John Milius

Born on April 11, 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri, Milius was one of the first movie industry professionals to be a film school graduate, having matriculated at the University of Southern California.

His favorites films are Howard Hawks' Red River (1948), and "Viva Villa," Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966) (aka Battle of Algiers), Raoul Walsh's They Died with Their Boots On (1941), John Ford's The Searchers (1956) and They Were Expendable (1945), Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) (aka Seven Samurai), Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960), John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941).

John Milius is a screenwriter and director who came to prominence in the 1970s, when he was associated with Francis Ford Coppola and the pre-Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) George Lucas.

Warner Bros wanted him to update Dirty Harry (1971) and he wanted them to fund a version of The Iliad; there was also talk he would make The Alamo for HBO.

Milius, an avid gun collector, insisted that part of his payment for writing Jeremiah Johnson (1972) be in antique weapons.

Was the inspiration for drag-racer John Milner (played by Paul Le Mat) in American Graffiti (1973).

Despite making two films about Theodore Roosevelt, The Wind and the Lion (1975) and Rough Riders (1997), he considers himself too enamored with Roosevelt to ever make an actual biographical film about his life.

His old agent, Mike Medavoy, helped establish Orion Pictures in 1978 and one of their first movies was going to be East of Suez, written and directed by Milius. It was not made.

There was some talk in the 1980s that he would direct a movie for HBO, Capone, but it was not made.

He was approached to write Rambo: First Blood (1982) in the late 1970s.

Wrote the line, "Go ahead, make my day," for Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" character in Sudden Impact (1983).

Sergio Leone courted him to write Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Milius, a fan of his, was enthusiastic about the idea; but Milius was working on The Wind and the Lion (1975) and the script for Apocalypse Now (1979), and could not commit to the project.

In 1986 it was reported that he was writing the script for Fatal Beauty (1987) which he hoped to direct with Cher. The film was made by Tom Holland starring Whoopi Goldberg.

Turned down the role of Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink (1991).

In 1993 he replaced Andrey Konchalovskiy as director on The Northmen for Morgan Creek Productions, about an English monk who gets captured by a band of Vikings. "This was inevitable," Milius said of his directing a Viking film. "I've been a practicing pagan for a long time. Conan the Barbarian (1982) was really a Viking movie but it was disguised." However, financing fell through.

Member of the NRA Board of Directors from 1995-2001. He currently serves on the Public Affairs and Shotgun Committees.

Through his work, on Rough Riders (1997), he was instrumental in causing President Theodore Roosevelt to be posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for acts of conspicuous gallantry on San Juan Hill.

Is a personal friend of the Coen brothers and was the inspiration for the character of Walter in the The Big Lebowski (1998).

In the early 2000s he worked on King Conan: Crown of Iron (2001-02), a sequel to Conan the Barbarian (1982).

He developed Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) (2003), a biker film starring Paul Levesque and wrote a pilot for a TV show for UPN, Delta, about a military special ops team that takes on terrorists. Neither of these were made.

Lost most of his fortune in the early naughts due to a corrupt accountant. Desperate to pay for his son's Law School tuition, he asked his friend David Milch to hire him as a staff writer for Deadwood (2004). Milch refused based on the absurdity of hiring a veteran screenwriter for entry-level work, and instead offered to simply pay the son's tuition in full. Milius later repaid Milch for the loan.

He wrote some pilots which did not go to series - Dodge City (circa 2005) - a Western series for CBS, and Saigon Bureau (2008) - about the AIP Bureau of photojournalists in the Vietnam War, a collaboration with Chris Noth based on the book Requiem. He also wrote a script about the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War, The Choisin Few for Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment, and The Iron Horsemen, a motorcycle feature.