The director of the film The River Rat also created the film in which Beverly D'Angelo was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role as Patsy Cline. The same film which Sissy Spacek an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Thomas Rickman (sometimes credited as Tom Rickman) is an American film director and screenwriter known for such films as "Coal Miner's Daughter", "Hooper", "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "Truman". 
 It stars Sissy Spacek as Loretta, a role that earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. 
The River Rat is a 1984 independent family film directed by Thomas Rickman and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Martha Plimpton. 
 She has appeared in over 60 films and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role as Patsy Cline in "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1980), and for an Emmy Award for her role as Stella Kowalski in the TV film "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1984). 
