John Avildsen
Oscar-winning director of ‘Rocky’ known as ‘the King of the Underdogs’
JOHN AVILDSEN, the director, who has died aged 81, was known as “king of the underdogs” for films such as Rocky (1976) and The Karate Kid (1984) — Cinderella stories of little guys who triumph against the odds.
Rocky began as a rank outsider, written by and starring the relatively unknown Sylvester Stallone and costing United Artists a modest $1.1m (€1m) to make. Stallone had scripted the film, about second-rate club boxer Rocky Balboa punching his way to the big time through grit, determination and the love of a good woman. He wrote it after witnessing the showdown between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner.
A stirring paean to blue-collar self-belief, Rocky was supposed to star Robert Redford, but Stallone lobbied the producer Irwin Winkler for the part.
The film was shot in just 28 days and went on to gross $225m (€201m), more than 100 times its original budget, after Avildsen dumped the original downbeat ending and shot a more hopeful one. It won Avildsen the best director Oscar and scooped the best picture and editing prizes in a year that included Taxi Driver, All the President’s Men and Network. Rocky launched Stallone’s career and established a character that would last through six sequels.
Avildsen had been working on another film when first approached, but the production company ran out of money. He read Stallone’s script and was “hooked”, agreeing to direct Rocky despite knowing nothing about boxing. He reunited with Stallone for the fourth in the franchise, Rocky V (1990), in which the boxer, now broke and brain-damaged, returns to the Philadelphia streets of his youth and rediscovers his pride through a young protege, though the series had grown somewhat stale. Rocky V, one critic observed, was “a commendable, if only partially successful, attempt by Stallone to give back some blue-collar grit to the Rocky saga”.
The Karate Kid, a teen-soap action fable, was another surprise hit for Avildsen. It was the story of a weedy teenager (Ralph Macchio), picked on by bullies, who seeks help from a Japanese handyman (Pat Morita), who teaches him about karate, giving him the self-confidence and skills to take on a bully in a karate contest — and win.
The film had a generation of young boys practising the “crane kick” and earned Morita a best supporting actor Oscar nomination. Avildsen went on to make the first two sequels in the franchise, helping to fill a marketing niche in the years between Bruce Lee’s death and the later vogue for Asian martial arts cinema.
Avildsen was born on December 21, 1935, in Illinois, and began his career as an assistant director with Arthur Penn and Otto Preminger, becoming production manager, cinematographer and editor.
He scored his first success with the low-budget feature Joe (1970), starring Peter Boyle as a factory worker who hates “hippies and blacks”. He had another hit with Save the Tiger (1973), which won best actor for Jack Lemmon, who plays a small-time clothing manufacturer and war veteran wrestling with his conscience as he considers torching a warehouse for the insurance to stop his firm going under.
Some other films Avildsen directed included Burt Reynolds in WW and the Dixie Dancekings (1975); George C Scott and Marlon Brando in The Formula (1980); Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in Neighbors (1981); and Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me (1989).
Avildsen, who died on June 16, is survived by three sons and a daughter.