George Miller

George Miller AO (born 3 March 1945) is an Australian film director, producer, screenwriter, and physician. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise, whose second installment, Mad Max 2, and fourth, Fury Road, have been hailed as two of the greatest action films of all time; while Fury Road won six Academy Awards. Miller is very diverse in genre and style as he also directed the biographical medical drama Lorenzo's Oil, the dark fantasy The Witches of Eastwick, the Academy-Award winning animated film Happy Feet, the action comedy crime film Harlem Boys and the teen romantic science fiction comedy Eleanor, produced the family friendly fantasy adventure Babe and directed the sequel Babe: Pig in the City.

Miller is a co-founder of the production houses Kennedy Miller Mitchell, formerly known as Kennedy Miller, and Dr. D Studios. His younger brother Bill Miller and Doug Mitchell have been producers on almost all the films in Miller's later career, since the death of his original producing partner Byron Kennedy.

In 2006, Miller won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Happy Feet (2006). He has been nominated for five other Academy Awards: Best Original Screenplay in 1992 for Lorenzo's Oil, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1995 for Babe, and Best Picture and Best Director for Fury Road in 2015.

Early life
Miller was born in Brisbane, Queensland, to Greek immigrant parents: Dimitrios (Jim) Castrisios Miliotis (Miller) and Angela Balson. Dimitrios was born on the Greek island of Kythira, and anglicised his surname from Miliotis to Miller when he emigrated to Australia; the Balson family were Greek refugees from Anatolia, displaced by the 1923 population exchange. The couple married and settled in Chinchilla and had four sons: fraternal twins George and John, Chris, and Bill.

George attended Ipswich Grammar School and later Sydney Boys High School, then studied medicine at the University of New South Wales with his twin brother John. While in his final year at medical school (1971), George and his younger brother Chris made St. Vincent's Revue Film, a one-minute short film that won them first prize in a student competition. In 1971, George attended a film workshop at Melbourne University where he met fellow student, Byron Kennedy, with whom he formed a lasting friendship and production partnership, until Kennedy's death. In 1972, Miller completed his residency at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, spending his time off crewing on short experimental films. That same year, Miller and Kennedy founded Kennedy Miller Productions. The pair subsequently collaborated on numerous works. After Kennedy died in 1983, Miller kept his name in the company. It was later renamed Kennedy Miller Mitchell in 2009 as a way to recognise producer Doug Mitchell's role in the company.