John's entertainment career began as a high school student actor in South San Francisco and while at college worked as a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
He performed in the Troupe's award-winning production of A Minstrel Show (or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel) He attended film schools in Sweden and London, and returned to the US to ply his trade.
He worked on a wide range of films, including The Exorcist (1973, supervising editor, for which he received an Oscar nomination), Six Pack Annie (1975, director), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986, production manager) and Monkey Trouble (1994, production manager and co-producer).
He met his wife, Eunice (Neecee), when he was in Brazil during the filming of Moon over Parador.
This article about a United States film director born in the 1940s is a stub.