George Roy Hill (December 20, 1921 – December 27, 2002) was an American film director. He is most noted for directing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973), both starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Hill is also known for directing The World of Henry Orient (1964), Hawaii (1966), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), Slap Shot (1977), A Little Romance (1979), The World According to Garp (1982) and his final film Funny Farm (1988). According to one obituary "few directors achieved such fame and success... even fewer enjoyed such eminence for such a short period of time."
Early life and education
He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to George Roy and Helen Frances (née Owens) Hill, part of a well-to-do Roman Catholic family with interests in the newspaper business; the family owned the Minneapolis Tribune. Hill was no relation to George W. Hill, director and cinematographer of numerous silent movies and early sound films in the 1920s and early 1930s. He was educated at The Blake School, one of Minnesota's most prestigious private schools, and at Yale University, class of 1943.
He had a love of flying. After school he liked to visit the airport, and his hobby was to memorize the records of World War I flying aces. He idolized pilot Speed Holman, who, Hill once explained, "used to make his approach to the spectators at state fairs flying past the grandstand upside down." Hill obtained his pilot's license at the age of sixteen. Airplanes featured prominently in his later films and are frequently crashed as well — in Slaughterhouse-Five, The World According to Garp and especially The Great Waldo Pepper which showed the influence on Hill of pilots like Speed Holman.
Hill loved classical music, especially Bach, and as an undergraduate at Yale University studied music under notable composer Paul Hindemith, graduating in 1943. His film The World of Henry Orient contains a humorous spoof-like tease of Hindemith during the piano concerto scene of Henry Orient (Peter Sellers). While at Yale, Hill was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the Scroll & Key Society and of The Spizzwinks(?) and The Whiffenpoofs, America's oldest collegiate a cappella singing group.
Military service
During World War II, Hill served in the United States Marine Corps as a transport pilot with VMR-152 in the South Pacific. The outbreak of the Korean War resulted in his recall to active duty service for 18 months as a night fighter pilot, attaining the rank of major. After the war, he was stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point jet flight-training center in North Carolina.
Early career
After being discharged, Hill worked as a newspaper reporter in Texas, then took advantage of the GI Bill to do graduate work at Trinity College, Dublin, studying James Joyce's use of music in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Some sources say he graduated in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in literature.
Other sources say his thesis was never completed because he became sidetracked by the Irish theater, making his stage debut as a walk-on part in 1947 at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, with Cyril Cusack's company in a production of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple. He had a leading role in Raven of Wicklow by Bridget G. MacCarthy in the same theater in February 1948.
Actor
On his return to the U.S., Hill studied theatre at HB Studio in New York City. He acted Off Broadway and toured with Margaret Webster's Shakespeare Repertory Company. He appeared on Broadway in Richard II, The Taming of the Shrew, and August Strindberg's The Creditors (with Bea Arthur).
In 1952 he featured in a supporting role in the Hollywood movie Walk East on Beacon, and appeared in episodes of Lux Video Theatre including "The Doctor's Wife", "Man at Bay" and "Masquerade". He also acted in episodes of Kraft Theatre such as "The Golden Slate". He also acted on radio.