George Hickenlooper is a writer and director. His recent feature length film, MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP, tells the story of fame through the eyes of pop impresario Rodney Bingenheimer and his friends David Bowie, Courtney Love, Brian Wilson, Cher, and Paul McCartney. The film was an official selection at the 2003 New York and Toronto International Film Festivals and was released theatrically in the March 2004. It was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary that same year.
Hailed by Roger Ebert as “One of the Best Films of 2002!,” THE MAN FROM ELYSIAN FIELDS is Hickenlooper’s acclaimed psycho-sexual drama starring Andy Garcia, Mick Jagger, James Coburn, Anjelica Huston, Olivia Williams, Michael DesBarres and Juliana Margulies.
Nominated for a Golden Globe award, THE BIG BRASS RING is his 1999 critically acclaimed political thriller, adapted from an Orson Welles screenplay, starring William Hurt, Nigel Hawthorne, Miranda Richardson, and Irene Jacob.
Hickenlooper also won an Emmy Award for Best Director for his work on the internationally acclaimed HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE (a documentary about the making of APOCALYPSE NOW), in addition to receiving international praise for his dramatic short SOME FOLKS CALL IT A SLING BLADE, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Molly Ringwald, and J.T. Walsh (the basis for the Oscar-winning feature SLING BLADE).
Among Hickenlooper’s other feature work is THE LOW LIFE, a tragic-comedy starring Kyra Sedgwick, Sean Astin, Rory Cochrane and Renee Zellweger; PERSONS UNKNOWN, an off-beat thriller starring Naomi Watts, Joe Mantegna, Kelly Lynch and J.T. Walsh; and DOGTOWN, a drama starring Mary Stuart Masterson, Jon Favreau, and Natasha Gregson Wagner. Hickenlooper’s films have received numerous awards and have been shown as official selections at the Cannes, Sundance, Telluride, New York, London, Locarno, Moscow, Tokyo and Toronto International film festivals.
Other films by Hickenlooper include the documentaries PICTURE THIS (about director Peter Bogdanovich); ART, ACTING, AND THE SUICIDE CHAIR (about Dennis Hopper); and MONTE HELLMAN: AMERICAN AUTEUR; in addition to television work for ABC/Disney, CBS, NBC, Fox, and Aaron Spelling. He is the author of the 1991 book Reel Conversations (Citadel Press), a collection of interviews with directors and critics.
George Hickenlooper graduated from Yale University in 1986. He was born in St. Louis and was raised there Boston, and San Francisco. His interest in movies and filmmaking began in childhood and stemmed from his great Uncle’s (conductor Leopold Stakowski) involvement in the Disney classic FANTASIA. Hickenlooper's interest also bloomed from his father’s work as a playwright and his mother’s creation of a guerilla theater troop which would appear at political demonstrations that would either protest against the Vietnam War or support the Black Panthers or Ceasar Chavez’ Farmworkers Union. Having had a heavily politicized childhood, Hickenlooper very early on learned the techniques of story telling from his parents whether it was to make a political or aesthetic statement.
Hickenlooper's first serious short Super 8mm films were made while attending an all boys’ Jesuit high school (St. Louis University High School). Many of those shorts (TELEFISSION, A DAY IN THE LIFE, A BLACK AND WHITE FILM and THE REVENANT) were premiered on Public Television in St. Louis and Kansas City. Hickenlooper spent one summer studying at the USC School of Cinema and Television. After graduating from Yale, Hickenlooper moved to California and interned for producer Roger Corman.
The Weinstein Company
