Born in 1925 in Kansas City, Altman was a pilot in World War Two before cutting his teeth on television shows like "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Bonanza". After a couple of undistinguished projects, he scored a huge box office hit with "M*A*S*H", a script that 15 other directors had turned down.

Altman followed that with "The Long Goodbye" and "McCabe and Mrs Miller", revisionist takes on the film noir and western genres, and the multi-layered ensemble piece "Nashville". But his increasingly eccentric choices ("Quintet", "A Wedding") and the box office dud of "Popeye" (1980) consigned the erstwhile critics' darling to over a decade in the wilderness.

Filling the 80s with competent but unremarkable stage-to-screen adaptations ("Fool for Love", "Streamers"), Altman shot back into the limelight in 1992 with "The Player". That was followed by "Short Cuts", an even more audacious work that proved age had not withered his enthusiasm for his craft.

Subsequent offerings ("Kansas City", "Cookie's Fortune") have showed Altman to be as infuriatingly erratic as ever, while "Prêt-à-Porter" was a turkey in any language. But even when directing a routine John Grisham thriller like "The Gingerbread Man", he can always be relied upon to pull something special out of the hat.

Next up is "Dr T. & the Women", with Richard Gere as a womanising gynaecologist.