George Miller

In 1985, George Miller married actress Sandy Gore and had a daughter named Augusta with her. They divorced in 1992.

In 1995, he married film editor Margaret Sixel, whom he had met during the production of ‘Flirting’. The couple has two sons, Buda Miller, born in 1996 and Tige Miller, born in 2006.

George Miller was born on March 3, 1945, in Queensland, Australia into a Greek immigrant family. There is dispute about the exact place of his birth. While some say that he was born in Brisbane, others mention Chinchilla, where he spent his early childhood, as his birth place.

His father, Dimitri Castrisios Miliotis, was from the Greek island of Kythira, where the family operated a mill. On migrating to Australia, he changed his surname to Miller, eventually setting up a general store and a café in Chinchilla.

His mother, Angela nee Balloyoulo, worked with her husband at the store. Her family, originally from Anatolia, was displaced by the 1923 population exchange. On migrating to Australia, they anglicized their surname to Balson.

The couple had four children; all boys. Among them, George and his fraternal (un-identical) twin John, were born first. He has two younger brothers named Chris and Bill. Incidentally, Bill grew up to be an award-winning film producer.

He had a very happy childhood, playing all day long with friends, roaming around the bush at his own will, his parents never knowing where he was. He also loved to listen to the radios and watch movies at Star Theatre, trying to incorporate what he saw into their games.

In 1971, while studying in their final year, George and John directed and produced a one-minute film. It earned them the first prize in a local competition, enabling George to enroll in a summer film school workshop under the University of Melbourne free of cost.

At the film workshop in Melbourne, George met Byron Kennedy, forming a lifelong friendship with him. Also in 1971, George wrote and directed his first film, ‘Violence in Cinema Part I’. Produced by Byron, it entered the 1972 Sydney Film Festival in the documentary category and won critical acclaim.

On receiving his MBBS degree in 1971, Miller served as the resident medical officer at St. Vincent's Hospital for year. Thereafter, he joined a city hospital, serving there for two and half years, and remained registered with medical board until 1981. Concurrently, he continued to work on short experimental films.

In 1978, George Miller cofounded ‘Kennedy Miller Production’ with Byron Kennedy, producing their debut film, ‘Mad Max’ in 1979, meeting the postproduction cost with Miller’s medical income. The film, directed and co-written by Miller, was an instant hit, grossing Australian $5,355,490 at home and over US$100 million worldwide.

In 1980, he produced ‘The Chain Reaction’, a disaster/science fiction thriller, directed and written by Ian Barry. In it, Miller directed the car chase sequence (un-credited). Meanwhile, he received number of offers from Hollywood; but chose to work on a rock and roll movie called ‘Roxanne’.

George Miller is best known for his ‘Mad Max’ films, which depict the adventures of Max Rockatansky, a police officer in a future Australia. The franchise started with ‘Mad Max’ (1979), which was followed by Mad Max 2 (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).