OBIT - PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN

Film fans around the world were saddened today to hear the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman, the acclaimed American independent film actor turned A-lister. His career was defined by breakthroughs, beginning with a memorable role in 1992's Scent of a Woman. He then came to the attention of cinephiles with 1998's Boogie Nights, the second in a collaboration with writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson that reaped him an Oscar nomination for 2012's The Master. That was his fourth Oscar nomination, and his first, for Capote in 2005, won him the Academy Award, perhaps the biggest breakthrough in his cinematic life. He died at age 46 of a suspected drug overdose, and is survived by his three children, Cooper, Tallulah and Willa.