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Lee Tamahori

Biography

Lee Tamahori

Overview

  • Born
    April 22, 1950 · Wellington, New Zealand
  • Died
    November 7, 2025 · Auckland, New Zealand (Parkinson's disease)
  • Birth name
    Warren Lee Tamahori

Mini bio

  • Beginning as a commercial artist and photographer, he joined the New Zealand film industry in the late 1970s as a boom operator. He became an assistant director a decade later. Making international award-winning commercials for 10 years, he has also directed several TV series. His first feature film, Once Were Warriors (1994), won the PEN First Book Award.
    - IMDb mini biography by: L.H. Wong

Family

  • Children
      Max
      Sam
      Tane
      Meka
  • Parents
      Phillip Tamahori
      Patricia Tamahori
  • Relatives
      Renaye Tamahori(Sibling)
      Glenn Tamahori(Sibling)

Trademarks

  • Progresses the film through fast-paced visuals

Trivia

  • His father is Maori, his mother is British.
  • Past jobs have included: commercial artist, photographer, boom operator, and assistant director
  • In recent years, has suffered the effects of Parkinson's.
  • Lee Tamahori was a New Zealand film director. His feature directorial debut, Once Were Warriors (1994), was a widespread critical and commercial success. It is considered one of the greatest New Zealand films ever made.
  • In January 2006, Tamahori was arrested on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, when according to the Los Angeles Police Department, he entered an undercover policeman's car while wearing a woman's dress and offered to perform a sex act in exchange for money. In February 2006, he pleaded no contest in a Los Angeles court to a charge of criminal trespass in return for prosecutors dropping charges of prostitution and loitering. He was placed on 36 months' probation and ordered to perform 15 days of community service.

Quotes

  • Sex should not be in the movies and should be in the home, and violence should be in the movies and not in the home.

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