John Guilbert Avildsen (born December 21, 1935 in Oak Park, Illinois) is an Academy Award-winning American film director.
His movies include Guess What We Learned in School (1968), Cry Uncle! (1970), Joe (1970), Rocky (1976) and Rocky V (1990) with Sylvester Stallone, and The Karate Kid (1984), with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita. He also directed the acclaimed Save the Tiger (1973), starring Jack Lemmon, Lean on Me (1989), starring Morgan Freeman as the no-nonsense high school principal Joe Clark; The Power of One (1992) and 8 Seconds (1994), starring Luke Perry. He has also directed The Formula (1980) starring George C. Scott & Marlon Brando and For Keeps (1988) starring Molly Ringwald. A recurring theme in many of Avildsen's movies is the triumph of an underdog character over adversity.
Avildsen won an Academy Award for directing Rocky.
His most recent work was Dancing into the Future (2006) as director. However, Avildsen plans to make a return as a director in 161 & River (2008). The film, thematically similar to previous Avildsen work, is a baseball-themed underdog story.
Filmography
Joe (1970)
Cry Uncle! (1971)
Okay Bill (1972)
Save the Tiger (1973)
The Stoolie (1974)
Fore Play (1975)
Rocky (1976)
Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978)
The Formula (1980)
Neighbors (1981)
A Night in Heaven (1983)
The Karate Kid (1984)
The Karate Kid Part II (1986)
For Keeps (1988)
Lean on Me (1989)
The Karate Kid Part III (1989)
Rocky V (1990)
The Power of One (1992)
8 Seconds (1994)
External links
John G. Avildsen at the Internet Movie Database
John Guilbert Avildsen BFI database entry.
Awards
Preceded by
Miloš Forman
for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Academy Award for Best Director
1976
for Rocky
Succeeded by
Woody Allen
for Annie Hall
v • d • e
Academy Award for Best Director
Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise (1961) · David Lean (1962) · Tony Richardson (1963) · George Cukor (1964) · Robert Wise (1965) · Fred Zinnemann (1966) · Mike Nichols (1967) · Carol Reed (1968) · John Schlesinger (1969) · Franklin Schaffner (1970) · William Friedkin (1971) · Bob Fosse (1972) · George Roy Hill (1973) · Francis Ford Coppola (1974) · Miloš Forman (1975) · John G. Avildsen (1976) · Woody Allen (1977) · Michael Cimino (1978) · Robert Benton (1979) · Robert Redford (1980)
Complete List · (1927–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001-present)
v • d • e
The Karate Kid series
Films
The Karate Kid · Part II · Part III · The Next Karate Kid
Characters
Kesuke Miyagi · All characters
Cast
Ralph Macchio · Pat Morita · Elisabeth Shue · Martin Kove · William Zabka · Randee Heller · Chad McQueen · Tony O'Dell · Larry B. Scott · Bruce Malmuth · Yuji Okumoto · Tamlyn Tomita · Nobu McCarthy · Joey Miyashima · Thomas Ian Griffith · Robyn Lively · Sean Kanan · Jonathan Avildsen · Christopher Paul Ford · Rick Hurst · Frances Bay · Joseph V. Perry · Jan Tříska · Hilary Swank · Michael Ironside · Constance Towers · Chris Conrad · Walton Goggins · Rodney Kageyama
Crew
John G. Avildsen · Jerry Weintraub · Robert Mark Kamen · Bill Conti · László Kovács
Music
"Cruel Summer" · "Glory of Love" · "You're the Best"
Related
California State University, Northridge · Crane kick · TV series · Sweep the Leg · Video game
Persondata
NAME
Avildsen, John G.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Film director
DATE OF BIRTH
December 21, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH
Oak Park, Illinois United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 1727/1000000
Post-expand include size: 42684/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 23603/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 0/500
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Avildsen"
Categories: American film directors | Best Director Academy Award winners | People from Oak Park, Illinois | 1935 births | Living people
Views
Article
Discussion
Edit this page
History
Personal tools
Log in / create account
if (window.isMSIE55) fixalpha();
Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Search
Interaction
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact Wikipedia
Donate to Wikipedia
Help
Toolbox
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Printable version Permanent linkCite this page
Languages
Deutsch
Español
Euskara
Français
Hrvatski
Italiano
Norsk (bokmål)
Português
Suomi
Svenska
This page was last modified on 29 July 2008, at 17:53.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
if (window.runOnloadHook) runOnloadHook();
