Jack Hill

Jack Hill (born January 28, 1933) is an American filmmaker, known for his work in the exploitation genre. He was an early associate of Francis Ford Coppola and Roger Corman, and worked on many films distributed by American International Pictures (AIP) during the 1960s and 1970s.

Hill's directorial works include Spider Baby (1967), Pit Stop (1969), The Big Doll House (1971), Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), and Switchblade Sisters (1975). He is also credited with helping cultivate the careers of actors Pam Grier, Sid Haig, and Ellen Burstyn. Quentin Tarantino described him as “the Howard Hawks of exploitation filmmaking”.

Early life and education Hill was born January 28, 1933, in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Mildred (née Pannill, b. February 1, 1907; death date n.a.), was a music teacher. worked as a set designer and art director for First National Pictures and Warner Bros. on films including The Jazz Singer, Captain Blood, Action in the North Atlantic, and Captain Horatio Hornblower, and as well was an architect who designed the centerpiece Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California.

Hill attended UCLA, which he attended, he said, for "a couple of years" before leaving to get married and then returning to earn a degree in music. While a student, he played in a symphony orchestra that performed for the soundtracks of Doctor Zhivago and The Brothers Karamazov, and he arranged music for burlesque performers; through this he met comedian Lenny Bruce, whose daughter Kitty Bruce would act in Hill's 1975 film Switchblade Sisters.

Hill also added 20 minutes to Corman's Wasp Woman (1959) for its eventual television syndication release, shooting without access to any original cast-member. but eventually achieved cult status.

The following year, he was hired by Mexican producers Luis Enrique Vergara and Juan Ibáñez to co-direct four films featuring Boris Karloff. Hill only directed Karloff's scenes in Los Angeles, which were shot separately from the rest of the cast in Mexico.

In 1969, he directed Pit Stop, a drama about Figure 8 racing featuring Ellen Burstyn in an early starring role.

With Pam Grier Hill is credited with discovering Pam Grier while the actress was working as a switchboard operator at AIP. In the introduction to the film's DVD release, Tarantino calls Hill " “the Howard Hawks of exploitation filmmaking”.

Hill's discoveries include Pam Grier, who starred in four of his films from The Big Doll House through Foxy Brown; Sid Haig, who acts in most of Hill's films, beginning with Spider Baby; and Ellen Burstyn, who starred in Pit Stop.

His student film The Host was a partial influence on former classmate Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

Film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon believed that for Hill and fellow low-budget auteur Monte Hellman, film was primarily a means of personal expression while remaining a "deeply financially dependent medium". Dixon wrote that Hill and Hellman's movies often were sufficiently successful while remaining true to their personal vision.

Archive The moving image collection of Jack Hill is held at the Academy Film Archive. The Academy Film Archive preserved Spider Baby in 2013.

Filmography

Writer only

Other production credits