Taylor Hackford

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Hackford

Taylor Edwin Hackford (born December 31, 1944) is an American film director and former president of the Directors Guild of America. He won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for Teenage Father (1979). Hackford went on to direct a number of highly regarded feature films, most notably An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and Ray (2004), the latter of which saw him nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Picture.

Hackford was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Mary (née Taylor), a waitress, and Joseph Hackford. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1968, where he was a pre-law major focusing on international relations and economics. After graduating, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia, where he started using Super 8 film in his spare time. He decided that he did not want to pursue a career in law, and instead got a mailroom position at KCET-TV.

Personal life:

Hackford has been married to Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren since 1997. Hackford met Mirren when he was directing her in White Nights although their first meeting did not go well. He kept her waiting to audition for White Nights, and she was icy. "It was a strange way to meet Helen, because she is a lovely person," says Hackford, "but she didn’t hold back her fury." Hackford and Mirren wed in 1997 after 12 years together. As a young woman Mirren had vowed never to marry.

Hackford has two grown children from his two previous marriages.

Filmography:

Director and producer -

   * Bukowski—1973

   * Against All Odds—1984

   * White Nights—1985

   * Everybody's All-American—1988

   * Dolores Claiborne—1995

   * Devil's Advocate—1997 (executive producer)

   * Proof of Life—2000

   * Ray—2004

   * Love Ranch—2010

Director -

   * Teenage Father—1978

   * The Idolmaker —1980

   * An Officer and a Gentleman—1982

   * Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll—1987

   * Blood In Blood Out—1993

   * Smooth Criminal: The Michael Jackson Story—2007

Producer -

   * La Bamba—1987

   * The Long Walk Home—1990 (executive producer)

   * When We Were Kings—1996

   * G:MT - Greenwich Mean Time—1999

Actor -

   * Bukowski: Born into This—Himself (2003)

Awards:

Hackford received an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film for Teenage Father in 1979. He received two Oscar nominations in 2004 for the Ray Charles biopic Ray. He was awarded the 2005 Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing.

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000431/