George Roy Hill was a famous American film director who made movies like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting,” which are still popular today. He was born into a wealthy family in Minnesota and went to The Blake School and then Yale University for school. Early in his life, he became interested in classical music and flying. After that, he was a marine pilot in World War II. After that, he went to Trinity College in Dublin to study music and literature. Here in Dublin was the first time he saw professional theater, and when he went back to the U.S. he went to work on Broadway. But soon, he was called back to serve in the Korean War. After he got out of the military, he kept working at the Broadway and made a few TV movies. In the end, he didn’t start making movies until he was forty, and he quickly made a name for himself in Hollywood. In the late 1980s, he stopped making movies all of a sudden and went back to Yale to teach drama.
Early years and childhood
On December 20, 1921, George Roy Hill was born in Minneapolis to a wealthy family that owned the Minneapolis Tribune. George Roy Hill was also the name of his father, and Helen Frances Hill was the name of his mother.
George went to school at The Blake School, where he graduated in 1939. During school, he became interested in flying, and at age 16, he got his license. He also liked classical music, and his favorite artist was Johann Sebastian Bach.
After he graduated from high school, he went to Yale to study music. Here, he learned from famous musicians like the German composer Paul Hindemith. In 1943, he got his degree.
After that, as part of his military service, he joined the United States Marine Corps. He was a cargo pilot and was stationed in the South Pacific. When he got out of prison, he went to work for a newspaper in Texas.
Later, he used the GI Bill to study music and literature at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. There, he worked on James Joyce and how he used music in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
George hill career
While he was still in Ireland, he made his stage debut in 1947 with “The Devil’s Disciple,” a play by Bernard Shaw and Cyril Cusack that was put on at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. Later in 1948, he played the main role in “Raven of Wicklow” and also directed “Biography,” which was his first play.
After that, he went back to the United States and began working in Off-Broadway shows. For a while, he toured with Margaret Webster’s Shakespeare Repertory Company. During this time, he made extra money by working at a radio station.
After that, he started to act in shows like “Richard II” and “The Creditors” on Broadway. In 1952, he was in a documentary called “Walk East on Beacon,” which was meant to show how bad communism was. He was soon called back to serve in the Korean War.
He was a night fighter pilot for 18 months. He was sent to the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina to learn how to fly jets. There, he quickly rose to the rank of major.
After he got out of the military, he went to work in television. During this time, he also wrote “My Brother’s Keeper,” a play in which he used what he learned in the Korean War. In late 1953, it was shown on Kraft Television Theatre, and he was one of the actors.
Later, he became a writer for the company and later directed “Playhouse 90.” It had 90 minutes of a live show. Two of his best works from this time are “A Night to Remember” (1956, about the sinking of the Titanic) and “The Helen Morgan Story” (1957). For both of these works, he won an Emmy Award.
Hill also went back to Broadway in 1957 to direct the play “Look Homeward Angel,” which was a commercial and critical hit. It opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway on November 28, 1957, and ran until April 4, 1959, for a total of 564 shows. It was also nominated for several Tony Awards.
The next big thing he did on Broadway was a play called “Period of Adjustment.” The play opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway on November 10, 1960, and ran 132 times before it closed on March 4, 1961. It got average reviews.
Even though the reviews of the play were not great, Hill decided to turn it into a comedy film. It was also called “Period of Adjustment,” and it was his first long movie. It came out on October 31, 1962, and was sold by Metro Goldwyn Mayor. The movie made $558,000 in money.
But his second movie, “Toys in the Attic,” which came out in 1963, did not do well at the box office. Even though it was nominated for an Oscar for “Best Costume” and two Golden Globes for “Best Actress” and “Best Supporting Actress,” it actually lost $1.2 million.
With his next comedy film, “The World of Henry Orient,” he was able to solidify his position in Hollywood. The movie came out in 1964, and Peter Sellers played Henry Orient, a concert pianist. Later, the movie was chosen to represent the United States at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival.
The next movie he made, “Hawaii,” with Julie Andrews and Max von Sydow, was a critical and commercial success. The movie came out in October 1966, and it was about Hawaii in the early 1800s. It made $34.5 million at the box office and was nominated for seven Academy Awards and two Golden Globes.
Next, in March 1967, ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie,’ another hit movie of his, came out. It opened to great reviews and was nominated for seven Academy Awards and five Golden Globes. It starred Julie Andres and James Fox. In terms of money, it was the tenth best-selling movie of 1967.
Hill then made the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” in 1969. The movie came out the same year and is about two Wild West criminals who are on the run after robbing several trains. It was a big success.
His next movie, “Slaughterhouse-Five,” came out in 1972. It was a science fiction movie that was against the war and also won a number of awards. But “The Sting,” a movie he made in 1973, is thought to be his best-known work. It did very well at the box office and won seven Oscars, including one for Best Director.
After that, Hill went to work on something that was important to him. He loved to fly, and he helped write, direct, and make “The Great Waldo Pepper” (1975). It was about a pilot who had served in World War I and made his living by going from farm to farm. The best part of the movie was the flying scene.
“Slap Shot” was his next movie (1977). It was a funny movie about a hockey team in the minor leagues. Most critics thought it was rude, violent, and funny at the same time. On the other hand, sports writer Don Jenkins said that the movie was the “best sports movie of the last fifty years.”
“A Little Romance” was Hill’s next movie (1979). He was not only in charge of making the movie, but he also wrote the script with Allan Burns. He did not take credit for either of these things, though.
After that, he only made three movies: “The World According to Garp” in 1982, “The Little Drummer Girl” in 1984, and “Funny Farm” in 1988. All of them did about average business at the theaters. Then he left Hollywood and taught drama at Yale University in his later years.
Works of note
George Roy Hill is best known for making the heist movie “The Sting” in 1973. The movie is about two small-time con artists who take advantage of a mob boss in Chicago during the Great Depression. It stars Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Robert Shaw.
It did well both financially and critically. Another important work of his was “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Not only did it make the most money of any movie that year, but it also won a lot of awards, including four Oscars.
Awards & Achievements
Hill won the Best Director Oscar for his work on “The Sting” in 1974. He also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing for a Feature Film for the same work.
For the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” which came out in 1971, he won the BAFTA for Best Director and Best Film. He had also been nominated for an Academy Award for the same work, but he didn’t win.
He won the Canes Jury Prize in 1972 and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1973 for “Slaughterhouse-Five.”
Personal History and Legacies
George Roy Hill met Louisa Fleetwood Horton at the Margaret Webster Theatre Company, where they were both actors. Then, on April 7, 1951, they got married. In 1970, they got a divorce, but they stayed friends for the rest of their lives. They had four kids, and they had twelve grandkids.
George Hill’s love of flying stayed with him his whole life. When he got back from Korea, he bought a Waco biplane, which he kept until the early 1990s.
He used to live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in his later years. He also got Parkinson’s disease at some point, and complications from it caused him to die at home on December 27, 2002.
Estimated Net worth
George Roy Hill’s estimated net worth is $1 million, and his main sources of income are as a theatre director, actor, film producer, and film director. We don’t have enough evidence about George Roy Hill’s cars or his way of life.
Trivia
Hill’s favorite thing to do when he was in school was to learn the records of the best World War I pilots.