Peter Yates, film director

LONDON - British filmmaker Peter Yates, 81, who sent Steve McQueen screeching through the streets of San Francisco in a Ford Mustang in

Bullitt

, has died.

Mr. Yates was nominated for four Academy Awards - two as director and two as producer - for the cycling tale Breaking Away and the backstage drama The Dresser.

A graduate of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Mr. Yates directed stage greats, including Dresser star Albert Finney and Maggie Smith, as well as creating one of the film world's most memorable action sequences - the much-imitated car chase in the 1968 police thriller Bullitt.

A statement from Mr. Yates' agent, Judy Daish, said he died Sunday in London after an illness.

Born in Aldershot, southern England, in 1929, Mr. Yates trained as an actor, performed in repertory theater, and did a stint as a race-car driver before moving into film. He began as an editor and then became an assistant director on films including Tony Richardson's A Taste of Honey and J. Lee Thompson's The Guns of Navarone.

His first film as a director was the frothy 1963 musical Summer Holiday, starring Cliff Richard.

Mr. Yates also directed Robbery, based on the 1963 heist known as the "Great Train Robbery." He went to Hollywood for Bullitt and went on to make well-received films including the thriller Murphy's War, with Peter O'Toole, and the crime drama The Friends of Eddie Coyle, starring Robert Mitchum.

His 1970s movies included the crass comedy Mother, Jugs, and Speed, starring Bill Cosby and Raquel Welch.

In 1979, Mr. Yates hit another creative high with Breaking Away, a coming-of-age story about a cycling-mad teenager in small-town Indiana.

Mr. Yates is survived by his wife, Virginia Pope, a son, and a daughter.