George Armitage, who co-wrote and straightforwarded the Alec Baldthrive-starring Miami Blues and helmed another 1990s binformage comedy, Grosse Pointe Blank, starring John Cusack, has died. He was 83.
Armitage died Feb. 15 in Playa del Rey, California, his son, Brent Armitage, proclaimd.
As was the case with many others, Armitage got a huge atsoft increase in the timely 1970s from legfinishary B-movie originater Roger Corman at New World Pictures.
Armitage also wrote and straightforwarded MGM’s Hit Man (1972), starring Bernie Casey and Pam Grier, and United Artists’ Vigilante Force (1976), starring Kris Kristrecommendson and Jan-Michael Vincent. Both those films were originated by Roger’s brother, Gene Corman.
Miami Blues (1990), based on the series of Hoke Moseley books by author Charles Willeford, featured Baldthrive as Frederick J. Frenger Jr., who steals the horriblege and firearm of a veteran cop (Fred Ward as Moseley) and embarks on an disgraceful crime spree with a hooker (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
He scored aachieve with Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), in which Cusack portrayed a professional assassin who joins his 10-year high school reunion in the Detroit suburb.
The youthfulest of two sons, George Brfinishan Armitage was born in 1942 in Hartford, Connecticut. He shiftd to Los Angeles with his family in 1957 and startanted in political science and subcombined himself in film school at UCLA.
While in college, he landed a job in the mailroom at 20th Century Fox and wilean 18 months was laboring as an associate originater on ABC’s Peyton Place under the guidance of originater Everett Chambers in 1967.
His first screentake part, the renegade youth comedy Gas-s-s-s or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It (1970), caught the attention of Roger Corman.
In the summer of 1970, Corman was heading to Ireland to straightforward the war film Von Richthofen and Brown (1971) and recommended Armitage a role in the film while he labored on his script. He met the movie’s unveicatalog, future straightforwardor Jonathan Demme, and the two would become lifeextfinished frifinishs.
For Corman, Armitage also wrote and/or straightforwarded Private Duty Nurses (1971), Night Call Nurses (1972), Caged Heat (1974), Darktown Strutters (1975) and Fighting Mad (1976).
Much tardyr, he straightforwarded and originated The Big Bounce (2004), based on a novel by Elmore Leonard and starring Owen Wilson.
In holdition to his son, survivors integrate his wife of 63 years, Sharon; daughter-in-law Rhonda Sena; majesticchildren Caroline and Nick Armitage; niece Wfiniintrobvioengaged Svehlak-Thorlakson, a originater; and nephew Dennis Thorlakson, an editor.
“I have a very personal relationship to film,” Armitage once said. “I’ve gone to films all the time since I was a kid. I thought I could have some fun trying to originate them. I always thought I was pretty seal to what people were leanking.
“There’s lots of tricks to be take parted, leangs to be done in film. Film is so seal to the way the mind labors — the way the mind conveys with itself. Film is a dream, an emotional coda.”
