One of the biggest names in New Zealand film-making has died, aged 75.<\/p>\n
Lee Tamahori from Ng\u0101ti Porou made his directorial film debut with the ground-breaking\u00a0Once Were Warriors.<\/p>\n
Born in Tawa, in Wellington, he started Flying Fish, one of the country’s most successful advertising production companies.<\/p>\n
He went on to forge a remarkable international career, directing Hollywood and independent films such as\u00a0Mulholland Falls, The Devil’s Double, and the James Bond film\u00a0Die Another Day.<\/p>\n
In a statement his family said Tamahori died peacefully at home surrounded by his longtime love Justine, his beloved children Sam, Max, Meka, and Tan\u00e9, his daughter-in-laws Casey (who is expecting) and Meri, his darling mokopuna Cora Lee, and wh\u0101nau.<\/p>\n
“His legacy endures with his wh\u0101nau, his mokopuna, every filmmaker he inspired, every boundary he broke, and every story he told with his genius eye and honest heart. A charismatic leader and fierce creative spirit, Lee championed M\u0101ori talent both on and off screen.”<\/p>\n
Friends and colleagues are invited to pay their respects on Sunday at Te Mahurehure Marae, in Point Chevalier in Auckland.<\/p>\n
Other of his films included The Edge, Along Came a Spider, and\u00a0xXx: State of the Union.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the biggest names in New Zealand film-making has died, aged 75. Lee Tamahori from Ng\u0101ti Porou…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-123249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}