Jack Hill (born January 28, 1933) is an American filmmaker, known for his work in the exploitation genre. He was an early associate of Francis Ford Coppola and Roger Corman, and worked on many films distributed by American International Pictures (AIP) during the 1960s and 1970s.
Hill's directorial works include Spider Baby (1967), Pit Stop (1969), The Big Doll House (1971), Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), and Switchblade Sisters (1975). He is also credited with helping cultivate the careers of actors Pam Grier, Sid Haig, and Ellen Burstyn. Quentin Tarantino described him as “the Howard Hawks of exploitation filmmaking”.
Hill was born January 28, 1933, in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Mildred (née Pannill, b. February 1, 1907; death date n.a.), was a music teacher. His father, Roland E. Hill (February 5, 1895 – November 10, 1986), worked as a set designer and art director for First National Pictures and Warner Bros. on films including The Jazz Singer, Captain Blood, Action in the North Atlantic, and Captain Horatio Hornblower, and as well was an architect who designed the centerpiece Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California.
Hill attended UCLA, which he attended, he said, for "a couple of years" before leaving to get married and then returning to earn a degree in music. While a student, he played in a symphony orchestra that performed for the soundtracks of Doctor Zhivago and The Brothers Karamazov, and he arranged music for burlesque performers; through this he met comedian Lenny Bruce, whose daughter Kitty Bruce would act in Hill's 1975 film Switchblade Sisters. He went on to postgraduate studies at UCLA Film School, where instructor and former movie director Dorothy Arzner encouraged Hill and his classmate and friend Francis Ford Coppola. Hill worked as a cameraman, a sound recorder (including on Coppola's student short Ayamonn the Terrible), and an editor on student films. His short The Host starred Sid Haig, an acting student at the Pasadena Playhouse under teacher Arzner, who introduced them; this marked the first of several films together.
Hill worked with Coppola and Roger Corman on several of the former's early movies at American International Pictures (AIP). He was the director of photography on Battle Beyond the Sun (1962), a re-edit of the Soviet sci-fi film Nebo Zovyot (1959), which featured additional scenes directed by Coppola and shot by Hill. He was the second unit director on Coppola's full directorial debut Dementia 13 (1963). He also worked on Coppola's sexploitation films Tonight for Sure (as director of photography) and The Bellboy and the Playgirls (as editor).
Hill was one of several uncredited directors (including Coppola) who worked on Corman's infamous The Terror (1963), starring Boris Karloff and a young Jack Nicholson.
Hill was hired by Corman to direct Blood Bath (1966), a retooling of a Yugoslavian-produced spy thriller as a horror B-movie about a shapeshifting vampire. The troubled production meant Hill was eventually replaced by Stephanie Rothman, the two were jointly credited on the final film.
Hill also added 20 minutes to Corman's Wasp Woman (1959) for its eventual television syndication release, shooting without access to any original cast-member.
In 1967, Hill directed Spider Baby, a horror-comedy about a deranged family featuring Sid Haig in a starring role. The film was initially released to relative obscurity, but eventually achieved cult status.
The following year, he was hired by Mexican producers Luis Enrique Vergara and Juan Ibáñez to co-direct four films featuring Boris Karloff. Hill only directed Karloff's scenes in Los Angeles, which were shot separately from the rest of the cast in Mexico.
In 1969, he directed Pit Stop, a drama about Figure 8 racing featuring Ellen Burstyn in an early starring role.
Hill is credited with discovering Pam Grier while the actress was working as a switchboard operator at AIP. He directed her in two women-in-prison films produced by Corman's newly-formed New World Pictures, The Big Doll House (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972), quickly making her a star of the burgeoning blaxploitation genre.
He then directed her in two similar films at AIP, Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), both of which were considerable commercial successes and firmly established Grier's stardom.
The same year, Hill directed the sex comedy The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974). In 1975, Hill directed Switchblade Sisters, about an all-girl teen gang.
Hill co-wrote the disaster film City on Fire (1979) and Death Ship (1980) for director Alvin Rakoff.
In 1982, Hill directed the sword-and-sorcery film Sorceress for Corman's New World. Various issues with the production (including filming hastily relocating to Mexico and Hill's inability to cast Sid Haig) and Corman's re-cutting of the film without his input, led Hill to remove his name from the final film, using the alias 'Brian Stuart'.
Quentin Tarantino's company Rolling Thunder Pictures re-released Switchblade Sisters theatrically in 1996. In the introduction to the film's DVD release, Tarantino calls Hill " “the Howard Hawks of exploitation filmmaking”.
Hill's discoveries include Pam Grier, who starred in four of his films from The Big Doll House through Foxy Brown; Sid Haig, who acts in most of Hill's films, beginning with Spider Baby; and Ellen Burstyn, who starred in Pit Stop.