BREAKING: Hollywood Legend Found Dead Please Send Prayers This week, Hollywood is honoring Academy Award-nominated director Hector Babenco, who died of a heart attack on Wednesday at the age of 70 years old. Babenco was nominated for Best Director in 1985 for his low-budget film Kiss of a Spiderwoman, starring William Hurt and Raul Julia. The story was about the two men sharing a jail cell in Argentina. These two people, in their confined environment, simply have to talk all the time, Mr. Babenco told the New York Times in 1984. My task was to make it fresh and open, dynamic. Babenco is also known for directing Ironweed, starring Meryl Streep, in 1987. He then returned his focus to lower budget, non-Hollywood films. 