One of the great names in the global ski community, Warren Miller, has died at the age of 93.
Miller was a pioneer of snow-sports filmmaking, eventually producing more than 500 adventure-sport films.
From the 1950s onward his films toured cinemas around the world each autumn, building up anticipation for the coming ski season and introducing snow-hungry skiers to exotic destinations around the world in the era before the internet and digital filming made these destinations instantly available on a screen in your pocket.
Miller was born in Hollywood in October 1924 and enjoyed skiing, surfing, and photography in his youth.
He is first known to have filmed skiing at Yosemite on a Christmas break in 1944 when on leave from wartime service in the Navy.
Upon discharge from the Navy in 1946 he bought his first 8mm movie camera and moved to Sun Valley, Idaho where he camped in the carpark and worked as a ski instructor, filming friends in his spare time to critique and improve their ski technique.
The films proved increasingly popular and in 1949, Miller founded Warren Miller Entertainment and began a long-standing tradition of producing one feature-length ski film per year.
Initially renting cinemas and halls near ski resorts so he could film in the daytime then sell tickets in the evenings, the films became increasingly big budget over more than three decades visiting all corners of the skiing world. However the films always remained entertaining and fun as well as educational and inspirational.
His films also included a world-class roster of skiing legends over the years including Otto Lang, Hannes Schneider, Stein Eriksen, Jimmie Heuga, Billy Kidd and Jean-Claude Killy.
Although Warren Miller Entertainment still exists as a ‘brand name,’ Miller had little involvement with his company, which he sold, after the 1980s, although he narrated some films made by the company until 2004.
Among his other work Miller also wrote more than 1,000 newspaper and magazine articles and 11 books, many self-illustrated.
“I really believe in my heart that that first turn you make on a pair of skis is your first taste of total freedom, the first time in your life that you could go anywhere that your adrenaline would let you go,” Miller said at age 86, “And I show that in my films. I didn’t preach it. But once you experience that freedom — and I came to the conclusion that man’s search for freedom is embedded in our genes. That’s what everybody wants.”
Before he died Miller is reported to have suggested that a fitting memorial, for those able, would be a run down a favourite ski slope in his honour.
“If you don’t do it now, you’ll only be a year older when you do.”