Andre Delvaux, 76; Belgian Film Director, Scriptwriter and Actor

Andre Delvaux, 76, the Belgian director, scriptwriter and actor considered the godfather of his country’s film industry and revered for bringing Belgian art films to international attention, died Friday.

Delvaux died of a heart attack in Valencia, Spain, after giving a speech at the World Arts Meeting.

Born in Heverlee, near Louvain, Belgium, Delvaux studied German philosophy at the Free University of Brussels and piano at Belgium’s Royal Conservatory. He fell in love with the cinema while working as a pianist accompanying silent films.

In 1960, Delvaux made a four-part series about Italian director Federico Fellini for Belgian television. He followed that with several more television series about film directors.

By the mid-1960s, Delvaux himself was working on feature films. His work shifted between dream and reality, and his style was quickly labeled magic realism.

Never a filmmaker for the masses but for the connoisseur of the cinema, Delvaux won numerous international prizes, including a British Academy Award for his first full-length film, “The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short,” in 1965. Other films included “One Night ... A Train” (1968), starring Yves Montand and Anouk Aimee, and “To Woody Allen, From Europe With Love” (1980).