John Badham

John MacDonald Badham (born August 25, 1939) is an English-born American director of film and television, best known for the films Saturday Night Fever (1977), Dracula (1979), Blue Thunder (1983), WarGames (1983), Short Circuit (1986), and Stakeout (1987). 2Early life John Badham was born in Luton, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom, the son of U.S. Army General Henry Lee Badham, Jr., and English-born actress Mary Iola Badham (née Hewitt). Badham's father, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, moved his family back to the U.S., when Badham was two years old. John's parents and paternal grandparents are buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham. John's father was an aviator in both World Wars, and was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007. After retirement from the U.S. Air Force as a Brigadier General, John's father became a businessman and was involved with the development of the Ensley and Bessemer regions near Birmingham, Alabama. This same line of business had brought his own father, John's grandfather, into association with Walker Percy, grandfather of writer Walker Percy. Following World War II, Badham's family settled in Mountain Brook, a suburb of Henry Lee Badham, Jr.'s native Birmingham, where John Badham was raised. He attended the Indian Springs School in Indian Springs Village and college at Yale University. 2Career Badham worked in television for years, before his breakthrough in 1977 with Saturday Night Fever, a massive worldwide hit starring John Travolt