Taylor Hackford

Born: 31 December 1945
Where: Santa, Barbara, California

Director Hackford has been thrust into the Hollywood limelight wiht his masterpiece biopic of the life of Ray Charles.

Ray was nominated in seven categories, and Jamie Foxx took the Best Actor award for his leading role, although Hackford lost out as Best Director to Clint Eastwood.

The former investigative journalist scored a massive success with his Oscar-nominated second feature An Officer and a Gentleman.

The movie, featuring Richard Gere as wannabe navy pilot, received five Academy Award nominations with Louis Gossett Jr landing a best supporting actor Oscar.

Working as both producer and director, Hackford has gone on to enjoy success with the likes of Against All Odds, The Devil's Advocate and Ray.

After serving with the Peace Corps in the 1960s in Bolivia, Hackford began his film career in the mailroom at LA TV station KCET.

There, he pioneered the presentation of uninterrupted rock'n'roll performances on US television as well as working on award-winning documentaries.

He also served as an investigative reporter in the news division, where he received an Associated Press Award and two Emmys.

In 1979, he landed an Oscar for best live action short film for Teenage Father and made his big screen feature debut with The Idolmaker, starring Ray Sharkey.

After An Officer and a Gentleman, Hackford remade the film noir classic Out of the Past as Against All Odds with Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward.

Next up was the Cold War drama White Nights, which starred Mikhail Baryshnikov as a defecting ballet dancer and Hackford's future wife Helen Mirren.

In 1987, Taylor produced the multi award winning Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba which he followed up with the musical documentary Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll!

Epic LA gang war drama Bound By Honour saw Hackford land the best director award at the Tokyo Film Festival and next up was Stephen King's Dolores Clairborne with a memorable peformance from Kathy Bates.

In 1997, he directed the critically acclaimed morality tale The Devil's Advocate with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves.

He followed this with Proof of Life about the real-life kidnapping of a businessman in South America and starring ill-fated couple Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe.

Recent work has included Ray Charles' biopic Ray with Jamie Foxx - a project Hackford had been pushing for for 16 years.