George Armitage

George Brendan Armitage (December 13, 1942 – February 15, 2025) was an American filmmaker and writer best known for directing the films Miami Blues and Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), as well as for frequent collaborations with Roger Corman.

Early life George Brendan Armitage was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on December 13, 1942. He had an older brother. in 1956. He later said of this, "What a culture shock. I'm still reeling. In Connecticut there wasn't a hot rod in sight. Out here it was people racing up and down the street, building their own cars—it was teenage paradise, the kids were running everything." He attended UCLA, where he majored in economics and political science. While waiting for his real estate license to come through, he entered the film industry in 1965 via the mail room at 20th Century Fox. Armitage recalls his period at Fox as an "incredible experience... I went from producer to producer all over the lot pitching ideas, I created series, I wrote a couple of things for television and, about that time, started writing screenplays".

Armitage met brothers Roger and Gene Corman at Fox while they were making The St Valentine's Day Massacre. He recalled, "The commissary was a place called the Gold Room where the producers would go. They were all sort of mothballed, but they still had energy enough to snob the television people, who were making High Noon, Lost in Space, Batman. The movie producers would sit on the other side of the room from the TV people. This left the TV people with nobody else to snob, so they would snob Roger Corman... and that really pissed me off, because I was a fan of his. So I began to visit him on the set and the whole thing, and told him about the conflict that was going on, and he got a kick out of that." impressing Corman enough to allow Armitage to write and direct Private Duty Nurses. Corman also optioned an Armitage script called Coming Together.

In 1972, Armitage wrote and directed Hit Man, which was acclaimed in John Cribbs' Obscure Genius series. In 1975, he was quoted in an article as saying, "I try to follow the Hollywood sports to see who's winning. It doesn't seem the best system to make films that are both interesting and commercial, but it's the only one that works, at least for me. I think there must be other ways but I can't think of them. It's all new to me, even after ten years. I would like to see more courage and imagination, of course. That's something to look for."

Armitage spent the 1980s largely writing screenplays which were never made. In 1997, he directed the film Grosse Pointe Blank, on which his son worked as an associate producer. In 2001, he launched script development consultancy StudioNotes with his son. 1970s Trophy Story of two police departments who end up in a shooting war

Pochantonas Revenge About a miracle staged by a stunt man and special effects person to raise a small town's spirit

Tantruma For producer Paul Lazarus about a man looking for a woman from his past

Acting roles YearTitleRole 1970 Gas-s-s-s Billy The Kid 1971 Von Richthofen and Brown Wolff 1974 Caged Heat Driver

Television YearTitleDirectorWriterNotes 1971 Monty Nash Episode "Brother Zachary" 1979 Hot Rod TV movie 1996 The Late Shift