Director George Roy Hill dies at 81
Posted on 12/27/2002 12:08:41 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
Director George Roy Hill dies at 81
12/27/2002
NEW YORK - George Roy Hill, the independent-minded former Marine pilot who directed Paul Newman and Robert Redford in both "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting," died at his home Friday. He was 81.
Hill died of complications from Parkinson's disease, said Hill's son, George Roy Hill III, and Edwin S. Brown, his business manager for 35 years.
The Redford-Newman films brought Hill honors and awards as well as the distinction of being the only director to have two films among the all-time top 10 moneymakers at that time. Both films brought critical acclaim - "The Sting" won the Oscar for Best Picture - as well as great popularity among moviegoers.
AP This April 1974 photograph shows George Roy Hill displaying the Oscar he received for Best Achievement in Directing for the film "The Sting." |
"His ability to communicate the sense of what he wanted to do was unique," said Brown. "He took all of the world seriously except himself."
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) instilled new life to the fading western genre and added a fresh twist on the familiar Hole in the Wall Gang saga.
Instead of playing Butch (Newman) and Sundance (Redford) as tough outlaws, Hill and screenwriter William Goldman made them free spirits for whom robbing banks was a lark. The film received Academy nominations for best picture and best director, and it won four awards, including best song, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
"The Sting" (1973) reunited Newman and Redford as con men who devise a complicated plot to fleece a vicious gangster (Robert Shaw). The film was highly stylized, especially with the ragtime piano of Scott Joplin, as interpreted by Marvin Hamlisch. The nearly forgotten Joplin was restored to national prominence.
|
|||||
 |
|||||
• Funny Farm (1988)
• The Little Drummer Girl (1984)
• The World According to Garp (1982)
• A Little Romance (1979)
• Slap Shot (1977)
• Slaughterhouse Five (1972)
• Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
• Hawaii (1966)
• The World of Henry Orient (1964)
• Toys in the Attic (1963)
• Period of Adjustment (1962)
-----
Not too shabby! BTW, anyone who hasn't seen The World of Henry Orient owes themselves a treat!
A wonderful film!
Kids, but nothing childish.
Deep, funny and fun.
FYI, I once
talked to George Roy Hill. I just
called his production
office (I was a
teenage cinema buff) got
his secretary,
asked to speak to him,
and she put him on! He was
very nice. We talked
for about fifteen
minutes, this Oscar-winning
director and a
random fan! Too cool!
(I still wish the ending of
"Little Drummer Girl"
wasn't so sappy,
but George Roy Hill will always
be my favorite.)
Also, FYI,
Hill once said he believed a
person stops being
an artist "...right when
he starts calling himself an
artist." Yet his films
almost always had
very artistic touches.
A great one is gone.
He didn't direct the sequel, did he? It was awful.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks MeekOneGOP.
Butch wrote some unknown number of letters to people back in the states. Of those which are known to have survived, not even one postdates the shootout in Bolivia on November 7, 1908. That's not a coincidence. He had a lookalike brother who (like the rest of the family) amounted to nothing, who in later years visited old friends he and "Butch" had had in common in their youth, and passed himself off as Butch.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
