Howard Hill (born Lemuel Howard Hill and later cited Howard H. Hill; November 13, 1899 – February 4, 1975) was an expert bowman who for over two decades, from the early 1930s into the 1950s, was often introduced or billed as "The World's Greatest Archer". He established the record for winning the most bow-and-arrow field tournaments in succession, a total of 196 competitions. In addition, Hill served as a supporting actor, trick-shot performer, and technical adviser on archery for Hollywood shorts and feature films. He also produced and directed documentaries and instructional films on bowhunting, and in the 1950s published two books on the subject, Hunting the Hard Way and Wild Adventure.
Early life and career
Lemuel Howard Hill was born in Wilsonville, Alabama, in 1899, the youngest of Mary E. (née Crumpton) and John F. Hill's nine children. Growing up on a cotton farm, Howard learned how to use various tools, along with weapons of all types, including bows and arrows that his father made for him and his four older brothers. He began using a bow at age four and by age six he received his own homemade archery set, which he used for target practice and for hunting in the woods surrounding his family's property. Later, when Howard attended high school in nearby Columbiana, he proved to be an exceptional athlete in a variety of other sports, including baseball, basketball, football, and golf. On September 12, 1918, during World War I, he registered for the United States military, but the war ended just two months later, so he never entered the service. On his draft card, he signed his name "Howard H. Hill", indicating that he had altered his full name, adding a middle "H" and dropping his first name Lemuel, as it is documented in the federal census of 1910.
Following his graduation from high school, Hill enrolled at age 19 at Auburn Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University), where he continued to play baseball, football, and basketball. He completed two years of study at Auburn, paying his tuition and living costs at school with money he earned giving archery lessons during summer vacations. Later, after getting married in 1922, Hill and his wife moved to Florida. There he found employment as a machinist with a division of Hughes Tool Company, and he also played semi-pro baseball on the side. When his interest in a possible career in baseball began to ebb, he considered playing golf professionally; but he returned again to his childhood passion for archery. Hill became a regular competitor in field events for the longbow; and by 1930 he identified himself vocationally as a "manufacturer" of archery equipment or "tackle" in Opa-locka, located just north of Miami. Soon, his growing involvement working in Hollywood films as an archery expert, stuntman, and adviser prompted the Hills to move to Los Angeles, California, where by 1940 they owned a home at 12007 Saticoy Street and Howard identified his full-time occupation then as a performer or "Artist" in motion pictures.
Earlier, in 1937 for Spectrum Pictures, Hill had performed in the Western The Singing Buckaroo, portraying the character Maneeto, a Native American friend of the film's star, Fred Scott. The next year he exhibited his expertise with the bow in Follow the Arrow, a short film that includes a skeet-shooting contest between Hill and a marksman armed with a shotgun. In 1938 he also performed all the bow-and-arrow stunts for Errol Flynn's Technicolor "swashbuckler" The Adventures of Robin Hood, as well as portraying "Owain the Welshman" at the archery tournament, followed by additional stunts and trick shots for other films starring Flynn, including The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Dodge City, and Virginia City.
Achievements and honors
Among his many achievements in archery, Howard Hill in 1928 set a new world record for the farthest recorded flight shot with a bow and arrow, at . That same year, he won his 196th field archery competition in a row. Hill, though, was not only one of the most decorated archers in the modern era of target shooting, hunting, and flight archery competitions, he was also a celebrated writer and producer. During his career, he produced 23 films about archery for Warner Bros. He also produced 10 different films of his own and was a technical adviser in far more motion pictures, providing his expertise in the field. As a bowhunter himself, he killed over 2,000 animals with his longbow, including a 10,000-pound African bull elephant, becoming the first white man to kill such an animal with an arrow. To accomplish that feat he used a 41-inch-long (100 cm) arrow while pulling a 115-pound bow.