LOS ANGELES — John Calley, who was known for his unusually artistic approach in running three major Hollywood studios and overseeing some of the most successful movies of the last 50 years, died Tuesday at his home here. He was 81.

His death was announced by Sony Pictures Entertainment, which did not give a cause.

Mr. Calley — three-time studio chief, confidant of Stanley Kubrick, producer of “The Da Vinci Code” — rose to Hollywood’s highest ranks not by slashing and burning but by making gut-level bets on directors and writers, and by gently and quietly steering them.

“Working with him is like rolling in feathers,” the screenwriter Jay Presson Allen said in a 1994 New Yorker article.

Stints leading Warner Brothers, United Artists and Sony gave Mr. Calley his A-list status in Hollywood’s executive ranks, but it was his approach to those jobs that made him stand out. Rather than cranking out franchise films and other safely commercial fare — a common complaint about studios today — Mr. Calley believed that successful moviemaking boiled down to one thing: making good films.