Walter Hill

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Walter Hill at the Munich Film Festival 2014

Walter Hill (born January 10, 1942 in Long Beach , California ) is an American film director and screenwriter . His greatest successes came in the 1980s as a director of action films .

life and work

Hill studied history and literature at Michigan State University . He then enrolled in the Directors Guild of America and immediately earned his living as an assistant director at Thomas Crown is unbelievable , Bullitt and Woody, the unlucky fellow .

During his time as an assistant, he wrote the scripts for the films Webster Unbelievable , Getaway by Sam Peckinpah , Magnum Heat , John Huston's The Mackintosh Man, and Underwater You Don't Die .

He made his directorial debut in 1957 with the short film The Square .

The film A Steel-Hard Man was based on Hills' own script and was very well received by the critics . This was followed by the films Driver and the action film The Warriors from 1979, which have long since become cult films.

He expressed his preference for westerns with films such as Geronimo - Eine Legende , Wild Bill and Last Man Standing . The film drama The Last Americans and Erased also follow the rules of the genre . In 1981 he made his most successful film to date, Just 48 Hours , with which Eddie Murphy made his cinema debut. In 1990 there was a sequel with And Again 48 Hours , which grossed almost twice as much as the first part.

Hill achieved other hits with the action films Red Heat and Johnny Handsome .

Again and again, however, he was also involved in failures. The film Blue City , which he co-produced , was nominated for the Golden Raspberry in five categories in 1987 , including the worst film . He even got himself an alias for his short-term involvement in the movie Supernova .

This was followed in 2002 with Undisputed - Victory Without Fame, his last movie for around ten years. In addition, several episodes of television series emerged, including the western television series Deadwood and the miniseries Broken Trail . In 2013 he directed another action film, Shootout - No Mercy , and The Assignment was released four years later .

Walter Hill not only wrote the scripts for many of his films, together with his partner David Giler he produced a milestone in film history with the Alien series, Alien (1979) and its sequels Aliens - The Return , Alien³ , Alien - The Rebirth and Alien vs. Predator . He also produced the original as a prequel to the movie Alien - The sinister creature from another world imaginary film Prometheus - and his successor alien Covenant .

Filmography (selection)

Director

production

script

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hill, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American action director in Hollywood
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Long Beach , California , USA