Oscar-nominated director Arthur Hiller dies

“I was a board member during his presidency and lucky enough to see first hand her dedication to the Academy and passion of a lifetime for visual storytelling”.

He called Mr. Hiller “a director who makes intelligent films when the material is right. and awful ones when the writers fail”.

As live television evolved into filmed programming in the late 1950s, Hiller became a regular contributor to such series as “Gunsmoke”, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “Route 66”. “Don’t make war seem so wonderful that kids want to be heroes; that’s what it was saying”, he said.

The “Love Story” leading actress, Ali MacGraw, said she was devastated by Hiller’s death and defined him as a “remarkable, gifted, talented” human being that was “an integral part of one of the most important experiences of my life”.

Hiller recalled in 1991 that the film, based on the popular novel of the same name by Erich Segal, nearly did not get made because of Paramount’s parlous finances. “As a tireless crusader in the fight for creative rights and a passionate film preservation advocate, Arthur Hillers impact on the fabric of our industry will be felt for generations to come”, said DGA president Paris Barclay.

Over his almost 50-year Hollywood career, he directed more than 30 films in a range of genres, including comedies, dramas, war stories, satires and musicals, among them successful collaborations with playwrights Neil Simon and Paddy Chayefsky.

Hiller teamed with Chayefsky again in 1971 for “The Hospital“, a sharp-toothed satire starring George C. Scott and Diana Rigg, set in a dysfunctional NY medical center.

Some of Hiller’s other films included the musical “Man of La Mancha” (1972) with Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren, “Author!”

Born in Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, the filmmaker has served in the army of the Canadian air during the Second World War. His parents, Polish immigrants Harry and Rose, started an amateur Yiddish theater in the Canadian city, and Hiller was appearing in small roles by age 11. “Thank you, Papa. It feels humbling to receive a humanitarian award for doing what my parents brought me up to do”, Hiller told the audience.

A jobbing director at first, his breakthrough into big budget filmmaking came with Disney’s Miracle of the White Stallions (1963). His last film, called National Lampoon’s Pucked, was also unsuccessful.

Arthur Hiller proposed to his wife Gwen, also from Edmonton, when they were 8 years old…but they waited until their mid 20’s to get married… “I’m asked, maybe once a year, to act”, he said in a 2003 interview with the Archive of American Television.