Alan Parker, director of ‘Midnight Express’ and ‘Mississippi Burning,’ dies at 76

Alan Parker, a British director whose wildly eclectic films included a gangster musical with child actors (“Bugsy Malone”), a grim account of prison life (“Midnight Express”), a civil rights drama set in the 1960s (“Mississippi Burning”) and an upbeat tale of Dublin teenagers starting a soul band (“The Commitments”), died July 31 in London. He was 76.