Lewis Teague

Lewis Teague (born March 8, 1938) is an American film director, whose work includes Alligator, Cat's Eye, Cujo, The Jewel of the Nile, The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!, Navy SEALs and Wedlock.

Biography Early life and career Teague was born in Brooklyn, New York. Teague fell in love with films at age 14 when he saw The Steel Helmet (1951).

Teague dropped out of high school at age 17 and enrolled in the army, serving for three years in Germany. He studied at New York University, where he fell in love with filmmaking and realised that was what he wanted to do for a career. His short films included Sound and the Painter (1962) and It's About a Carpenter, which was circulated through public libraries. His influences were French filmmakers like Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and Jacques Rivette and his classmates included Jim McBride and Martin Scorsese. In 1963 Teague won a scholarship for being the most promising student at the school.

Teague left the school in 1963 without completing a degree when he was offered a job by Universal working on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. (Teague returned to NYU to complete his degree in 2016, at the age of 78. ) Teague apprenticed with Sydney Pollack and had an early directing credit with the episode "The Second Verdict" on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1964) starring Martin Landau. Teague then went to work with George Roy Hill assisting on Hawaii. He said "I sort of got separated from Universal in the process... so when I came back from Hawaii, my contacts at Universal said, you know, you haven't followed up on that original directing opportunity and so we are terminating your contract" adding "I was happy because that wasn't the kind of moviemaking that I was really interested in." His friend Don Devlin asked him to work as his associate on Loving (1970), a film Devlin had written and was producing. Teague worked as a production manager on the rock concert documentary Woodstock (1970) and was cinematographer on Bongo Wolf's Revenge (1970). He then worked in the film department of KCT directing documentaries. Teague made his debut as a feature director with Dirty O'Neil (1974), which he co-directed.

Teague was second unit director and assistant editor on Death Race 2000 (1975); edited Crazy Mama (1975) for Jonathan Demme; assistant director on Thunder and Lightning (1977) (made for Corman but at 20th Century Fox); and was responsible for the avalanche sequence in Avalanche (1978). Teague later said, "The main things you learn by working for Corman are how to get every nickel on the screen, how to be as expedient as possible, and how to work very quickly. Also, Roger is an extremely clever person. Even though most of his material was exploitive, he always had a very intelligent approach. I learned a lot from the way he dealt with directors and editors. He was extremely well-organized, very insightful, very quick to make decisions."

Director Teague said Corman had offered Teague the job of directing a John Sayles script, Battle Beyond the Stars, but that project was postponed (it was later made with another director). Corman then offered Teague another Sayles script, The Lady in Red (1979). He later said, "I was very lucky that that happened because it gave me a chance to do what I can do well, which is just sort of a gangster action film with really people in it and not have to deal with special effects and stuff." He accepted an offer from De Laurentiis to make another King script, Cat's Eye (1985). Stephen King called Teague "the most unsung film director in America. You never hear his name brought up at parties...He has absolutely no shame and no moral sense. He just wants to go get ya, and I relate to that!" Teague, in turn, said of Sayles and King that "Both Stephen and John have wit, humor, and incredible imaginations. They're similar in a lot of ways- both prolific, intelligent people who don't care a great deal about material things." Teague later reflect, "Up to that point, all the films that I did were personal films. I always had the liberty to change whatever I needed to change to make it more interesting or to make it work better. When I did The Jewel of the Nile, I just wanted to get on the A list of directors. I wanted it to be a commercial film and hadn't I been so eager to get on the A list, I would have been more playful, and I would have had more fun with it." Star Jay Leno said "I like Lewis. He's a good action director and I trust his sense of humor." However the release of the film was delayed several years after De Laurentiis went bankrupt.

Teague returned to television with Shannon's Deal (1989), based on a script by Sayles. He then directed Navy Seals (1990), for Orion, replacing original director, Richard Marquand, who had died just before filming commenced. Producer Brenda Feigen said Orion recommended Teague as the studio had been developing another project with the director that did not go ahead. She had a difficult relationship with Teague and says he lost control of the film.

Teague said of Navy Seals, "I'm happy because I did a "yeoman's" job on it. It works, it cuts together, the action sequences are exciting, but it has nothing personal in it." Feigen claimed "Lewis had a hard time finding work after Navy Seals."

Later career Teague directed two films for cable: Wedlock (1991) and T Bone N Weasel (1992). Fortune Hunter, Profiler, and Nash Bridges, and did some TV movies: OP Center (1995), Saved by the Light (1995),Justice League of America (1997) (doing uncredited work), The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! (1997), and The Triangle (2001).

After a five-year absence from directing, Teague directed (as well as wrote and produced) the dramatic short Cante Jondo (2007) shot on digital. "It was fun, and I learned a lot," he said.

Filmography Year Title Notes 1974 Dirty O'Neil 1979 1980 Alligator 1982 Fighting Back a.k.a. Death Vengeance 1983 Cujo 1985 Cat's Eye 1985 1989 Collision Course 1990 Navy SEALs 1991 Wedlock 1992 T Bone N Weasel 1995 Saved by the Light 1997 2001 Love and Treason 2001 The Triangle