Alex Cox was born on
December 15, 1954. He was working on a law degree at Oxford when he left to
pursue a film career at UCLA. In 1984 Cox wrote the screenplay for “Repo Man”,
which he hoped to produce for a budget of $70,000. While seeking this funding,
he met ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith, who agreed to produce the film, and convinced
Universal Studios to back the project with a budget greatly increased to over a
million dollars. During the course of the film's production, management
changed, and new management had far less faith in the project. The initial
theatrical release was limited to Chicago, followed by Los Angeles, and was
short lived. After the success of the soundtrack album (notable for featuring
many popular LA punk bands), there was enough interest in the film to earn a
re-release in a single theater in New York City. This ran for 18 months and
eventually earned $4,000,000, despite arriving after the movie was already on
video and cable. He has been influenced by such well-known directors as Sergio
Leone, Luis Bunuel, Akira Kurosawa, Sam Peckinpah and John Ford. One of his
better known films was “Walker” (1987). Carrying a love for the Spaghetti
Western genre since high school he made his only Euro-western “Straight to
Hell” in 1987 and wrote a history on the genre called 10,000 Ways to Die in 2009.
Today we celebrate
his 60th birthday.
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