William Vince, who produced the Oscar-winning movie Capote, died Saturday at his home in West Vancouver after a long battle with cancer, aged 44 years.

Vince began his film production career during the 1990s at Keystone Pictures alongside his brother, Robert. Together they produced the Air Bud franchise.

Friends recall how Vince took to life as a film producer with marked tenacity and spirit, borne in large part of a childhood struggle with severe dyslexia that left him, throughout his life, on the downside of advantage but fighting upwards to achievement.

‘He worked harder than anyone, and what he achieved this past year while enduring such a physical burden is beyond my comprehension,’ long-time Hollywood agent John Ptak, most recently with Arsenal, said in a statement on Vince’s passing.

Vince founded Infinity Features in 2000, with Capote emerging as his highest-profile producer credit when it handed Philip Seymour Hoffman an Academy Award for best actor and a Vancouver-based producer first-time Oscar glory.

The first name that Hoffman uttered in thanks after bounding on stage at the 2006 Oscars to receive his trophy for Capote was that of William Vince.

While in treatment for sarcoma, Vince completed three full-length feature films: Push, Stone of Destiny and more recently The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which had to endure the untimely death of lead Heath Ledger.

Away from the film set, Vince’s achievements included refurbishing the abandoned Golden Harvest Theatre on Vancouver’s derelict Main Street. After $2 million in renovations, the boutique cinema went on to host public and private screenings amid red leather club chairs, a private bar and a high-tech screen and sound system.

The Infinity Features press release announcing Vince’s death said he battled cancer for a year and a half ‘for his children’ and without complaint.

‘Bill always believed he would once again beat the seeming insurmountable odds he faced… Bill never gave up until his physical body could not continue,’ the tribute continued.

Vince leaves behind wife Cynthia Miles and three children, Miles, Michaela and Nathanial.

The British Columbia Film Foundation has pledged to match private funds donated to the William Vince Foundation in the late film producer’s name, c/o Debra Thomas, The Canada Trust Company, PO Box 10083, Vancouver, B.C. V7Y 1BC.

Vince’s life will be celebrated this Friday at 1 p.m. PT at David’s United Church at 1525 Taylor Way in West Vancouver.