Gale Anne Hurd: How a (Walk of Fame) Star was Born

When I was interviewed by Roger Corman for a job at New World Pictures, he asked me if I was married. (Back then a personal question of that sort was not considered off-limits.) I informed Roger that I was a newlywed, and he seemed mightily disappointed. “All my previous assistants,” he said, “have married directors.”

If marrying a director is the ultimate mark of success, Gale Anne Hurd is a champion. Over the years she has been married to James Cameron (1985-1989) and Brian De Palma (1991-1993). Current spouse Jonathan Hensleigh is a successful screenwriter who’s recently moved into the director’s chair.

But Gale herself takes a back seat to no one. The Terminator was her project as well as Cameron’s (he directed, she produced, and they wrote the script together). She also produced Cameron’s Aliens and The Abyss. As head of her own production company since 1985, she’s launched such major action flicks as Terminator 2, The Ghost and the Darkness, Dante’s Peak, Armageddon, and The Incredible Hulk, while also shepherding a sensitive indie called The Waterdance. Zombie enthusiasts love her AMC series, The Walking Dead. And somehow she finds time to be the queen of social media: her Twitter followers number 22,500 (and counting). No wonder she’s just been awarded her very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Like me, Gale was an academic type who was surprised to find herself making genre films as a Corman assistant. After completing a degree in economics and communications at Stanford (Roger’s alma mater), she came to Roger’s attention through one of her professors. As generations of Cormanites can attest, Roger has always preferred hiring females, based on his conviction that women work harder, work cheaper, and are more loyal. And he seems to lean toward candidates with strong basic intelligence, rather than job-specific skills. In the case of Gale, he hit the jackpot.

In her three years at New World, Gale was never treated as a secretary. In short order Roger named her head of advertising. After she proved her mettle as a production assistant (responsible for making coffee and emptying -- ugh! -- the chemical toilets in motor homes), she was promoted to assistant production manager. At the famously decrepit Corman studio, she worked ‘round the clock, supervising the making of sci-fi extravaganzas. As she told me, “I remember that there was an army cot that we had when we were making Battle Beyond the Stars, and you’d just catch whatever sleep you could. And half the time it would be raining and the roof leaked and there’d be four inches of water on the ground and people were using power tools, while standing in the water. Thank God OSHA never came by, and thank God no one died.”

It was amid this chaos that Gale found her future husband and creative partner. Jim Cameron was also working on Battle Beyond the Stars, first as a model builder and then as the film’s art director. (More on this later, I promise.) It wasn’t long before the two of them dreamed up The Terminator, and a franchise was born.

Despite the daunting working conditions at New World, Gale has never felt anything but gratitude to her former boss. He’s famously tight with a buck, but she praises his personal generosity: “He’s the only person I’ve known in the industry who wanted his protégés to succeed and perhaps have even more impressive credentials than his own. I don’t know of anyone else like that. He was genuinely thrilled for everyone who broke out and made a career for themselves.”