Brian G. Hutton, the director of classic war films Where Eagles Dare and Kelly’s Heroes, has died. He was believed to be 79.
Born in 1935, the New Yorker had a brief acting career before migrating to the other side of the camera. He studied acting at Elia Kazan’s famous Actors Studio in Hell’s Kitchen, before heading to the West Coast under the patronage of legendary **Casablanca **producer Hal Wallis.
Arriving in Los Angeles, he quickly scored theatre gigs, staging plays and teaching acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. During the mid-to-late ‘50s he landed acting roles in TV staples like Gunsmoke and Perry Mason, as well as Kirk Douglas Western Gunfight At The O.K. Corral and Elvis musical King Creole.
Soon after Hutton came to the attention of Universal Studios’ New Horizons programme. The studio’s low-budget production scheme for young directors afforded him his first experience of directing work, with the Conrad Hall-shot melodrama Wild Seed (1965) soon leading into The Pad And How To Use It (1966) and Telly Savalas crime thriller Sol Madrid (1968).
But it was for ice-cold classic Where Eagles Dare and Vietnam-era caper Kelly’s Heroes that Hutton will be remembered. The World War II flicks partnered him up with Clint Eastwood in a pair of Nazi-shellacking actioners that were wildly different in tone but equally enduring.
Hutton also worked with Elizabeth Taylor on two films: 1972's twisted romance X, Y And Zee, alongside Michael Caine and Susannah York, and** Night Watch**, a drama in which she starred opposite Laurence Harvey, a year later.
With first-choice director Roman Polanski fighting statutory rape charges, he stepped in to helm The First Deadly Sin in 1980, a Frank Sinatra/Faye Dunaway pic perhaps most notable for being Bruce Willis's screen debut.
His last feature film was Tom Selleck vehicle High Road To China in 1983, after which he hung up his clapperboard and began a new career in real estate, with, we’d like to think, a specialisation in Alpine schloss.
Hutton’s friend, producer Al Ruddy, told The Hollywood Reporter that he died on Tuesday in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack. He is survived by his wife Victoria.