John Milius
| John Milius | |
|---|---|
| Born |
John Frederick Milius April 11, 1944 St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
| Alma mater | University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television |
| Occupation |
Screenwriter Film director Film producer |
| Years active | 1966–present |
| Spouse(s) | Renee Fabri (1967–1978) (divorced) (2 children) Celia Milius (1978–?) (divorced) Elan Oberon (1992–present) |
John Frederick Milius (born April 11, 1944) is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures. He was one of the writers for the first two Dirty Harry films, received an Academy Award nomination as screenwriter of Apocalypse Now, and wrote and directed The Wind and the Lion, Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn.
Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of three children to Elizabeth (née Roe) and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. When Milius was seven his father sold his business, retired and moved to California, where Milius became an enthusiastic surfer.
At fourteen, Milius' parents sent him to a small private school, the Lowell Whiteman School, in the mountains of Steamboat Springs, Colorado "because I was a juvenile delinquent."
Milius became a voracious reader and started to write short stories. "I had learned very early, to write in almost any style. I could write in fluent Hemingway, or in fluent Melville, or Conrad, or Jack Kerouac, and whatever." He says he was also influenced by the oral story telling of surfers at the time, who had a beatnik tradition.
"My religion is surfing," he said in 1976, adding that "The other thing that influenced me throughout my youth was my involvement with things Japanese. I studied judo, kendo, and painting. I felt more comfortable with things Japanese and with Japanese people than I did with Europeans... feudalism in any country, at any period, fascinates me... I understand the reasoning of people in Asia, it makes sense to me. Zen is very sensible, the whole way of feeling things is logical, whereas many of the Western-motivated things - greed, business sense - I'm not comfortable with, I don't understand their rationale."
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