stallone, who wrote the screenplay. Stallone was an obscure actor at the time but stubbornly refused to allow studios to cast anyone but himself in the role. Producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler consented to let him take the role under Avildsen's guidance.
Rocky was made for a modest $1 million and generated $225 million in ticket sales to became a cultural phenomenon, with a series of unforgettable characters and scenes and a blend of romance with pugilistic action.
Avildsen took the Rocky job only because funding fell through for another movie he was set to direct.
"My friend sent me this ("Rocky") script and got me to read it," Avildsen told the Birmingham, Alabama, News in 2000. "And on the third page, this guy is talking to his turtles, and I was hooked. It was a great character study."
"Rocky" was nominated for 10 Oscars and won three, with Stallone taking the best actor award.
Avildsen's professional stumbles included tangling with stars John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd on the comedy Neighbors (1981), then made the crass male-stripper movie A Night in Heaven (1983).
