Maverick director Robert Altman died at a Los Angeles hospital on Monday night, his production company said Tuesday. He was 81.

Known for his irreverent manner and satirical vision, Altman's best-known films include M*A*S*H, Nashville, McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Player.

Director Robert Altman gives some direction during the shooting of the movie version of A Prairie Home Companion in July 2005 in St. Paul, Minn. Altman died on Tuesday, his production company said.
(Jim Mone/Associated Press)

A representative of Altman's Sandcastle 5 Productions did not disclose the cause of death, although a news release is expected later Tuesday.

A perennial Hollywood outsider, Altman broke every rule of Hollywood, casting unknown actors, taking on scripts nobody wanted and fighting with studios for creative control.

"He was always the loner, I think, on the outside," Canadian director Norman Jewison told CBC Newsworld.

"He maintained his own independence from the Hollywood studio system and of my contemporaries he was kind of the old lion that you never expected would ever pass."

Altman's films were known for their huge ensemble casts, overlapping dialogue and long tracking shots. Though Altman often had limited budgets, he had a reputation as an actor's director and Hollywood stars would work for scale to be in his films.

'Actors adored him'

"I don't think the studios loved him. They don't like anybody that doesn't conform to the corporate dictates of the major studios," said Jewison. "[But] I think all the creative people loved him. The actors adored him."

Altman was a five-time Academy Award nominee for best director, most recently for 2001's Gosford Park, but never won the award, joining an exclusive club with Martin Scorsese, Alfred Hitchcock, Clarence Brown and King Vidor as five-time Oscar losers.

But he did receive a lifetime honour at this year's ceremony. Despite his antagonism with the studios, he appeared grateful for the distinction.

"No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have," Altman said when he accepted his honourary Oscar.

"I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition."

While his distinctive style was appreciated, the director was in and out of fashion among audiences, critics and especially studios. He famously flopped with a film adaptation of Popeye, starring Robin Williams, and also directed forgettable features such as Dr. T and the Women and The Gingerbread Man.

Former bomber pilot

Altman was prolific, making more than 30 films in the course of his career.

Born Feb. 20, 1925, in Kansas City, Mo., Altman was the son of an insurance salesman and a lover of jazz music from an early age, a passion he tried to evoke in 1996's Kansas City.

He was a bomber pilot in the Second World War and studied engineering at the University of Missouri in Columbia before taking a job making industrial films in Kansas City. He worked in documentary, industrial and educational movies before moving into feature films with the low-budget The Delinquents in 1957.

He then worked for a dozen years as a television director, working on such shows as Maverick, Bonanza and The Millionaire before he got his big break directing 1970's M*A*S*H, an anti-Vietnam film thinly disguised as a tale set during the Korean War.

He followed the film with a string of successes in the 1970s but disappeared in the '80s before emerging with 1992's The Player, his own take on the Hollywood studio system starring Tim Robbins.

Altman's last film was this year's A Prairie Home Companion, based on Garrison Keillor's radio show.

When accepting his lifetime Oscar, Altman revealed he had received a heart transplant last year.

"I didn't make a big secret out of it, but I thought nobody would hire me again," he said after the ceremony. "You know, there's such a stigma about heart transplants, and there's a lot of us out there."

Altman is survived by his wife, Kathryn, and four children.

Robert Altman's filmography:

• Christmas Eve, 1947
• Bodyguard, 1948
• The Delinquents, 1957
• The James Dean Story, 1957
• Nightmare in Chicago, 1964
• Countdown, 1968
• That Cold Day in the Park, 1969
• M*A*S*H, 1970
• Brewster McCloud, 1970
• Events, 1970
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller, 1971
• Images, 1972
• The Long Goodbye, 1973
• Thieves Like Us, 1974
• California Split, 1974
• Nashville, 1975
• Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, 1976
• Three Women, 1977
• A Wedding, 1978
• Quintet, 1979
• A Perfect Couple, 1979
• Health, 1980
• Popeye, 1980
• Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, 1982
• Streamers, 1983
• Secret Honour, 1984
• Fool for Love, 1985
• Beyond Therapy, 1987
• Vincent & Theo, 1990
• The Player, 1992
• Short Cuts, 1993
• Prêt-a-Portèr, 1994
• Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, 1994
• Kansas City, 1996
• The Gingerbread Man, 1998
• Cookie's Fortune, 1999
• Dr. T and the Women, 2000
• Gosford Park, 2001
• The Company, 2003
• A Prairie Home Companion, 2006

With files from the Associated Press