Warren Miller (director)
| Warren Miller | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 15, 1924 Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Film producer and director |
| Years active | 1950–2004 |
| Known for | Warren Miller Entertainment |
Warren Miller (born October 15, 1924) is an American ski and snowboarding filmmaker. He is the founder of Warren Miller Entertainment and produced, directed and narrated his films until 1988. His credits include over 750 sports films, several books and hundreds of published non-fiction stories. His annual films on skiing and other outdoor sports are known for their photography, narrative humor, and broad appeal. He is noted for the promotion of skiing through his films spanning over 60 years and is an iconic figure in ski-movie filmmaking.
Warren Anthony Miller was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and as a young man he took up the hobbies of skiing, surfing, and photography. At the age of 18, with the U.S. ten months into World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in the South Pacific. On Christmas vacation in 1944 he first filmed skiing with a borrowed camera in Yosemite. Upon his discharge from the Navy in 1946, he bought his first 8mm movie camera. He and a friend, Ward Baker, moved to Sun Valley, Idaho where they camped in the parking lot of the Sun Valley ski resort, lived in a teardrop trailer and earned money as ski instructors. In their free time, they filmed each other skiing to critique and improve their ski techniques. During the summers they shifted to the California coast where they filmed each other surfing.
Warren Miller would often show his skiing and surfing films to friends, making jokes about their exploits throughout the showing of the film. When he began to receive invitations to show and narrate his films at parties, it occurred to him that he could turn this hobby into a business. In 1949, Miller founded Warren Miller Entertainment [WME] and began a long-standing tradition of producing one feature-length ski film per year. He rented out halls and theaters, usually with borrowed money, and charged admission to his shows. He booked show halls near ski resorts so that he could film the next year's footage during the day, and show the current film in the evening. Before long he was showing his films in 130 cities a year.
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