APR/MAY 2018
25
ABOUT WARREN MILLER’S LIFE:
Warren Miller was born in Hollywood, California, on October 15th, 1924. His first still
camera was a Bakelite Univex, bought for 39 cents. In 1946 he bought a Bell & Howell
8mm camera for $77 dollars. He first skied at age 13 at Mt Waterman, outside of Los
Angeles, with his Boy Scout troop leader in 1937. Warren purchased his first pair of skis
and bamboo poles for $2 from his paper route earnings.
Warren debuted his first film, “Deep and Light” in 1950, at age 26. He shot it with a bor-
rowed 16-millimeter camera. In 1950, only 12 chairlifts existed in North America. Warren
started making film In the mid-1940s, when he lived in the Sun Valley parking lot for
100 days for $18. Warren was a ski instructor in Sun Valley during the 1948-49 season.
Some 500 new ski resorts were opening in the U.S. from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Miller produced promotional films for a long list of resorts, including Vail and Telluride in
Colorado; Sun Valley, Idaho; Snowbird, Utah; and Sugarbush, Vermont. In 1954, Warren
Miller filmed Olympian Stein Eriksen doing a front flip, and extreme skiing was born on
film.
The Warren Miller film business was sold to his son, Kurt Miller, and Peter Speek in 1989.
Warren wrote and narrated some 57 films before he sold the business and his voice did
appear in some of #58, along with Jonny Moseley.
Warren Miller Day in Idaho is on February 5 - declared by former Idaho Governor John
Evans. Warren Miller is the author of 11 books and has written more than 1,200 weekly
newspaper columns over the past two decades. His autobiography, “Freedom Found,” was
released 2016.
40 YEAR MT BACHELOR EMPLOYEE MARK HAMBY HAS A
VIVID MEMORY OF WARREN MILLER
Warren Miller came to Bachelor in March and April of
1976 to film for part of his featured presentation “Skiing
on My Mind”. Some of that same footage was used in
“Ski The Volcanoes”, a film used to increase ski business
at all Oregon ski resorts. Miller filmed at Timberline, Mt.
Hood Meadows, Anthony Lakes. He came several times
that year.
Bachy locals, Scott McLagan, Ken Klecker, Bruce
Jackson, Doug Pinch, Kathy Degree, Larry Kite, Dennis
Shaw, Charlie Gould, Tina Weaver, Mike Rosak, Randy
Sweak carried Warren’s gear. It was only the second
year I had worked for Mt. B. I was lucky they asked me if
I would like to ski in a film.
When Powdr bought us out they throughout all the stuff in the old storage unit down-
town. I got a film reel out of the garbage. The footage on the real is about the ski areas
in Oregon. Right now I’m having the film transferred to a DVD and will have a small piece
of history to share with other people. Warren Miller gave out pins to people who he filmed
and I still wear mine proudly on my instructor jacket to this day.
I met Mr. Miller as he skied his lady friend down Orange Lift. He had a broken arm in a
cast and I thought they needed help. So I skied over and asked if I could help and they
politely refused. Later that day his lady friend came over to me and said Warren thought
that was cute. I replied,” You don’t mean Warren Miller?” She said, “Yes!” I felt like an idiot.
The man could ski better backwards holding a camera than I could going forward.
Bill Healy, former owner on Mt Bachelor, had Warren speak to the entire Mt. Bachelor
staff at the year end party at the Inn of The Seventh Mountain. My father got to ski with
him that day plus sit right next to Warren at the dinner.