Hollywood giant Robert De Niro pays tribute to Oscar-winning director Michael Cimino

HOLLYWOOD legend Robert De Niro today paid tribute to Michael Cimino the director of the multi-Oscar-winning film The Deer Hunter who has died aged 77.

The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Cimino and helped raise emerging-legend status of De Niro and Meryl Streep.

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Christopher Walken also won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor while De Niro and Streep received nominations for their roles in the gritty post-Vietnam War epic.

"Our work together is something I will always remember. He will be missed," De Niro said in a statement Saturday.

The Deer Hunter tells the tale of how the war affects the lives of a group of friends from small-town Pennsylvania.

A scene where the pair are forced to play Russian roulette is one of the most iconic in cinema history.

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Cimino's body was found at his Los Angeles home on Saturday, his friend and former lawyer Eric Weissmann said.

Mr Weissmann said Cimino's body was found after friends had been unable to contact him.

No cause of death has yet been determined.

Cimino, 77, who directed a total of eight films, will be remembered for a his amazing career highs and much-publicised lows.

While The Deer Hunter has been hailed as one of the best movies in Hollywood history, his next project, Heaven's Gate, was derided as a flop.

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Based on the success of The Deer Hunter, Cimino wrote and directed Heaven's Gate - a three and a half hour Western set in 1890s Wyoming

It was a financial disaster that went four times over budget and a year behind schedule and nearly bankrupted United Artists.

Its initial budget of $11.5 million would balloon to $44 million after marketing.

While those numbers are nothing by today's standards they were enough to ruin Cimino's career.

Variety magazine said the film was "synonymous with showbiz disaster", but the director stood by the film.

I don't believe in defeat. Everybody has bumps, but as Count Basie said, 'It's not how you handle the hills, it's how you handle the valleys'

Michael Cimino, in 1980

He said in 2010: "I never second-guess myself. You can't look back. I don't believe in defeat. Everybody has bumps, but as Count Basie said, 'It's not how you handle the hills, it's how you handle the valleys.'"

Cimino in his earlier career was an advertising executive who moved into film with the Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges crime caper, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, in 1974.

He also directed Desperate Hours (1990), starring Mickey Rourke and Anthony Hopkins, and the gangster film The Sicilian (1986), adapted from a novel by Godfather author Mario Puzo.

Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, Cimino graduated from Yale in 1961, and he earned a master's degree from the University of New Haven in 1963, both in painting.

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