John MacDonald Badham (born August 25, 1939) is an American film director.
Badham was born in Luton, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom, the son of Mary Iola (née Hewitt), an actress, and Henry Lee Badham, a business executive and U.S. Air Force General. Badham was raised in the state of Alabama in the U.S. and became a naturalized citizen in 1950. He attended Indian Springs School in Alabama and college at Yale University.
Badham had worked for television for years before his breakthrough with Saturday Night Fever in 1977. As well as numerous film credits, Badham has also directed and produced for TV, including credits for Rod Serling's Night Gallery.
He is the decade-older brother of Mary Badham, Oscar nominated for her child-acting role in To Kill a Mockingbird. Outside of her only role as an adult, decades after John became well known, all of Mary's acting credits preceded his film/television credits by several years. John's wife, veteran model Jan Speck, is also 15 years his junior; unlike Mary, Jan has had assorted cameo roles in most of his projects, from the 1980s forward.
