GREEN, Walon 1936–

PERSONAL: Born December 15, 1936, in Baltimore, MD; father a pilot; mother a showgirl.

ADDRESSES: Agent—ICM, 8942 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211-1934.

CAREER: Producer, director, cinematographer, dialogue coach, consultant, and writer. Film work includes (as dialect advisor) The Outrage, 1964; (as dialogue coach) Morituri, 1965; (as director) Spree (also known as Las Vegas by Night), TransAmerica, 1967; (as director, producer, and cinematographer) The Hellstrom Chronicle (documentary), Cinema 5 Distributing, 1971; (as director) The Secret Life of Plants, Paramount, 1978; and (as executive producer) Sniper, TriStar, 1993. Appeared as himself in the film The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage, 1996. Worked on television series, including (as producer) National Geographic Specials, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), c. 1969–70; (as producer, with others) Hill Street Blues, National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 1981–87; (as executive producer, with others) Law & Order, NBC, 1992–94; (as creative consultant) NYPD Blue, American Broadcasting Companies (ABC), 1993; (as executive producer, with others) NYPD Blue, ABC, 1994–95; (as creative consultant) Millennium, Fox, 1996; (as executive producer, with others) ER, NBC, beginning 1997; and (as executive producer) Dragnet (also known as L.A. Dragnet), ABC, 2003–. Executive producer of television movies, including Strange New World, 1975; and (with others) Zero Effect, 2002. Director of episodes of television series, including National Geographic Specials, CBS, 1964; and Time-Life Specials: The March of Time, 1965. Military service: Air Force Reserve.

AWARDS, HONORS: Academy Award for best documentary feature, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Robert Flaterly Award for best feature-length documentary, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, both 1971, both for The Hellstrom Chronicle.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS

(With Roy N. Sickner and Sam Peckinpah) The Wild Bunch, Warner Bros., 1969.

Sorcerer (based on the French film Wages of Fear by Georges Arnaud), Paramount, 1977.

The Brink's Job (also known as Big Stickup at Brink's; based on the book by Noel Behn), MCA/Universal, 1978.

The Secret Life of Plants, Paramount, 1978.

(With David Freeman and Deric Washburn) The Border, Universal, 1982.

(With D. A. Metrov) Solarbabies (also known as Solar Warriors), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1986.

Crusoe (based on the book by Daniel Dafoe), Island Pictures, 1988.

(With Frank Miller) Robocop 2, Orion, 1990.

(With Michael S. Chernuchin and Tony Puryear) Eraser, Warner Bros., 1996.

The Hi-Lo Country (based on the novel by Max Evans), Gramercy, 1998.

TELEVISION SERIES; WITH OTHERS

Mysteries of the Sea, 1980.

Hill Street Blues, National Broadcasting Company, 1985–87.

Law & Order, National Broadcasting Company, 1991–.

ER, National Broadcasting Company, 1994–.

Millennium, Fox, 1997–99.

Dragnet (also known as L.A. Dragnet), American Broadcasting Companies, 2003–.

OTHER

(With Ronald Graham and Al Ramrus) Strange New World (television movie), 1975.

Robert Kennedy and His Times (television miniseries; based on the book by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 1985.

(With Jeremy Thorn and Peter Lance) Without Warning (television movie), 1994.

(With Jake Kasdan) Zero Effect (television pilot), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Director, producer, and screenwriter Walon Green first made a name for himself in nature documentaries. He garnered three Emmy nominations for his work on National Geographic television specials in the late 1960s, and then in 1971 an Academy award for a film about insects, The Hellstrom Chronicle. In the 1980s he shifted to writing fictional films and television series, many of them in the action genre. He has written for several of the most popular television dramas of the 80s and 90s, including Hill Street Blues and Law & Order, both police shows, and ER, which is set in the emergency room of an inner city Chicago hospital.

Green also adapted Max Evan's novel The Hi-Lo Country for the screen, in something of a change of pace from his previous two films, the science-fiction thriller Robocop 2 and Eraser, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a U.S. marshal who must protect federal witness Vanessa Williams. The Hi-Lo Country, about two New Mexico cowboys recently returned from fighting in World War II who are both infatuated with the same woman, is "a compelling, very American story—the crashing to earth of the myth of the rugged individualist," Bob Ivry wrote in a review for the Bergen County, New Jersey Record.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Film, April, 1989, Ron Shelton, review of The Wild Bunch, pp. 18-19.

Daily Variety, June 18, 2002, Michael Schneider, "Green Joins U's Wolf Pack," pp. 1-2.

Electronic Media, June 24, 2002, Michael Freeman and Chris Pursell, "Hollywood Notes: Green Back in Law & Order Fold," p. 29.

Film Comment, January-February, 1993, Nat Segaloff, interview with Green, p. 40.

Hollywood Reporter, June 18, 2002, pp. 6-7.

Independent (London, England), August 22, 1996, Adam Mars-Jones, review of Eraser, p. 8.

Los Angeles Times, December 30, 1998, Kenneth Turan, review of The Hi-Lo Country, p. 6.

Newsweek, July 1, 1996, David Ansen, review of Eraser, p. 62.

People, July 2, 1990, Ralph Novak, review of Robocop 2, p. 10; July 1, 1996, Ralph Novak, review of Eraser, p. 17.

Record (Bergen County, NJ), January 1, 1999, Bob Ivry, review of The Hi-Lo Country, p. 19.

Sight and Sound, October, 1995, Edward Buscombe, review of The Wild Bunch, p. 62; November, 2000, Leslie Felperin, review of Dinosaur, pp. 50-51.

Time, July 1, 1996, Richard Corliss, review of Eraser, p. 65.

Variety, May 17, 1989, review of Three of a Kind, p. 64; January 4, 1999, Todd McCarthy, review of The Hi-Lo Country, p. 97; May 15, 2000, Todd McCarthy, review of Dinosaur, p. 25.

ONLINE

Hollywood.com, http://www.hollywood.com/ (July 16, 2003), "Walon Green."

Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/ (July 8, 2003), "Walon Green."