Geoff Murphy

Film director

BORN: OCTOBER 12, 1938 – DIED: DECEMBER 3, 2018, AGED 80

GEOFF Murphy was a key pioneer of the modern New Zealand film industry, with credits including Goodbye Pork Pie, his country’s first homegrown commercial hit.

While Murphy made many successful films, such as The Quiet Earth and Utu, modern audiences would probably have encountered his work without recognising his part in it.

Murphy was second unit director on Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and took charge of many of the epic movie’s famous battle scenes.

Murphy grew up in Wellington where he attended St Patrick’s College and started out as a schoolteacher.

His wife, Merata Mita, an actress and film-maker, died in 2010.