In Remembrance: George P. Cosmatos

     George P. Cosmatos, the director of such 1980’s action films as Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985) and Cobra (1986), has passed away on April 19, 2005, in Victoria, Canada. He was 64.

     Born Yorgo Pan Cosmatos on January 4, 1941 in Florence, Italy, Cosmatos grew up in Egypt and Cyprus watching 1940’s-era Hollywood films. He studied international affairs at University College in London and graduated from the London Film School.

     It was a meeting with director Otto Preminger during a summer vacation on the island of Crete that started Cosmatos’s filmmaking career, when the director hired Cosmatos as an assistant director on his biblical epic Exodus (1960). He also served as an assistant director for the films Zorba The Greek (1964) starring Anthony Quinn, All The Way To Paris (1965) and The Day The Fish Came Out (1967).

     Cosmatos co-wrote and co-produced his directorial debut, The Beloved (1971), a drama starring Raquel Welch. His second film was Massacre in Rome (1973), starring Richard Burton as a German officer in Nazi occupied Rome. Cosmatos would film two more action films in Europe- The Cassandra Crossing (1977) and Escape To Athena (1979)- before coming to North America to make the horror film Of Unknown Origin (1983).

     Although criticized by some for its excessive violence, Cosmatos’s next film, Rambo: First Blood, Part II, starring Sylvester Stallone as a disenfranchised Vietnam vet who returns to Vietnam to rescue missing-in-action soldiers, would become his biggest hit. Rambo is also credited with kicking off the military action film cycle of the mid-1980s. He would reteam with Stallone for 1985’s Cobra.

     Cosmatos was known for his ability to take troubled film projects and turn them into successful films. In addition to his work on Rambo, Cosmatos also took charge of the 1993 western Tombstone, replacing the original director at the film’s Arizona shooting location. The film frequently makes critics’ lists of the best westerns ever made.

     His final film was the 1997 Charlie Sheen thriller Shadow Conspiracy.