Arthur Penn, director of "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Miracle Worker" died Tuesday night, a day after his 88th birthday, Vanity Fair reported. Penn died of congestive heart failure at his Manhattan home, according to his daughter Molly Penn.Evan Bell, Penn's longtime friend and business manager, said Wednesday that Penn had been suffering from an illness for about a year. A memorial service, it is expected, will be held before the end of the year to commemorate the director who paved the way for films such as The Godfather and Taxi Driver, according to The New York Times.Penn made his name on Broadway as director of the Tony Award-winning plays "The Miracle Worker" and "All the Way Home," Penn then rose as a film director in the 1960s.Penn's other films included his adaptation of "The Miracle Worker," featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Anne Bancroft; "The Missouri Breaks," an outlaw tale starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson; "Night Moves," a Los Angeles thriller featuring Gene Hackman; and "Alice's Restaurant," based on the wry Arlo Guthrie song about being turned down for the draft because he had once been fined for littering.Penn earned Academy Award nominations Bonnie and Clyde and Little Big Man, and for his first movie, "The Miracle Worker," based on the Broadway show about Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, played by Bancroft. "All the Way Home," won both the Tony and Pulitzer Prize in 1961 as best play; "Two for the Seesaw"; the musical version of "Golden Boy"; and "Wait Until Dark."
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