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| Prince in Purple Rain |
Prince, whose music made him a superstar and whose contributions to the world of film have been considerable, has died at the age of 57, his publicist has said. He suffered a medical emergency aboard a flight home from an Atlanta gig last week, but was released from hospital hours after an emergency landing in Illinois. The nature of his health problems has not been made public at this time but it is rumoured that he fell prey to a severe strain of flu.
Prince broke into film in 1984 with Purple Rain, a film themed around the album of the same name. Two years later he directed and starred in Under The Cherry Moon and he reprised his Purple Rain character in 1990's Graffiti Bridge. Alongside his fictional work, he featured in the documentary Sign O' The Times.
Though he still loved performing, Prince had stepped back from releasing albums in order to focus on composing, and was recently said to have been writing at least one new song every day, with no noticeable loss of quality. Throughout his life he worked hard to advance the careers of other artists he admired, and he had been planning to do more in that area.
"We lost one of the greatest Artists who ever lived. Prince's music was the soundtrack to my life. RIP, Royal genius. Nothing compared 2 U," said Kevin Smith, while Samuel L Jackson described the death as a "massive loss to us all."
