As reported by Deadline, filmmaker Stacy Title – who received an Oscar nomination for directing the 1993 short film By the sea-died. Title was diagnosed with ALS three years ago, shortly after getting involved in a car accident that doctors suggested that somehow triggered the neurodegenerative disease. The title was 56.
Title’s first appearance in the film industry was his Oscar-nominated short film By the seastarring Jason Alexander, Ed Asner and Title’s husband Jonathan Penner – a Survivor competitor and actor who collaborated with Title in several of his films. She also directed the black comedy The last supper in 1995 (a film about liberal undergraduate students planning to murder extreme right-wing extremists with a cast that includes Cameron Diaz, Courtney B. Vance, Bill Paxton and Ron Perlman) and 1999’s Let the devil wear black, a modern retelling of Village. Title and Penner also made an attempt Long Ranger restart for The WB with Chad Michael Murray who was not chosen as a complete series.
Title also directed the 2006 anthology of terror Hood of Terror by Snoop Dogg and 2017 The Bye Bye Man– a film that dramatically surpassed the box office, despite receiving largely negative criticism. That same year, Title directed his first TV episode (at Hulu’s Eccentric), but his accident occurred shortly after that and the disease progressed very quickly. Within a few months, she was unable to speak or swallow, but Deadline says she remained determined to make a final film. This project, entitled Time bomb walking and starring Jason Alexander, Cary Elwes and Bob Odenkirk, it didn’t end up happening, but Deadline notes that Title still spent her last years directing ALS PSAs and working as an advocate for people with disabilities in Hollywood.