'Top Gun' Director Tony Scott Takes Own Life

Brother to director Ridley Scott and a defining voice in modern action filmmaking, Tony Scott leapt from a Los Angeles bridge to his death yesterday afternoon, reports the L.A. Times. He was 68 years old. The director reportedly had inoperable brain cancer, although that has yet to be confirmed.

His ever-roving camera and generally amped-up aesthetic through the '80s and '90s, from films ranging from "Top Gun" and "Days of Thunder" to "True Romance," "The Last Boy Scout" and "Enemy of the State," drew much of the same love and mockery as Michael Bay's own work. His late career was often defined by his work with actor Denzel Washington; they collaborated five times, including "Crimson Tide," "Man on Fire," "Deja Vu," "The Taking of Pelham 123" and, for what would be Scott's last film, 2010's "Unstoppable."

Along with his brother, he was a frequent co-producer on such films as the Jonah Hill/John C. Reilly comedy "Cyrus," this year's "The Grey" and next year's "Stoker." He also directed countless commercials, including the below entry in BMW's "The Hire" series, as brisk an example of his distinctive stamp on filmmaking as any we could find.

He will be missed.