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Paul Edward Haggis (born March 10, 1953) is a Canadian screenwriter, film producer, and director of film and television. He is best known as screenwriter and producer for consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Crash (2005), the latter of which he also directed.
Paul Haggis. Writer: Crash. Paul Haggis established himself over twenty years with an extensive career in television, before his big break into features arrived when he became the first screenwriter to garner two Best Film Academy Awards back-to-back for his scripts: "Million Dollar Baby" (2004) directed by Clint Eastwood, and "Crash" (2005 ...
- January 1, 1
- 1.83 m
- London, Ontario, Canada
- Early Years
- Early Television Career
- Due South
- Million Dollar Baby
- Crash
- James Bond Reboot and Other Successes
- Later Television Career
- Personal Life
- Charity Work
- Scientology
Paul Haggis’s father, Ted, served in the Canadian Navy during the Second World War. He also competed as a sprinter in the 1948 Olympic Summer Games before running his own construction company. Paul’s mother, Mary, was a telephone operator. She raised Paul and his sisters Catholic, but stopped bringing them to church when Haggis was 13 after she con...
In 1975, Haggis moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career writing for television. It took more than three years to sell his first script (for The Love Boat). He persisted with the support of his family and was eventually hired by legendary producer Norman Lear, who gave Haggis his first writing job on Diff'rent Strokes in 1983. A succession of series...
Haggis returned to Canada to produce the pilot and write for the first two seasons of the popular series Due South (1994–96). It starred Paul Gross as a straightlaced RCMP constable on assignment in Chicago. Due South was the first Canadian series to air during American primetime despite its unabashed Canadian character. The series earned Haggis si...
In 2000, Haggis moved on to writing, directing and producing movies. After discovering an unpublished collection of short stories by F.X. Toole called Rope Burns, Haggis secured the film rights and wrote the script for Million Dollar Baby on spec. He submitted it to Clint Eastwood's production company and, to his surprise, Eastwood chose to direct ...
Million Dollar Baby’s Oscar triumph in February 2005 built on the momentum that began for Haggis when Crash, his first feature as a director, debuted to much acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2004. Crash drew on Haggis’s experience of being carjacked in 1991 to depict racial tensions in Los Angeles, with complex...
Haggis’s hot-streak continued when Clint Eastwood hired him to adapt James Bradley and Ron Powers’s novel Flags of Our Fathers, about the bloody Second World War battle for Iwo Jima Island and the iconic photograph of the victorious raising of the American flag. The result was two films released back-to-back in 2006: Flags of Our Fathers, which tol...
Haggis returned to television in 2007 with the crime drama The Black Donnellys, inspired by the story of rival London families that ended in murder. In 2015, he directed the acclaimed HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero, co-written and produced by The Wire writer David Simon and based on a fight for social housing in Yonkers, New York, in the late-1980s ...
Paul Haggis has three daughters, Alissa, Lauren and Katy, from his marriage to Diane Gettas (1977–97), and a son, James, from his marriage to Deborah Rennard (1997–2009). Haggis often works with members of his family. His surviving sister, Jo Francis, edited In the Valley of Elah, The Next Three Days and Show Me a Hero. Haggis’s workaholic nature s...
Haggis has a reputation for fundraising and philanthropy. He co-founded the charity Artists for Peace and Justice in 2009. The organization provides relief in Haiti by improving education, health care and access to clean water.
Haggis became involved with the Church of Scientology in 1975 and was a prominent member for many years. However, he apostatized in 2009 due to Scientology’s practice of “disconnection,” in which believers sever ties from skeptical friends and family, and due to the organization’s outspoken homophobia. (Two of Haggis’s daughters are gay.) As Scient...
Paul Haggis at Canadian Film Centre masterclass (November 7, 2011) - 2.jpg 3,000 × 2,136; 709 KB Paul Haggis at Canadian Film Centre masterclass (November 7, 2011).jpg 2,239 × 3,000; 808 KB Paul Haggis by David Shankbone cropped.jpg 760 × 1,248; 601 KB
Haggis received two Academy Awards for the film: Best Picture (as its producer), and Best Writing for his work on the screenplay. With Million Dollar Baby and then Crash, Haggis became the first individual to have written Best Picture Oscar-winners in two consecutive years.
Paul Edward Haggis (born March 10, 1953) is a Canadian screenwriter, movie producer, and movie director. He is best known as screenwriter and producer for the Best Picture Oscar winners: Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Crash (2005).
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Feb 19, 2007 · Haggis is the first person in history to write back-to-back best picture winners. The first two FILMS he wrote, Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Crash (2005), won a total of seven Academy Awards.
