George Armitage, the director known for Hit Man (1972), Miami Blues (1990) and Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), has died. He was 82.
The writer, director and producer died last Saturday, surrounded by three generations of family, his niece told TMZ. Armitage’s cause of death was not immediately disclosed.
Born Dec. 13, 1942 in Hartford, Connecticut, Armitage moved to Beverly Hills with his family as a child. After majoring in political science and economics at UCLA, he found himself breaking into the film industry, working in the mail room at 20th Century Fox while waiting for his real estate license to come through.
Within a year, Armitage was an associate producer on the ABC soap Peyton Place. “It was an incredible experience,” he recalled in 2015.
“There was a producer there named Everett Chambers who would work on a number of films with John Cassavetes, he was usually helpful,” said Armitage. “This was just at the time when the fortysomething producers who were kind of hip and jazz-oriented were coming in… I was 21, 22, something like that, and if you were young, if you had an opinion, were kind of hip, knew what was going on with your own generation, you were very valuable. So I went from producer to producer all over the lot pitching ideas, I created series, I wrote a couple of things for television and, about that time, started writing screenplays.”
In 1971, he wrote and directed his feature debut Private Duty Nurses, followed by the 1972 blaxploitation-themed film Hit Man, starring Pam Grier and Bernie Casey.
Armitage also directed the films Vigilante Force (1976), Hot Rod (1979) and The Big Bounce (2004). After meeting him during his early days at Fox, Armitage frequently worked with Roger Corman.
