Arthur Penn dies of congestive heart failure at 88

Director Arthur Penn, who vaulted to prominence with "The Miracle Worker" and made the defining film of the 1960s, "Bonnie and Clyde," died of congestive heart failure Tuesday night at his Manhattan home. He was 88.

Mr. Penn's older brother, photographer Irving Penn, died in October 2009, San Francisco Chronicle reports.

A veteran of directing live television dramas in the 1950s, Penn made his film directorial debut with "The Left Handed Gun,"a 1958 revisionist western starring Paul Newman as Billy the Kid.

Penn, who was often attracted to characters who were outsiders, directed only a dozen other feature films over the next three decades, including "The Miracle Worker," "The Chase," "Mickey One," "Alice's Restaurant," "Little Big Man," "Night Moves," "The Missouri Breaks" and "Four Friends."

But during his heyday in the late 1960s and early `70s, Penn was in the vanguard of American filmmakers and is considered a pivotal figure in American cinema thanks to "Bonnie and Clyde," the standout film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as Depression-era bank robbers-turned folk heroes, Los Angeles Times reports.