STOKED

John Milius interviewed by Richard Thompson

Ursine John Milius admits that he was the inspiration for the Big John Milner character in American graffiti, made by his friends George Lucas, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck. Born the son of a retired St. Louis shoe manufacturer in 1944, Milius grew up on the West Coast. Until 1967, he studied film at USC with several of the industry's current young comers.

Milius concentrated on writing originals. After two that didn't sell, he wrote the devil's eight in ten days with Willard Huyck, which Burt Topper directed for AIP. He wrote apocalypse now while in Warners' writerdevelopment program at the end of the Sixties. All at once, he rewrote dirty harry and EVEL KNIEVEL and found his originals, JEREMIAH JOHNSON and JUDGE ROY BEAN, in production. Then he wrote magnum force and, for TV, MELVIN PURVIS - G MAN.

Milius directed his own screenplay, DILLINGER, in 1973 (see Andrew C. Bobrow's detailed interview in Filmmaker's Newsletter, vol. 8, #1). Most recently, he wrote and directed the film he is most proud of, THE WIND AND THE LION.

A year ago, he formed his own production company, A-Team, under the Warner Brothers' umbrella. A-Team is committed to Warners for several specific projects over a five-year period. The full-time A-Team: Milius; his producer Buzz Feitshans, who first worked with Milius on dillinger; and assistant Carolyn Fetty.

Kurosawa and Ford are Milius's touchstones, as much for the values they present as for their filmmaking. He feels that John Wayne's portrayal of Ethan Edwards in the searchers sums up the entire American experience in one character. Milius has named his son Ethan. Aldrich, Fuller, Hawks, Leone, Walsh, and Wertmüller also figure in his pantheon.

Nineteen-cent Bic ballpoints write his screenplays; one of them lasted through JEREMIAH JOHNSON, JUDGE ROY BEAN, and the dirty harry rewrite.

I am grateful to Jim Hosney and jack Shafer for their help in preparing this interview.

Pauline Kael's in love with me.

How do you figure that? Just because she has you on her mind so often?

Yes. I'm not one to know a lot about love, but I can remember when I was a little kid, pulling girls' pigtails that I was attracted to, things like...