NEW YORK - Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs whose four-decade career spanned a staggering array of work from romantic comedy and rock music to hard-hitting documentaries, died on Wednesday. He was 73.

Demme passed away in New York surrounded by his family after a battle with cancer, his publicist announced. He will be laid to rest in a private funeral.

He remains best known for the smash-hit 1991 horror-thriller starring Anthony Hopkins as serial killer Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as FBI agent Clarice Starling. The movie was box office gold and a dazzling critical success.

It swept the 1992 Academy Awards, winning five Oscars including best picture, best actor for Hopkins and best actress for Foster.

"I am heartbroken to lose a friend, a mentor, a guy so singular and dynamic you'd have to design a hurricane to contain him," Foster wrote in a statement.

Hopkins said he was shocked. "He was one of the best, and a really nice guy as well who had such a great spirit. Every day being with him was a high-five."

The director's success with Silence of the Lambs gave Demme the commercial springboard to direct Philadelphia in 1993, a groundbreaking Hollywood blockbuster that won Tom Hanks his first Academy Award for playing a gay lawyer fired for contracting HIV and fighting for justice.

Demme's death prompted warm tributes for a deeply respected director, praised for his compassion and creativity, as well as recognized for highlighting causes such as the plight of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and impoverished Haiti.

"Jonathan taught us how big a heart a person can have, and how it will guide how we live and what we do for a living," Hanks said. "He was the grandest of men."

Demme directed a total of 20 feature films and 12 documentaries, not to mention innovative concert movie Stop Making Sense and music videos.

However, his main love was documentaries. Subjects included Nelson Mandela, former US president Jimmy Carter and Bruce Springsteen.