Jonathan Demme, 'Silence of the Lambs' director, dies at 73

Jonathan Demme, the versatile Oscar-winning filmmaker who worked with everyone from David Byrne and Justin Timberlake to Hannibal Lecter, has died at age 73.

He died Tuesday from complications from esophageal cancer, Demme's publicist, Leslee Dart, confirms to USA TODAY.

"Sadly, I can confirm that Jonathan passed away early this morning in his Manhattan apartment, surrounded by his wife, Joanne Howard, and three children" — Ramona, 29, Brooklyn, 26, and Jos, 2 — Dart said in a statement.

His death was first reported by IndieWire.

The director won an Oscar for best director and scared audiences with best picture winner The Silence of the Lambs, which unleashed Anthony Hopkins' cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal on pop culture in 1991.

Hollywood mourns director Jonathan Demme

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The Long Island, N.Y., native burst into Hollywood with 1970s B-movies including Caged Heat, Crazy Mama and Fighting Mad, but found commercial success in the next decade with Swing Shift (1984) and Something Wild (1986).

During that time, he also filmed 1984's essential Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense, which began a long association with musicians that also led to a trio of films with Neil Young (including 2006's Heart of Gold) and last year's Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids.

"I've come to believe, and I kind of felt this when we did Stop Making Sense, that shooting live music is kind of like the purest form of filmmaking," Demme told The Associated Press. "There's no script to worry about. It's not a documentary, so you don't have to wonder where this story is going and what we can use. It's just: Here come the musicians. Here come the dancers. The curtain goes up. They have at it and we get to respond in the best way possible to what they're doing up there."

Demme had his biggest hits in the early 1990s with the one-two punch of Lambs and 1993's Philadelphia, the first big-budget AIDS-related drama, which won Tom Hanks a best actor Oscar. The director also had an art-house darling with 2008's Rachel Getting Married, which garnered an Academy Award nomination for star Anne Hathaway.

“Jonathan taught us how big a heart a person can have, and how it will guide how we live and what we do for a living. He was the grandest of men,” Hanks said in a statement.

Demme got his start in showbiz with a job writing press releases and screenplays for B-movie producer Roger Corman. "I was about 25 years old at the time and I said, I would love to try that. I had had no aspirations to be a filmmaker or a writer," Demme told NPR in 2007. "Until then, I was thrilled to be working in the movie business as a publicist. I would have been perfectly happy to do that forever."

But Corman loved his screenplays and encouraged Demme to get behind the camera, where he began with satires like 1977's Handle With Care and 1980's Melvin and Howard.

Throughout his career, Demme worked with a legion of Hollywood greats. In 1998, he directed Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover in Beloved, and Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep in the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate. (He would reunite with Streep on 2015's Ricki and the Flash.)

"A big hearted, big tent, compassionate man — in full embrace in his life of people in need and of the potential of art, music, poetry and film to fill that need. (It's) a big loss to the caring world," said Streep in a statement.

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese recalled how Demme would be "filled with enthusiasm and excitement" about new projects.

"He took so much joy in moviemaking. His pictures have an inner lyricism that just lifts them off the ground," Scorsese said in a statement. "I love the freshness of his style and his excellent use of music, from Buddy Holly to Miklós Rózsa. ... To me, he was always young. My young friend. The idea that he’s gone seems impossible to me."

Demme most recently directed an episode of the Fox police drama Shots Fired, scheduled to air Wednesday. Demme also completed a short film surveying three decades of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, to debut July 1.

There will be a private family funeral.

Contributing: The Associated Press