Focus Features

There are those figures who may not be so well known to the average moviegoer, but without whom film history would be very different and John Milius – born 65 years today – is one of those people. Milius attended USC at a time in the mid to late 1960s when the film students there were a group of incredibly talented individuals: visionary director George Lucas, cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel, sound designer Walter Murch, and writer-director Willard Huyck. What’s more, the group was close friends with Francis Ford Coppola, who was then on the brink of success. Milius’ career has been fueled by his intense masculinity: his films as writer-director – such as Jeremiah Johnson, Dillinger, The Wind and the Lion, Big Wednesday, Conan the Barbarian – are all about strong men who live at one with wild nature and/or are fearless warriors. (Milius, who is obsessed with Theodore Roosevelt is a surfing enthusiast and firearms nut, and asked to be paid for directing Johnson in antique weapons.) Milius’writing credits are equally testosterone-soaked, as he penned Apocalypse Now with Coppola and Geronimo: An American Legend with Walter Hill, did uncredited work on Dirty Harry and Jaws, and was the creator the recent bloody Rome mini-series. Walter Sobchak, John Goodman’s character in the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski, is very closely modeled on Milius. (However, Milius – unlike Sobchak – did not serve in Vietnam, as he was rejected by the Marines because of his asthma.)

For our Faber piece on John Milius, click here >>

There are those figures who may not be so well known to the average moviegoer, but without whom film history would be very different and John Milius – born 65 years today – is one of those people. Milius attended USC at a time in the mid to late 1960s when the film students there were a group of incredibly talented individuals: visionary director George Lucas, cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel, sound designer Walter Murch, and writer-director Willard Huyck. What’s more, the group was close friends with Francis Ford Coppola, who was then on the brink of success. Milius’ career has been fueled by his intense masculinity: his films as writer-director – such as Jeremiah Johnson, Dillinger, The Wind and the Lion, Big Wednesday, Conan the Barbarian – are all about strong men who live at one with wild nature and/or are fearless warriors. (Milius, who is obsessed with Theodore Roosevelt is a surfing enthusiast and firearms nut, and asked to be paid for directing Johnson in antique weapons.) Milius’writing credits are equally testosterone-soaked, as he penned Apocalypse Now with Coppola and Geronimo: An American Legend with Walter Hill, did uncredited work on Dirty Harry and Jaws, and was the creator the recent bloody Rome mini-series. Walter Sobchak, John Goodman’s character in the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski, is very closely modeled on Milius. (However, Milius – unlike Sobchak – did not serve in Vietnam, as he was rejected by the Marines because of his asthma.)

For our Faber piece on John Milius, click here >>