Toronto film festival icon Murray ‘Dusty’ Cohl succumbed to cancer on Friday. He was 78.

In 1976, Cohl’s vision, ambition and tenacity ultimately launched the Toronto International Film Festival, then the Festival of Festivals, which has evolved into an essential event for film lovers and industry around the world.

Cohl was also instrumental in the creation of Canada’s Walk of Fame. And he founded the Floating Film Festival, which has hosted a number of key film industry players over the years.

To everyone on the global film fest circuit who knew him, ‘Dusty’ was a warm, intelligent and generous man who always wore a battered cowboy hat and a smile.

In 2003, he was honored as a member of the Order of Canada.

‘Dusty’s contribution to [TIFF] is legendary,’ said Toronto International Film Festival Group chair Paul Atkinson, in a release. ‘He was a larger-than-life character who set the stage for what we have become.’

Cohl launched Toronto’s film festival with William Marshall and Henk van der Kolk, and will be remembered when the TIFF Group moves into its new Bell Lightbox home, according to Piers Handling, TIFFG CEO and director.

‘We are putting the finishing touches to our plans to present to the founders and the Cohl family and will work towards an announcement in September of this year,’ said Handling.

Cohl was born and raised in Toronto and worked as a real estate lawyer until the ’70s. He died at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre of liver cancer. He is survived by his wife, Joan, three children and five grandchildren. A private funeral will be followed by a public memorial celebration at a later date.