From law to film: Taylor Hackford

Taylor Hackford was born on December  31, 1944 in Santa Barbara, California.  He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1968, where he was a prelaw major. After graduating he volunteered for the Peace Corps in Bolivia, where he started using super 8 film during his spare time.  He then decided to change his career in law over to filming. Hackford started off working with a local television station in Los Angeles, where he later grew into producing until he reached the peek as a director. He has directed fifteen films, including Blood in Blood Out, throughout his life, some of them becoming hits in the film industry: The Idol Maker, White Nights, Ray, and the Devil’s Advocate.  Many of his movies carried famous names such as: Jamie Foxx, Al Pacino and his current wife, also academy award winning actress who starred in one of  his early films in the eighty’s,  Helen Mirren.  In 2005 he  was awarded  the “Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing” and was elected President of the “Directors Guild of America” in 2009.