Baldwin-born director Jonathan Demme is dead at 73

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Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director and a native of Baldwin, died on Wednesday morning of complications of esophageal cancer and heart disease. He was 73.

Demme was born in 1944, and lived in Baldwin, Rockville Centre and Lynbrook before his family moved to Florida in 1959. He graduated from Southwest Miami High School and the University of Florida.

Demme directed, wrote or produced dozens of films, documentaries and television shows over the course of his career. He was best known for directing the films “Silence of the Lambs,” for which he won an Academy Award, and “Philadelphia,” the first big-budget Hollywood film about AIDS.

He is survived by his wife, Joanne Howard, and their three children.