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John
Milius (born April
11, 1944
in St.
Louis, Missouri) is an American
screenwriter,
director,
and producer of motion
pictures. A former student at the University
of Southern California School
of Cinema-Television, Milius started his movie career in
a student film contest in 1967,
for which he won first prize on his entry Marcello I'm
Bored.
Milius
wrote, co-wrote and/or directed popular and critically
acclaimed films such as Apocalypse
Now, The
Hunt for Red October, Big
Wednesday, Dillinger,
and The
Wind and the Lion. He is also well-known as the director
of Red
Dawn, a controversial 1984
film premised on a fictional Soviet
invasion of the United
States.
A
self-styled "Zen
anarchist",
Milius is a member of the Board of Directors of the National
Rifle Association, an avid gun
collector and a strong opponent of gun
control laws.
Red
Dawn was again in the news in December, 2003
in connection with the capture of the former Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein. The American commander of the
operation to capture Hussein was a fan of Milius' film,
causing him to call the military operation which captured Saddam
Hussein Operation
Red Dawn. He also dubbed the military units who actually
captured Hussein "Wolverine One" and
"Wolverine Two" after the fictional
"Wolverines" unit in Red Dawn.
Milius
is also known as the director of the film Conan
the Barbarian, which made a star out of the (then)
relatively unknown actor and body builder Arnold
Schwarzenegger. Milius also contributed to the famous USS
Indianapolis monologue
for the film Jaws,
and suggested to Steven
Spielberg the "bookend" scenes in the military
graveyard in Normandy
which were used at the beginning and end of Saving
Private Ryan. Milius coined the famous "make my
day" and "do you feel lucky?" lines from the Dirty
Harry movies,[citation
needed] as well as "Charlie don't surf" and
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning" from Apocalypse
Now.
Director
George
Lucas was inspired by his friend Milius to create the
"John Milner" character as the protagonist of his
celebrated film American
Graffiti.[citation
needed]
Milius
is also reportedly the inspiration behind the Walter Sobchak
character (played by John
Goodman) in the film The
Big Lebowski.
Currently,
he is writing and directing the movie Jornada
del Muerte, a western starring WWE
superstar Triple
H.
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