Pioneering British filmmaker Michael Apted died at his Los Angeles home on Thursday, January 7, his agent confirmed to New York. Times. Apted was 79 years old, and the cause of death was not specified. Apted was best known for his Above series of documentaries, which followed the lives of 14 British children from across the socioeconomic spectrum from the age of 7 in 1964, reaching them at intervals of seven years. As the series progressed, it became a moving, insightful and at times moving depiction of lost youth, struggles in individual life and a shift in Britain over six decades. In 2019, ITV exhibited Apted’s final project, and last work on Above Series, 63 Up. In 2013, Apted said WNYC, “I hope to do 84 Up when I’m 99. ”
In addition to his work on television documentary, Apted has directed several feature films, including Gorillas in the mist, Nell, and the James Bond film The world is not enough. One of his most famous films, the biography of Loretta Lynn Coal Miner’s Daughter, was enrolled in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019.