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Norman Jewison performing in February 2013:

Photo: Fred Prouser / REUTERS

Director Norman Jewison, known for award-winning films such as "In the Heat of the Night" (1967) and "Moonstruck" (1987), is dead. His spokesman announced on Monday that he died "peacefully" in his home on Saturday.

The Canadian-born man was 97 years old.

In his long career, Jewison was nominated for an Oscar seven times as a director and producer.

In 1999, he received the Irving G. Thalberg Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Academy Awards.

One of his greatest Hollywood successes is the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” which won three Oscars and earned Cher the Oscar for best actress in 1988.

Jewison received the Berlinale Directing Prize for the romantic story about the Italian immigrant environment.

“Farewell, sweet prince,” writes Cher

“Farewell, sweet prince,” Cher wrote on Monday on the X platform, formerly Twitter.

She thanked Jewison for “one of the greatest, happiest, funniest experiences of my life.”

Jewison made “Moonstruck” a “great film.”

Without him she wouldn't have won an Oscar.

After two comedies with Doris Day in the early 1960s, Jewison ventured into more serious material.

After the satire “The Russians are coming!

The Russians are coming!” In 1967, he brought Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger in front of the camera for the crime thriller “In the Heat of the Night” (1967).

In the thriller, which deals with the problem of racism in the USA, Poitier played a criminal expert from the north who has to assert himself against a southern sheriff (Steiger).

The film won five Oscars, including Best Film.

After hit musicals such as "Anatevka" and "Jesus Christ Superstar", Jewison then directed social dramas such as "... and Justice for All" and "Sergeant Waters - A Soldier's Story".

“The Statement” with Michael Caine was his last film

With leading actor Denzel Washington, Jewison presented the drama "The Hurricane" about the life of professional boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter at the Berlinale in 2000.

The film depicts the true case of the black boxer who was wrongly convicted of murder in 1966.

Jewison released his last film, “The Statement,” in 2003.

In it, Michael Caine played a French Nazi collaborator and war criminal who, after decades, is caught up in the past.

hen/dpa