Film Star, Director and Producer Mel Ferrer, 90

Mel Ferrer, 90, who starred in 1950s Hollywood films including "Lili," "War and Peace" and "The Sun Also Rises," and directed and produced movies starring his then-wife, Audrey Hepburn, died of respiratory ailments June 2 at a convalescent facility in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Mr. Ferrer appeared in more than 100 films and made-for-television movies. Tall, dark and sinewy, he was cast in several prominent roles, but film scholar David Thomson said Mr. Ferrer's doe-eyed screen presence "promised more soulful intelligence than he has ever delivered."

A self-described introvert, Mr. Ferrer said he was more comfortable behind the camera. He produced seven movies, among them "Wait Until Dark" (1967), based on Frederick Knott's play about a blind New Yorker (Hepburn) terrorized by thugs.

Onscreen, Mr. Ferrer's characteristic reserve served him well in several early roles.

In his screen-acting debut, "Lost Boundaries" (1949), Mr. Ferrer impressed many reviewers with his sensitive portrayal of a black surgeon who moves to New England and passes for white. New York Times movie critic Bosley Crowther singled out Mr. Ferrer for "revealing the trouble and torment, the courage and confidence of this righteous man."

In follow-up parts, Mr. Ferrer played a vulnerable bullfighter in Robert Rossen's "The Brave Bulls" (1951) and then twice played villainous roles: displaying athletic talent as Stewart Granger's fencing nemesis in "Scaramouche" (1952) and as a smirking gang leader in Fritz Lang's "Rancho Notorious" (1952) opposite Marlene Dietrich.

In "Lili" (1953), Mr. Ferrer was a crippled puppeteer who communicates his love for an orphan girl (Leslie Caron) through his marionettes. But the film, best remembered for the song "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo," was more a vehicle for the charming Caron.

Mr. Ferrer married Hepburn in 1954 and appeared with her to acclaim as an egotistical knight-errant in a Broadway staging of Jean Giraudoux's folk tale "Ondine"; Hepburn won a Tony Award for her performance as a water sprite in love with the knight.

In Hollywood, they co-starred in a sprawling screen version of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" (1956), with Mr. Ferrer playing Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Hepburn as Natasha Rostov. The film was not well received, nor was the all-star 1957 production of Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" with Mr. Ferrer as an arrogant Princetonian Jewish boxer.

By the late 1950s, Mr. Ferrer was increasingly eager to step behind the camera. He directed Hepburn and Anthony Perkins in "Green Mansions" (1959), a much-derided adaptation of W.H. Hudson's novel about a love affair in the South American jungle.

As producer, Mr. Ferrer did not fare well critically with "El Greco" (1966), in which he also played the title role of the 16th-century artist. The next year, reviewers were kinder to his production of "Wait Until Dark," which earned Hepburn an Academy Award nomination.

Melchor Gaston Ferrer, the son of a Cuban surgeon and an American socialite, was born Aug. 25, 1917, in Elberon, N.J., and was educated at private schools. Three of his siblings became noted doctors, but his interests were literary.