George Roy Hill

George Roy Hill was not one of the best-known directors in the world of Hollywood, nor was he very prolific -he directed only 14 films-, he retired early, his face was not very famous… And yet, despite everything, his name It will be forever remembered by moviegoers for two films that achieved fame that still endures and will presumably remain intact for many, many decades.

Born in Minneapolis in 1922, Roy Hill graduated with a degree in music from Yale and then went on to study literature at the prestigious Trinity College, Dublin. There he worked in the theater company of the famous Irish actor Cyril Cusak. Later he would serve as a pilot in World War II and in the Korean conflict. It was in the 50s when he focused his work on the world of images, directing some works for television, such as Night to Remember or Judgment at Nuremberg . However, he entered the world of cinema very late, at the age of 40, directing Marriage Readjustment (1962) and Bitter Love .(1963), but none of those films left much of an impression. The following year he would achieve some notoriety with the film The Irresistible Henry Orient , where he established his fame as an actor’s director thanks to the wonderful work of Peter Sellers . That extraordinary facet would reach its culmination a few years later, when he made that masterpiece entitled Two men and a destiny (1969).

With unusual freshness, Roy Hill gave a twist to Western movies and achieved a wonderful show of comedy and twilight western. With a fantastic script that recounts the eternal escape of two likeable outlaws, the director knew how to find the measured adventurous tone, rich in dialogues and unforgettable scenes (the Sundance presentation, the notes of “Raindrops keep falling on my head” while Butch rides a bicycle…) to achieve perhaps the most memorable work of his career. The choice of interpreters had a lot to do with it: the duo Paul Newman – Robert Redfordwould become one of the most successful partnerships in cinema on the fly. Newman was already an established actor, but Redford was then a complete unknown. And it was precisely Roy Hill who insisted on hiring the young Californian despite the fact that producer Richard Zanuck did not agree. Time proved the former right, achieving a complementarity of actors rarely equaled on screen.

Roy Hill’s fame grew like foam and four years later he once again pulled gold from his newly created partner with El coup (1973). Here the theatrical origin of the director is manifest. The script is fun and precise and the Newman-Redford pairing is once again the best. And Roy Hill took the Oscar for best director. Years later, the director would once again have his two fetish actors, but this time separately: with Robert Redford in El carnaval de las águilas (1975) and with Paul Newman in El castañazo (1977), but none of his films anymore would reach the same level. Retired early from cinema, Roy Hill directed his last film, Funny Farm , in 1988.