Richard Glatzer just had his greatest critical and commercial success, with Julianne Moore picking up a Best Actress Oscar for Still Alice, where she plays a woman dealing with early onset Alzheimer’s. The movie was co-written and directed by Glatzer and his husband, Wash Westmoreland. Now though, just a few weeks later, Richard has died from complication due to ALS.
While Westmoreland perhaps got more credit over the years, Glatzer co-directed all of their movies, which include the cult classic LGBT flickThe Fluffer, Quinceañera and The Last of Robin Hood.
In a statement released shortly after the news of Glatzer’s death was revealed, Westmoreland says, “I am devastated. Rich was my soul mate, my collaborator, my best friend and my life… Richard was a unique guy— opinionated, funny, caring, gregarious, generous, and so, so smart. A true artist and a brilliant man. I treasure every day of the short twenty years we had together. I cannot believe he has gone. But in my heart and the hearts of those who loved him he will always be alive.”
Glatzer started out in academia, before turning his attention to films and TV. He met Westmoreland in 1995 and they collaborated on numerous projects from that point on.
The director was diagnosed with ALS some time ago, and said during an interview with AP about Still Alice, “It’s ironic that in my deteriorated state I’d be able to make a film that was creatively everything I’d ever wished for.”
Both he and Westmoreland suggested that many of the scenes and feelings they tried to engender in the movie mirrored what they had gone through when Glatzer was dealing with the early stages of his disease.
His condition made directing Still Alice more complicated, but they decided early on that despite his difficulties, his thoughts and opinions deserved to be heard, even if it slowed things down somewhat.
While he was able to watch Moore win the Oscar, Glatzer did so from hospital, where he’d been taken two days before due to having difficulties breathing. Westmoreland watched by his side.