Rod Amateau

Birthplace: New York City, New York, USA
Birthday: December 20, 1923

After starting his career as a writer for CBS radio, Rod Amateau worked his way up the 20th Century Fox ladder from junior writer to test director to second-unit director to dialogue director before finally making his feature directorial debut with "The Bushwackers" (1952), a Western of interest mostly for the sermonizing in his (and Tom Gries') script, which offered parallels to the political climate in America during the post-Civil War and post-World War II eras. Though he directed another film that year ("Monsoon"), h…more

Full Biography

Credits

Actor

Las Vegas
Interviewee
Highway Honeys
Sweeper operator

Director

Enos
Director
O.K. Crackerby
Director
Six Pack
Director
The Dukes of Hazzard
Director
My Mother the Car
Director

Producer

Border Pals
Executive Producer
My Mother the Car
Producer
Highway Honeys
Producer
O.K. Crackerby
Producer
Six Pack
Producer

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Career Milestones

1989
Last credit (to date) as producer on the NBC TV-movie "Swimsuit"
1988
Wrote the story, "The Adventures of Tom Mix and Wyatt Earp in Holywood", on which Blake Edwards based his screenplay for "Sunset"
1987
Produced, directed and co-wrote "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie"
1983
Handled second unit director duties on "The Osterman Weekend", directed by Sam Peckinpah
1979
Produced and directed episodes of "Supertrain" (NBC), an expensive bust of a series