James Hill (August 1, 1916 – January 11, 2001) was an American film producer and screenwriter active from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and came to Hollywood as a writer, working on films and televisions shows for Warner Brothers Pictures and Columbia Broadcasting System. He was eventually teamed with film producer Harold Hecht and actor Burt Lancaster when the pair produced His Majesty O'Keefe for their own film production company, Norma Productions. The movie was filmed in 1952 in the Fiji Islands, but only released in 1954.

In 1953, Hecht and Lancaster formed the imprint Hecht-Lancaster Productions and began producing films for United Artists, hiring Hill as producer for Vera Cruz, The Kentuckian and Trapeze. In early 1956, before Trapeze was released, Lancaster and Hecht announced in a press conference that Hill had been made an equal partner in their film production company; Hecht-Lancaster Productions would be changing name to Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions at the start of the next fiscal year in January 1957. From 1954 to 1959, the Norma Productions subsidiaries Hecht-Lancaster Productions and later Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions, were the biggest and most important independent production units in Hollywood.

James Hill (American film producer)

Hill was the fifth and final husband of actress Rita Hayworth, married from 1958 to 1961. The pair met when Hayworth was filming Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions' Separate Tables. Like Hayworth, he developed Alzheimer's disease. He died in Santa Monica, California in 2001.

James Hill (American film producer)

Filmography

References

External links

1916 births

2001 deaths

American chief executives

American film producers

American male screenwriters

Businesspeople from California

Businesspeople from Indiana

Film producers from California

Film producers from Indiana

Norma Productions people

Screenwriters from California

Screenwriters from Indiana

20th-century American screenwriters

James Hill (American film producer)