Altman

LOS ANGELES Nov 21, 2006 (AP)— Robert Altman, the caustic and irreverent satirist behind "MASH," "Nashville" and "The Player" who made a career out of bucking Hollywood management and story conventions, died at a Los Angeles Hospital, his Sandcastle 5 Productions Company said Tuesday. He was 81.

From Reuters:
by Arthur Spiegelman

Many of the actors who worked for Altman loved him, but Warren Beatty who starred in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," once said that he thought of killing him.

According to film journalist Craig Modderno, co-author of "I'll Be in my Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Actors and Directors," Altman and Beatty feuded over whether Beatty was trying to steal a scene from newcomer William Devane.

Altman told Modderno , "Warren has never said a kind word about 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller' even though he got the best reviews of his career from it. When I die if that egotistical bastard says anything nice about me, then you know he's lying, but I'll haunt him to his grave for the unprofessional way that he treated me and our cast and crew.

"Other than him I've loved every actor I've ever worked with. When it comes to dealing with film executives.....well that's a book in itself!"