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Hill
was born in Long Beach, California and later studied
art in Mexico City, hoping to become a cartoonist; he
later transferred to the journalism department at the
University of Michigan. Following several years in various
jobs, Hill wrote a few documentary films and gained
work as an assistant director on such major productions
as The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Bullet (1968).
Establishing
himself in Hollywood as a screenwriter (The Getaway
[1972], The Drowning Pool [1975] and others), Hill received
his first directing opportunity with Hard Times (1975),
a virile tale about bare-knuckles boxing starring Charles
Bronson and James Coburn. Hill's reputation was both
enhanced and tarnished by The Warriors (1979), a nightmarish,
deliberately exaggerated story of gang violence that
was banned from several theaters for allegedly inciting
real-life gang wars.
The
director's biggest moneymaker of the early 1980s was
48 Hours (1982), which deftly shifted from grim violence
to laugh-out-loud comedy and which made a star of Eddie
Murphy.
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