In addition to Glengarry Glen Ross and the Fifty Shades sequels, Foley is remembered for his work with the film At Close Range and for directing episodes of Twin Peaks, Hannibal, House Of Cards, and Billions. In the 1980s, Foley also collaborated somewhat frequently with Madonna, directing her in the film Who’s That Girl and directing her music videos for “Live To Tell,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” and “True Blue.”
Foley was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1953 and grew up in Staten Island. After attending SUNY Buffalo, Foley earned a masters degree in film at USC. His feature debut was the Darryl Hannah-starring Reckless, which was also the first feature screenplay from writer Chris Columbus. In the 1980s, he became close with actor Sean Penn, at one point sharing a house with him, per the AFI Catalog, and serving as best man in his 1985 wedding to Madonna. Penn brought Foley the script for At Close Range, which was ultimately nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlinale.
In the early 1990s, Foley replaced Sidney Lumet to direct Glengarry Glen Ross, which earned Foley a nomination for the Golden Bear at the Venice International Film Festival, and earned Al Pacino an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Based on a play by David Mamet, the film features several additions from the stage play, including the famous “Always Be Closing” scene from Alec Baldwin. Foley is “an underrated visual stylist, and he works wonders in this small set,” Mike D’Angelo wrote for The A.V. Club in 2012.
In the later decades of his career, Foley largely turned his attention toward television, directing a season 2 episode of Twin Peaks (an experience it doesn’t sound like he particularly enjoyed). In the 2010s, Foley directed Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter at the time, Foley reflected on his career overall, telling the trade, “I’ve had a very fluid career of ups and downs and lefts and rights, and I always just responded to what I was interested in at the moment and I was very unconscious about genre.”
