WARREN MILLER: Legendary skiing filmmaker dies of natural causes at age 93.
Warren Miller, the catalyst of countless movie-house belly laughs, died Wednesday night at his Orcas Island, Wash., home at age 93, leaving a legacy that includes more than 58 feature movies, hundreds of marketing films, 10 books and thousands of snowy stories.
“I think he single-handedly made more skiers in America than any other single human being, and he did it by making people smile,” said Klaus Obermeyer, the yodeling 98-year-old Aspen icon who still serves as CEO of Obermeyer, which he founded in 1947. “He enjoyed making people smile in his mov-
ies as well as when he spoke.”
The wisecracking Miller documented the evolution of skiing starting in 1949, hauling his cameras to just about every resort and mountain range in the world. When he started, the U.S. had maybe a dozen chairlifts. Today, more than 480 U.S. hills host about 55 million visits every winter. That growth can be traced to Miller, whose lighthearted approach behind the camera showed millions of Americans both the absurdity and significance of skiing.
Few in the history of schussing down snow have done more to expose the most enthralling aspects of frolicking in winter landscapes. He made skiing inviting.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a person in our sport who could combine the talents he had as a storyteller with a humor that showed the lighter side of skiing,” said Aspen’s Chris Davenport, who counts his 10 appearances in Warren Miller movies as a cornerstone of his legacy as a skier.
Miller was the original ski bum, forging a path that today remains a rite of passage for countless skiers. He cooked rabbits out of the back of a trailer in ski area parking lots across the west in the late 1940s, selling his doodles and sketches for cash to buy lift tickets. He and a buddy shot footage of their skiing exploits, and he narrated the action. He was skiing’s Jack Kerouac, a poetic beatnik whose unwavering passion for powder paved the dowhatever-it-takes-to-ski ethos that still motivates ski bums around the globe.
His life wasn’t all snowy mountaintops. His valleys were deep. He was neglected as a kid — a hard upbringing in Southern California that fostered his independence. In his illuminating 2016 book “Freedom Found,” which he wrote with ski industry veteran Andy Bigford, he detailed his early life challenges, from a pilfering mother and sister to surviving the sinking of his Navy submarine chaser in a typhoon during World War II.
Making movies was his life. In the early days, he would make the film and then show it as many as 200 times in theaters across the country, narrating the action from the stage. He worked with many ski resort founders, usually with camera in hand, to promote their hills. He often closed his movies with a famous quip, a prod to get out and play in the snow.
“If you don’t do it this year, you’ll be one year older when you do,” he would say.
In 1988, he sold his moviemaking company, Warren Miller Entertainment, to his son, Kurt. He continued to narrate films, even as the company moved from Time Warner and then the Bonnier Corp. in 2002. In 2009, he connected with Denver filmmaker Josh Berman, one of dozens of now-thriving ski filmmakers who count Miller as an inspiration. Berman’s Level 1 Productions focuses largely on today’s younger generation of skiers, with irreverent yet audacious exploits that more closely reflected the influence of movie maker Greg Stump than Miller.
But Berman leapt at the chance to introduce that youthful generation, including Miller and his archetypal narration in his 2009 movie “Refresh.” Bonnier didn’t like that, and its Warren Miller Entertainment sued Berman for trademark infringement, arguing it owned Warren Miller’s voice and name.
“My guess was they assumed I would do anything they wanted and I would call them begging for forgiveness. I just called Warren,” said Berman, who was 29 back then.
Miller filed a motion to be involved in the case and suddenly Warren Miller Entertainment was suing Warren Miller. In 2010, more than year after Bonnier’s Boulder-based Warren Miller Entertainment sued to block screenings of “Refresh,” an arbitration panel denied the company’s breach-of-contract claim.
Despite all the legal hassles, Berman, who has made 18 feature ski films, counts “Refresh” as a favorite. He was able to introduce a legend to younger skiers who might have considered Warren Miller their parents’ moviemaker.
“We approached it as an opportunity to connect the dots between what Warren Miller the man and his legacy stood for and modernday skiing and modern-day ski filmmaking as we were interpreting it,” Berman said. “To bring those two things together was the challenge, and the end result was kind of magical.”
Active Interest Media bought Bonnier’s Boulderbased SKI, Skiing and Warren Miller Entertainment in 2013. The next year, company chief Andy Clurman invited Miller for a visit to the Boulder officer. Miller told Clurman he only had 15 minutes.
As employees gathered to meet the fabled storyteller, Clurman showed him the layout for an upcoming magazine.
“He said ‘It looks like s*** and you should fire everybody.’ That’s what he said,” Clurman said. Then they went to the office’s vast vault, where every Warren Miller film is kept.
“He stayed in there for hours,” Clurman said of the homecoming.
At the Outdoor Retailer Snow Show — the nation’s largest gathering of the skiing and snowboarding tribe, taking place this week in Denver — Miller’s death resonated Thursday. Most everyone had a story or two about Miller, either the man or how his movies planted a seed that flourished into a life-long passion and career.
“Sometimes we can take ourselves too seriously, and Warren showed us we shouldn’t do that,” Aspen’s Davenport said. “Skiing is all about having fun. We have to always remind ourselves of that. And Warren will always help us remember, once a year, when we go and see that movie.”