Film director Norman Jewison, whose eclectic array of masterpieces included the 1967 racial drama In the Heat of the Night, the 1987 tart romantic comedy Moonstruck and the 1971 musical Fiddler on the Roof, has died at the age of 97.

Jewison died at his home on Saturday, publicist Jeff Sanderson said on Monday.

The Toronto native, whose films also included the 1966 Cold War satire The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming and the provocative 1973 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, was considered one of the most important directors for the last four decades of the 20th century.

He was widely admired for his ability to craft powerful films in many different genres.

His movies won multiple Academy Awards and Jewison received a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1999. In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, won the best picture Oscar for 1967.

Jewison’s 1987 Moonstruck became one of Hollywood’s most popular romantic comedies. It tells the story of a Brooklyn widow, played by Cher, who agrees to marry a man she does not love and then falls in love with his brother, played by Nicolas Cage.

After Cage passionately tells Cher he loves her, she memorably slaps his face and scolds: “Snap out of it!” Cher won the best actress Oscar for her sassy performance.

Jewison’s travels as a young man in 1940s America – seeing blatant white racism against black people in the south – influenced his films, especially his three race dramas: In the Heat of the Night, A Soldier’s Story (1984) and The Hurricane (1999).

In the Heat of the Night focused on the relationship between black police officer (Poitier) and a white sheriff (Steiger) in a racist southern town. The sight of Poitier’s character striking a rich white landowner shocked some moviegoers at that time.

Other important Jewison films included Steve McQueen entries The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), dystopian corporate tyranny nightmare Rollerball (1975) and pregnant nun saga Agnes of God (1985).

Jewison remembered being taunted as a boy in Toronto by people who thought he was Jewish because of his name. He came from a Christian family but the misperception persisted.

Jewison was an unabashed liberal who took part in 1960s civil rights marches and knew former US attorney-general Robert Kennedy and civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr.

He drew the ire of some US conservatives. Tough-guy actor John Wayne was infuriated by Jewison’s 1966 The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, a satire that depicts comic chaos in a New England town after a Soviet submarine runs aground.

“The drunker he got, the more he wanted to punch me out,” Jewison said in 2009 of Wayne, who referred to him as the “Canadian pinko”, an anti-communist insult.

Jewison received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement, the Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award, in March 1999.

Norman Frederick Jewison was born in Toronto on July 21, 1926. He served in Canada’s navy during World War II, became a TV director in Canada, then moved to New York in 1958 and made TV shows with stars including Judy Garland, winning three Emmy Awards.

Actor Tony Curtis coaxed Jewison into directing films, starting with the 1962 Curtis comedy 40 Pounds of Trouble.

Three more comedies followed before he got his shot at a meatier film by replacing director Sam Peckinpah on The Cincinnati Kid.

He made his last movie, The Statement, in 2003.

– AAP