Walter Hill

Born on January 10, 1942 in Long Beach, California, Hill has said in several interviews that as a child he suffered from asthma, which caused him many problems finishing school. His grandfather was an oil driller, an influence that would later lead Walter Hill to work in that trade.

He lived and studied art at Mexico City College in Mexico City. He worked in oil drilling and construction. Until 1968, his only foray into film was as an assistant director on The Thomas Crown Affair (1968 version). He was also an assistant director that same year on Bullitt, and on Take the Money and Run (1969) he worked as assistant to none other than Woody Allen.

Walter Hill showed a passion for screenwriting from the very start. His first script was for a western, but it was never adapted for the big screen. He then wrote The Getaway and Hickey and Boggs; both scripts were brought to the screen in 1972, but his directing debut would not come until 1975 with Hard Times. In 1979, he wrote and directed The Warriors, which became his most celebrated work and a true cult film in the United States. Based on a novel by Sol Yurick inspired by the Greek account of Xenophon's Anabasis.

His lifelong passion has been the Western, and his fundamental influence is the work of John Ford, although many of his hits belong to the crime thriller and comedy genres.

Hill's films often feature situations in which the main characters are under intense pressure. Their lives tend to be complicated, and it always seems that way. His characters, who are mostly male, live by their own rules, as they have little faith in human nature.

Hill, along with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Milius, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Francis Ford Coppola and others, is one of the filmmakers who were part of the 70 generation that modernized American cinema.