Ken Annakin, the East Yorkshire-born director whose credits included the Second World War epics Battle Of The Bulge and The Longest Day and the family classic Swiss Family Robinson, has died at the age of 94.

Annakin, who was originally from Beverley, died on Wednesday night at his Beverly Hills home, said his daughter, Deborah Peters.

His health had been failing since he suffered a heart attack and stroke within a day of each other in February, she said.

Annakin had previously been in good health and always talked about making more films, even though he had not directed since the early 1990s, his daughter said.

Annakin dabbled in many genres, from action comedies and family fare to crime drama and swashbuckling romance.

He was best-known for his war sagas, 1965’s Battle Of The Bulge and 1962’s The Longest Day, which he co-directed with Andrew Marton and Bernhard Wicki.

The screenplay of Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines earned him an Academy Award nomination. Probably his most-beloved film was 1960’s Swiss Family Robinson, one of a series of family adventures Annakin made for Walt Disney Pictures starting in the 1950s.

Annakin got his start as a feature film-maker with Holiday Camp in 1947, about the working-class Huggett family, whom he also featured in three other films over the next few years.