Robert Clouse (6 March 1928 – 4 February 1997), born in Wisconsin in the United States, was an American film director and writer. He began making short films in the 1960s; his first two, The Cadillac (1962) and The Legend of Jimmy Blue Eyes (1964), were respectively nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1963 and 1965. He directed his first feature, Darker Than Amber, in 1970. Invited to Hong Kong by Golden Harvest and Warner Bros., he directed Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (1973), a martial-arts picture that also starred the American actors John Saxon and Jim Kelly; its success opened Hollywood distribution for Hong Kong-made films, and Golden Harvest used him repeatedly thereafter. In 1978 he wrote and directed The Amsterdam Kill, Golden Harvest's first English-language production to open in the city, and that same year he completed Bruce Lee's unfinished Game of Death for the company. He also wrote and directed the 1980 The Big Brawl, made to launch Jackie Chan internationally, followed by The Squeeze (1982) and the Cynthia Rothrock pictures China O'Brien (1990–91). His last film was Ironheart (1992), and he wrote a biography of Bruce Lee; he died of kidney failure in Oregon on 4 February 1997, his remains being cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.
Clouse was the Western director who carried Bruce Lee and Hong Kong martial-arts cinema into the international market, as Enter the Dragon opened Hollywood distribution for Golden Harvest; his later pictures for Jackie Chan and Cynthia Rothrock continued that Hong Kong-American co-production route.
Achievements
- 1962 · His first short, The Cadillac, was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
- 1973 · Came to Hong Kong at the invitation of Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. to direct Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon.
- 1978 · Completed Bruce Lee's unfinished Game of Death for Golden Harvest and wrote and directed the company's first English-language film, The Amsterdam Kill.