Biography
Miller was born in Brisbane, Queensland, to Greek immigrant parents: Dimitri (Jim) Castrisios Miliotis and Angela Balson. Dimitri Miliotis was from the Greek island of Kythira and he anglicised his surname to Miller when he emigrated to Australia; the Balson family were Greek refugees from Anatolia. The couple married and settled in Chinchilla and had four sons. The first two were the non-identical twins George and John. Chris and Bill Miller followed.
George attended Ipswich Grammar School and later Sydney Boys High School, then studied medicine at the University of New South Wales with his twin brother John. While in his final year at medical school (1971), George and his younger brother Chris made a one minute short film that won them first prize in a student competition. In 1971, George attended a Film Workshop at Melbourne University where he met fellow student, Byron Kennedy, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. In 1972, Miller completed his residency at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, spending his time-off crewing on short experimental films. The pair subsequently collaborated on numerous works.
Miller's background in medicine is reflected in the main character in his Mad Max movies, Max Rockatansky. This is a reference to Baron Carl von Rokitansky, who developed the most common procedure used to remove the internal organs at autopsy, still called the "Rokitansky procedure".
Miller wrote and directed the Mad Max movies starring Mel Gibson (Mad Max, Mad Max 2 (subtitled in the United States as The Road Warrior), and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome); co-wrote Babe and wrote and directed its sequel; and co-wrote (with Nick Enright) and directed Lorenzo's Oil. He also directed The Witches of Eastwick, starring Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Miller co-produced and co-directed many acclaimed miniseries for Australian television including The Dismissal (1983) and The Cowra Breakout (1984).
| “ | ...ask Dr. George Miller today and he'll say that all of his movies are one and the same, whether they focus on human society or the animal kingdom, and whether they unfold against the sands of the Australian outback, the suburbs of Washington, D.C., or the ice shelves of the Antarctic. "I honestly see no difference between the essential elemental story of, let's say, The Road Warrior, Lorenzo's Oil and Babe," Miller told me earlier this month during a visit to L.A. to promote his latest film, the animated musical Happy Feet. | ” |
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—L.A. Weekly, (2006) |
Miller's role as producer of Flirting, Dead Calm and the TV mini-series Bangkok Hilton and Vietnam, all starring Nicole Kidman, was instrumental in the early development of her career.
Miller was also the creator of Happy Feet, a musical epic about the life of penguins in Antarctica. The Warner Bros. produced film was released in November 2006. As well as being a runaway box office success, Happy Feet has also brought Miller his third Academy Award nomination, and his first win in the category of Best Animated Feature.
Miller is the Patron of the Australian Film Institute and the BIFF (the Brisbane International Film Festival) and a co-patron of the Sydney Film Festival.
He is currently working as director for the upcoming film Happy Feet Two. On 24 October 2009, Miller also confirmed that his next project will be the highly-anticipated fourth Mad Max sequel, currently titled Mad Max: Fury Road.
Read more about this topic: George Miller (filmmaker)
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