Warren Miller (director)

Early years

Warren Anthony Miller was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, to Helena Humphrey Miller and Albert Lincoln Miller. He had two older sisters, Mary Helen Miller and Betty Jane "BJ" Miller.^[2]

As a young man he took up the hobbies of skiing, surfing, and photography. At the age of 18, with the U.S. ten months into World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in the South Pacific.^[3] On Christmas vacation in 1944 he first filmed skiing with a borrowed camera in Yosemite.^[4]

Upon his discharge from the Navy in 1946, Miller bought his first 8mm movie camera. He and a friend, Ward Baker, moved to Sun Valley, Idaho where they lived in a teardrop trailer in the parking lot of the Sun Valley ski resort, and worked as ski instructors.^[3] In their free time, they filmed each other skiing to critique and improve their ski techniques. During the summers they shifted to the California coast where they filmed each other surfing.^[5]

Later work

After Miller showed his skiing and surfing films to friends, with accompanying commentary, he began to receive invitations to show and narrate them at parties. In 1949, he founded Warren Miller Entertainment [WME] and began producing one feature-length ski film per year. He borrowed money to rent halls and theaters, and charged admission to his shows. He booked show halls near ski resorts so that he could film the next year's footage during the day, and show the current film in the evening. Before long he was showing his films in 130 cities a year.^[6]

Miller continued to head Warren Miller Entertainment until the late 1980s when he sold the company to his son, Kurt Miller. Kurt later sold the company to Time, Inc., which sold it in 2007 to Bonnier Corporation, which was itself acquired by Active Interest Media in 2013.^[7] The company still produces a new film every year, but Miller himself has not been actively involved since 2004.

While transitioning out of his executive role, Miller still maintained his creative role as director and narrator for the films into the 1990s. The makers of later films, including Warren Miller's Higher Ground (2005) and Warren Miller's Off the Grid (2006), used Miller's narration from previous films rather than recording new narration.^[8][9]

In late 2010, Miller presented 'An Evening with Warren Miller' to two sold-out audiences at Seattle's Benaroya Hall.^[10]

Personal life

Miller and his wife of 30 years, Laurie, lived on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands north of Seattle.

In September 2016, Miller self-published his autobiography, Freedom Found: My Life Story. Author Andy Bigford, former editor-in-chief and publisher of Ski Magazine, co-authored the book, and Miller's wife Laurie contributed as well. After a sold out first printing, a second printing was released in December 2017.

Miller died January 24, 2018, on Orcas Island.^[11]