John Badham

Director / Professor / Author

John Badham, BA, MFA Yale University, PHD (hon) Columbia College, is a Director and Producer of Theatrical Films and Television including "Saturday Night Fever", "War Games", "Short Circuit", and "Blue Thunder" to name a few.

Badham was born in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, the son of U.S. Army General Henry Lee Badham Jr., and English-born actress Mary Iola Badham. After World War II, Badham's family settled in Mountain Brook, an affluent suburb of Birmingham. He attended Indian Springs School, at that time a brand-new, liberal boys' school located a short distance south of Birmingham in Shelby County near the rural post office of Helena. He later went to college at Yale University.

Badham worked in television for years, on Universal Television series like “Cannon” and “The Bold Ones”. He then directed several acclaimed TV movies, including “Isn't It Shocking?” (1973) and “The Law” (1974). His first feature film was “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings” in 1976.

His breakthrough came in 1977 when he replaced John G. Avildsen as the director of “Saturday Night Fever”, a massive worldwide hit starring John Travolta. His choices after that film were wildly eclectic, ranging from the action thriller “Blue Thunder” (1983) to the comedy-drama “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” (1981) to the comedy thriller “Stakeout” (1987) and its sequel “Another Stakeout” (1993). “WarGames” (1983), starring Matthew Broderick, is his other signature film, renowned for its take on popular Cold War fears of nuclear terror as well as being one of the first films to deal with the subculture of amateur hacking. Another sizable hit was “Short Circuit” (1986), a comedy about a robot who comes to life.

In addition to his numerous film credits, Badham has also continued to direct and produce for TV, including credits for Rod Serling's “Night Gallery”, the A&E television series “The Beast”, TV movies like HBO's “The Jack Bull” (1999), and episodes of series including “Crossing Jordan” and “Criminal Minds”. He has also contributed commentary to the web series “Trailers from Hell”.

The Library of Congress recently selected ‘Saturday Night Fever’ to be added to the National Registry of Films.

His books “I’ll Be In My Trailer, the Creative Wars Between Directors and Actors”, and "John Badham on Directing" are used as text books in film schools worldwide. His films have been nominated for five Academy awards and two Emmy awards. He has won three Saturn Awards from the Academy of Science fiction and Fantasy and the Grand Prize from the Paris International Science Fiction Festival. His areas of expertise are working with actors, action, suspense and fantasy films.

For the past 20 years he has been the Dodge Professor of Film and Media at Chapman University where he teaches beginning, intermediate and advanced directing and production to both undergraduate and graduate students.