John Frederick Milius was born on the 11th April 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and is a director, producer and screenwriter, probably best recognized for working on such projects as “Apocalypse Now”, “Conan The Barbarian” and “Red Dawn” among many others. He has been an active member of the film industry since 1966.
So, have you ever wondered how rich John Milius is, as of early 2018? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that the total size of John’s net worth is over $5 million, accumulated through his successful involvement in the film industry.
John Milius Net Worth $5 Million
John Milius was brought up in a Jewish family with two siblings, by his father, William Styx Milius, who worked as a shoe manufacturer, and his mother, Elizabeth. He spent his childhood in his hometown until the family moved to California, where he attended the small private Lowell Whiteman School. At that time, John started to read a lot, and to write stories., and upon matriculation, he enrolled in the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television to study Film, along with future notable colleagues Don Glut, Basil Poledouris and George Lucas. While in college, he made short films such as “The Emperor” (1967), “The Reversal Of Richard Sun” (1970), and “Marcello I’m So Bored” (1970), among others, and won an International Student Film Festival Award for best animation.
As a student, John was hired for the story department by American International Pictures, where he worked on such film titles as “The Devil’s 8” (1968), when he was spotted by Mike Medavoy, who became his agent. In no time he wrote the script for the film “Jeremiah Johnson”, which was sold to Warner Bros in 1970 and released two years later, starring Robert Redford, which increased John’s popularity enormously. In the following years, he wrote the script for the film “Apocalypse Now” (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and by the end of the decade, had also made his debut as a producer, working on three film titles – “Hardcore” (1979), “1941” (1979), and “Used Cars” (1980), which marked the beginning of an increase to his net worth.
During the 1980s, John moved his career to the next level, as he decided to pursue his career further not only as a screenwriter, but also as a director. Thus in 1982, he directed the film “Conan The Barbarian”, starring James Earl Jones and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which was followed by the film entitled “Red Dawn” in 1984, which he also wrote. In 1989, John wrote and directed the film “Farewell To The King”, which added a considerable amount to his net worth.
At the beginning of the next decade, John directed the 1991 film “Flight Of The Intruder”, starring Willem Dafoe and Brad Johnson, then wrote the script for a film entitled “Geronimo: An American Legend”, which was followed by the film “Clear And Present Danger” (1994), directed by Phillip Noyce, increasing his net worth by a large margin.
To speak further about his career, John wrote the 2001 film “Texas Rangers”, which was later rewritten, and afterwards started working as a screenwriter and executive producer on the TV series “Rome”, which lasted until 2007 and certainly increased his wealth.
Thanks to his accomplishments in the film industry, John was nominated for an Academy Award for writing the script for “Apocalypse Now”, and won a Distinguished Screenwriter Award at the Austin Film Festival in 2007.
Regarding to his personal life, John Milius has been married to actress Elan Oberon since 1992. He was previously married to Renee Fabri (1967-1978), with whom he has two children, and he was also married to actress Celia Kaye, with whom he has a daughter.
Academy Award for Best Writing Adapted Screenplay, Writers Guild of America Award for Television: New Series, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Drama
Movies
Conan the Barbarian, Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn, Big Wednesday, The Wind and the Lion, Dirty Harry, Dillinger, Jeremiah Johnson, Magnum Force, Farewell to the King, Flight of the Intruder, Clear and Present Danger, Rough Riders, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, 1941, Geronimo: An American Legend,...
TV Shows
Rome, Melvin Purvis: G-Man
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Trademark
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Liked to say outrageous things.
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Films often reflect his conservative political beliefs
[on Francis Ford Coppola] Francis is the best of us all. He has the most talent and the most daring. There are a lot of faults in Francis, but I think he's the leader.
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[on "The Searchers"] A lot happens in old movies. Ideas were communicated. Ford's "The Searchers," for example. Sure, it's a story about a guy searching for his niece, but it's also a movie about the family. It's a movie about pioneering and what it is to be a pioneer, what it is to put yourself out on a limb. It's a movie about doing your job.
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[on "Dillinger"] I got very expensive as a writer, so I was able to make a deal with AIP, who'd have never been able to buy one of my scripts. I said I'll write whatever you want if I can direct it. I'd have paid them to direct. I looked at the gangsters of the time, and the one that had the most appeal was Dillinger. It was a subject I never would have chosen myself, but it allowed me to show how good I could do a gunfight, make the stuff cut together, make the story hold up, and make the actors act... I like it (the violence) because it's real. There are consequences in "Dillinger." You rob a bank, people are going to start shooting, and people are going to get hurt and shot. They run over a woman leaving the bank because that's what they did. They wee desperate. But you don't dwell on it. You don't dwell on the bullet hole and blood pulsing out.
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[on "The Wind nd the Lion"] I consider "The Wind and the Lion" my first real movie. I approached it as a David Lean film, to do it in that style, a large epic canvas, to see id I could pull off great movements of troops. The story is even written that way. Two guys, the Rasuli and Teddy Roosevelt, yelling at each other across oceans.
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[In a 1982 interview] It's important to go out and do something in your life, to do something with tremendous commitment and dedication. Maybe put your life on he line to do it. It's important. It makes you a bigger person. We've gotten away from this. The pursuit of excellence - that's really one of the values I try to get into all the movies I do... It's all summed up so well in a surfer term - 'GGo for it!"
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[1982 interview] I will always be disliked by the Eastern critical establishment,
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[1982 interview] Whatever I say sounds okay when I say it, but when it's printed, it's awful. I end up being this terrible guy that has guns and likes to shoot hippies. They always take the humor out of what I say. 'Milius in Jack Boots and Leather Coat Says Facism Is On the Rise!', that kind of thing, or 'Para-Military Group Led By Director!'
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[1982 interview] I love "Apocalpse, Now"... That one movie justifies my career. I feel I really did something worthwhile by writing it. Even though I share credit (with Coppola) and I didn't direct it, it's a real piece of me.
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Luxuries and comforts are evil for humans.
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You know, in fact, I am not a fascist. I am a total man of the people. They are the fascists[Hollywood critics]. They're creating the fascist society. I am much closer to a Maoist. However, I am a Zen anarchist. --In an interview with Ken Plume on ign.com
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[on Conan the Barbarian] A feverish dream on acid.
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Everything has style, everything's a bit larger than life and done with mischief. That's the way Conan is.
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I've led a whole life behind enemy lines. I've been the victim of so much persecution. I'm the barbarian of Hollywood.
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[on the "Do I feel lucky?" speech in Dirty Harry (1971)] I have a .44 Magnum, I love the .44 Magnum, in fact I still have the .44 Magnum that inspired that that line. The Second Amendment becomes more important every day.
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[on Mexican drug traffickers] We need to go down there, kill them all, flatten the place with bulldozers so when you wake up in the morning, there's nothing there. I do believe if you have a military, you use it.
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I was watching Rush Limbaugh the other night, and I was horrified. I would have Rush Limbaugh drawn and quartered. He was sticking up for these Wall Street pigs. There should be public show trials, mass denunciations and executions.
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I try to maintain a certain innocence toward my material. I like to say that I do what I do because I like it and that it's not preachy. When I try to put my finger on what I have to say, it's very vague. It's just an attitude. As Herman Melville put it in "Moby Dick": 'a free and easy desperado geniality.' That's my attitude. Melville was talking about men rowing into the mouth of a whale with their backs to it. I suppose that's what life is like.
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If there hadn't been an Arnold around for Conan, we would have had to create him". -Muscle & Fitness magazine, July 1982
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I love the bomb. It's sort of a religious totem to me. Like the plague in the Middle Ages, it's the hand of God coming out indiscriminantly to snatch you.
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[on the violence in Conan the Barbarian being rather essential]: "It's not that violent, although I was happy not to get an X rating. But if you said 'Conan the Barbarian' was rated PG, people would feel cheated. We weren't making 'Conan's Divorce', you know."
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[on being rejected for military service due to asthma]: "I'm a very efficient director - it's my training in military tactics. I've trained my whole life to be a general but I never could. So I became the next best thing, a movie director."
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Fact
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Suffered a severe stroke, and was treated for pancreatic cancer.
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He is Jewish.
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According to Milius, he didn't get on to well with Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack on Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and he was fired. Milius claims that his substitute "...couldn't write that stuff," and the only who contributed anything was Edward Anhalt. Redford and Pollack ultimately rehired Milis after Anhalt had left the project.
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Lost most of his fortune in the early naughts due to a corrupt accountant. Desperate to pay for his son's Law School tuition, He asked his friend _David Milch_ to hire him as a staff writer for Deadwood (2004). Milch refused based on the absurdity of hiring a veteran screenwriter for entry-level work, and instead offered to simply pay the son's tuition in full. Milius later repaid Milch for the loan.
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He was partially the basis for the character of Walter in the cult classic The Big Lebowski (1998).
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Despite making two films about Theodore Roosevelt, The Wind and the Lion (1975) and Rough Riders (1997), he considers himself too enamored with Roosevelt to ever make an actual biographical film about his life.
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Cigar smoker.
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Turned down the role of Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink (1991).
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Made an honorary member of the Sioux Nation, after his filming of The Rough Riders.
Despite his political beliefs, he is an avid fan of director Spike Lee.
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Considers himself as a "zen anarchist".
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Was Sergio Leone's first choice to write Once Upon a Time in America (1984). But due to scheduling problems, and Leone's struggle to acquire the rights of Harry Grey's book The Hoods, Milius passed on the project.
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Is one of the original founders of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
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Through his work, on Rough Riders (1997), he was instrumental in causing President Theodore Roosevelt to be posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for acts of conspicuous gallantry on San Juan Hill.
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Milius, an avid gun collector, insisted that part of his payment for writing Jeremiah Johnson (1972) be in antique weapons.
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Is a personal friend of the Coen brothers and was the inspiration for the character of Walter in the The Big Lebowski (1998).
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Member of the NRA Board of Directors from 1995-2001. He currently serves on the Public Affairs and Shotgun Committees.
$5 Million
