Director Robert Altman dead at age 81

LOS ANGELES, Nov 22 (Reuters) Director Robert Altman, who revolutionized Hollywood filmmaking with an irreverent style that critics hailed as ''American Art Cinema'' has died at age 81, his production company said.

The director of dozens of films and TV dramas, Altman changed the vocabulary of American filmmaking with ''MASH,'' a caustic black comedy about a medical unit in the Korean war that came out in 1970 and immediately drew on the anger that many Americans felt toward officials who had bogged them down in the Vietnam War.

Many of Altman's other films were hailed by critics, including 1975's ''Nashville,'' which along with ''MASH'' and the 1971 western ''McCabe and Mrs. Miller'' are considered the best films of the 1970s. He also made more than his share of clinkers, including the financial disaster ''Popeye.'' Many of his films engaged directly in social comment and the Kansas City, Missouri, born Altman was always considered a maverick and outsider in Hollywood where profits takes precedence over politics.

He was nominated as best director five times: for ''MASH,'' ''Nashville,'' ''The Player'' (1992), ''Short Cuts'' (1993) and ''Gosford Park'' (2001), but never won.

He also shared Oscar nominations for best picture for ''Nashville'' and ''Gosford Park.'' Perhaps to make up for the neglect, Altman earlier this year received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Altman revealed at the Awards in March 2006 that he had a heart transplant a decade earlier but kept it a secret in order to keep working.

Altman was 30 when he made his first feature film.

On the strength of that he moved to Hollywood where his big break came with ''MASH.'' Altman was far from the first choice to direct ''MASH'' and he got the job only after more than a dozen others had turned it down.

But its irreverent ad lib dialogue caught viewers by surprise and ushered in a new era of film making.

REUTERS DKS PM0430