- Is a personal friend of the Coen brothers and was the inspiration for the character of Walter in the The Big Lebowski (1998).
- Wrote the line, "Go ahead, make my day," for Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" character in Sudden Impact (1983).
- Wrote "U.S.S. Indianapolis" scene in Jaws (1975).
- Is one of the original founders of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
- Lost most of his fortune in the early nineties due to a corrupt accountant. Desperate to pay for his son's Law School tuition, he asked his friend David Milch to hire him as a staff writer for Deadwood (2004). Milch refused based on the absurdity of hiring a veteran screenwriter for entry-level work, and instead offered to simply pay the son's tuition in full. Milius later repaid Milch for the loan.
- Milius, an avid gun collector, insisted that part of his payment for writing Jeremiah Johnson (1972) be in antique weapons.
- When Steven Spielberg asked him to punch up the screenplay for Saving Private Ryan (1998), Milius suggested the Normandy cemetery bookends where Ryan, now an elderly hero of World War II, in a moment of survivor guilt, asks his wife "Did I live a good life?".
- Was the inspiration for drag-racer John Milner (played by Paul Le Mat) in American Graffiti (1973).
- Through his work, on Rough Riders (1997), he was instrumental in causing President Theodore Roosevelt to be posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for acts of conspicuous gallantry on San Juan Hill.
- Despite his political beliefs, he is an avid fan of director Spike Lee.
- He is Jewish.
- His favorites films are Howard Hawks' Red River (1948), and "Viva Villa," Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966) (aka Battle of Algiers), Raoul Walsh's They Died with Their Boots On (1941), John Ford's The Searchers (1956) and They Were Expendable (1945), Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) (aka Seven Samurai), Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960), John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941).
- Suffered a severe stroke, and was treated for pancreatic cancer.
- Turned down the role of Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink (1991).
- Despite making two films about Theodore Roosevelt, The Wind and the Lion (1975) and Rough Riders (1997), he considers himself too enamored with Roosevelt to ever make an actual biographical film about his life.
- He was instrumental during the startup of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) organization: it was his idea to use the octagon-shaped cage, and his association with UFC helped provide interest and investors to the startup UFC.
- Is an avid gun collector.
- Member of the NRA Board of Directors from 1995-2001. He currently serves on the Public Affairs and Shotgun Committees.
- He wanted to direct The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) himself, but the producers were not keen on this and paid a record price to own the script outright - $300,000. He was dissatisfied with the final film.
- Sergio Leone courted him to write Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Milius, a fan of his, was enthusiastic about the idea; but Milius was working on The Wind and the Lion (1975) and the script for Apocalypse Now (1979), and could not commit to the project.
- Considers himself as a "zen anarchist".
- He didn't get on too well with Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack on Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and he was fired. Milius claims that his substitute "...couldn't write that stuff," and the only who contributed anything was Edward Anhalt. Redford and Pollack ultimately rehired Milius after Anhalt had left the project.
- Made an honorary member of the Sioux Nation, after his filming of Rough Riders (1997).
- He was a passionate surfer for much of his life but gave it up when he turned fifty.
- He wrote Harlot's Ghost, for Francis Ford Coppola based on a novel by Norman Mailer; Milius described it as "a cross between The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse Now (1979). It's about families and duplicity and danger, but this time provoked by the government".
- He was going to direct a film about Alexander the Great starring Jean-Claude Van Damme but that was put on hold when a mini series on the same topic was made by Italian TV.
- In 1993 he replaced Andrey Konchalovskiy as director on The Northmen for Morgan Creek Productions, about an English monk who gets captured by a band of Vikings. "This was inevitable," Milius said of his directing a Viking film. "I've been a practicing pagan for a long time. Conan the Barbarian (1982) was really a Viking movie but it was disguised." However, financing fell through.
- He was going to direct an adaptation of Tom Clancy's novel Without Remorse with Gary Sinise and Laurence Fishburne, but the project folded in 1995 two weeks before shooting was to commence due to the financial collapse of Savoy Pictures.
- For years Milius was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association, where he was a leader (with Charlton Heston) in resisting a takeover attempt by advocates of the so-called Militia Movement.
- In the early 2000s he worked on King Conan: Crown of Iron (2001-02), a sequel to Conan the Barbarian (1982).
- He was approached to write First Blood (1982) in the late 1970s.
- Attended Los Angeles City College and USC School of Cinema-Television, where he won an International Student Film Festival Award.
- His old agent, Mike Medavoy, helped establish Orion Pictures in 1978 and one of their first movies was going to be East of Suez, written and directed by Milius. It was not made.
- Warner Bros wanted him to update Dirty Harry (1971) and he wanted them to fund a version of The Iliad; there was also talk he would make The Alamo for HBO.
- In 1986 it was reported that he was writing the script for Fatal Beauty (1987) which he hoped to direct with Cher. The film was made by Tom Holland starring Whoopi Goldberg.
- The character of Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) in The Big Lebowski (1998) was partially based on Milius.
- He wrote some pilots which did not go to series - Dodge City (circa 2005) - a Western series for CBS, and Saigon Bureau (2008) - about the AIP Bureau of photojournalists in the Vietnam War, a collaboration with Chris Noth based on the book Requiem. He also wrote a script about the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War, The Choisin Few for Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment, and The Iron Horsemen, a motorcycle feature.
- There was some talk in the 1980s that he would direct a movie for HBO, Capone, but it was not made.
- Father, with ex-wife Celia Milius, of daughter Amanda Milius.
- He worked on a script called Bad Iron, a biker movie written by Kent Anderson, which he intended to produce.
- He developed Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) (2003), a biker film starring Paul Levesque and wrote a pilot for a TV show for UPN, Delta, about a military special ops team that takes on terrorists. Neither of these were made.
- He planned to make a biopic of Senator Joseph McCarthy entitled The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, but it was never made.
- He acted as a mentor to many screenwriters and directors, including Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Kevin Jarre, Danny Bilson, and Paul De Meo.
- Cigar smoker.
- He was considered to work on a film adaptation of the Tom Clancy novel "Cardinal of the Kremlin".
- In 2000 Milius was hired to work as a creative consultant with the Institute for Creative Technologies to pre-visualize the challenges to peace that America will face and the advanced virtual reality technologies necessary to train U.S. troops for the future. "Through his enormous body of work, John has shown a deep understanding of the human condition and the ways that conflict can be resolved," said ICT executive director Richard Lindheim. "Furthermore our efforts will benefit greatly from his vision of the world in the near future, and the techniques and procedures that will be needed to maintain security".
- He was considered to direct Tombstone (1993).
- Wrote Dillinger (1973), then followed-up by writing Melvin Purvis G-MAN (1974). Melvin Purvis is the lawman who captured John Dillinger.
- Wanted to write for the TV series Deadwood (2004) and even approached producer David Milch about it, but Milch resisted the idea, based on the absurdity of hiring a veteran screenwriter for entry-level work, Milius told him he needed the money to put his son through law school, instead Milch offered to pay his son's tuition in full. Later when Milius made Rome (2005), he repaid Milch for the loan.
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