Los Angeles, Sept. 5 (Reuters): British-born filmmaker J. Lee Thompson, a prolific director of action-adventures and thrillers best known for the war drama The Guns of Navarone and the original Cape Fear, has died at age 88, associates said today.

Thompson, who directed Gregory Peck in four movies and Charles Bronson in nine films, died of congestive heart failure on Friday last week at his summer home in Sooke, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, said longtime friend and producer Pancho Kohner.

In a career spanning four decades starting in 1950, Thompson directed more than 50 movies, building his reputation in Europe with work that won numerous awards on the film-festival circuit before moving to Hollywood in the early 1960s.