Director, Screenwriter, Actor

(b. January 1, 1947 Arvida, Quebec)

Allan Moyle might be described as the Diogenes of Canadian cinema, wandering about the planet looking for an honest project. After attending McGill University, where he was a founding member of the Players’ Club, he moved first to San Francisco to absorb the best of the youth-quake culture, then to New York, where he studied acting with the late, legendary director Nicholas Ray.

An unconventional filmmaker responsible for offbeat, independent and mainstream Hollywood films of varying success, Moyle made his screenwriting debut in 1974 with the Frank Vitale-directed Montreal Main, in which he also acted. In 1977, Moyle directed his first feature, The Rubber Gun (which earned him a Genie Award screenplay nomination), and also appeared onscreen in two cult hits, David Cronenberg’s Rabid and Richard Benner’s Outrageous! His first directorial effort for a Hollywood studio, Times Square (1980), was a commercial and critical bomb, and the experience proved so stressful that Moyle developed a rare medical condition which caused all his hair to fall out.

He abandoned the director’s chair for a decade, during which time he wrote a novel and several screenplays, but made a triumphant return to directing with the hit Christian Slater vehicle, Pump Up the Volume (1990). He has continued to distinguish himself in the teen film genre with such entries as Empire Records (1995) and the huge sleeper hit New Waterford Girl (1999).

Film and video work includes

Joe, 1970 (actor)
East End Hustle, 1976 (co-writer with Frank Vitale; associate producer; actor)
The Mourning Suit, 1976 (actor)
Times Square, 1980 (director; co-story with Leanne Unger)
Energy and How to Get It, 1981 (actor)
Pump Up the Volume, 1990 (director; writer)
Red Blooded American Girl, 1990 (writer)
Love Crimes, 1992 (co-writer with Laurie Frank)
The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag, 1992 (director)
Empire Records, 1995 (director)
Jailbait, 2000 (director; TV)
X Change, 2001 (director; TV)
Say Nothing, 2001 (director)
Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story, 2004 (director; TV)
Weirdsville, 2007 (director)