Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller, OC (November 22, 1923[a] – August 17, 2016) was a Canadian television and film director with over 33 films to his credit during a 50-year career. He began his career directing television in Canada and later in the U.S. By the late 1950s he began directing films, most often comedies. He also directed dramas and romantic subjects, such as Love Story (1970), which was nominated for seven Oscars.
For the footballer, see Arthur Hiller (footballer). For the playwright with a similar name, see Arthur Miller.
Arthur Hiller
August 17, 2016 (aged 92)
Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles
Director
1955–2006
2
Hiller collaborated on films with screenwriters Paddy Chayefsky and Neil Simon. Among his other films were The Americanization of Emily (1964), Tobruk (1967), The Hospital (1971), The Out-of-Towners (1970), Plaza Suite (1971), The Man in the Glass Booth (1975), Silver Streak (1976), The In-Laws (1979) and Outrageous Fortune (1987).
Hiller served as president of the Directors Guild of America from 1989 to 1993 and president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1993 to 1997. He was the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2002. An annual film festival in Hiller's honor was held from 2006 until 2009 at his alma mater, Victoria School of Performing and Visual Arts.
Early life and military service[edit]
Hiller was born in November 1923 in Edmonton, Alberta, the son of Rose (Garfin) and Harry Hiller. His family was Jewish, and had emigrated from Poland in 1912. He had two sisters, one 13 years older and one 11 years older. His father operated a second-hand musical instruments store in Edmonton. Hiller recalled that when he occasionally traveled home while he was in college, the black people he met with "treated me like a king. Why? Because they loved my father. They told me that unlike other shopkeepers, he treated them like normal folks when they went to his store. He didn't look down on them".[7]
Although his parents were not professionals in theater or had much money, notes Hiller, they enjoyed putting on a Jewish play once or twice a year for the Jewish community of 450 people, mainly to keep in touch with their heritage. Hiller recalls they started up the Yiddish theater when he was seven or eight years old; he helped set carpenters build and decorate the sets. When he was eleven, he got a role acting as an old man, wearing a long beard and the payot. He says that "the love of theater and music and literature my parents instilled in me" contributed to his later choosing to direct TV and films.[8]
After he graduated from high school, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941 during World War II. He served with 427 Lion Squadron as a navigator on four-engine Handley Page Halifax heavy bombers flying from Leeming, Yorkshire on Operations over Nazi-controlled territory in Europe.[9] After he returned from serving in the military, Hiller enrolled in and later graduated from University College, Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts in 1947. After Israel was declared a state in 1948, he and his wife unsuccessfully tried to join its army since it came under attack.[b] He continued in college and received a Master of Arts in psychology in 1950. One of his early jobs after graduating was with Canadian radio directing various public affairs programs.[11]
Personal life and death[edit]
In 1948, he married Gwen Pechet, who was also Jewish; they had two children and two grandchildren.[35][36] His wife died on June 24, 2016.[37] They were married for 68 years.[2] Hiller died almost two months later in Los Angeles on August 17, 2016, at the age of 92 from natural causes.[38][39]