Gale Anne Hurd
Gale Anne Hurd is one of Hollywood’s highest-profile and most versatile female producers, whose film and television repertoire has included green monsters, iconic aliens and zombies.
Like many of her peers, Hurd first learned the business working for producer Roger Corman, quickly rising from his assistant to his head of marketing.
Her first big project was the 1984 sci-fi film “The Terminator,” directed and co-written by her creative partner and former husband, James Cameron. Then came Cameron’s “Aliens,” which received two Academy Awards, and the Oscar-winning films “The Abyss” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
The success of those movies established Hurd’s place in the previously male-dominated world of the Hollywood blockbuster.
Hurd went on to produce other high-profile action and sci-fi movies, including “Tremors”; “Alien Nation,” which was adapted into a Fox TV series; “Armageddon”; and “The Incredible Hulk,” the 2008 Marvel reboot of the original franchise Hurd also produced.
In recent years, Hurd has made several indie films, including “The Waterdance,” which won a Sundance Audience Award, and has carved out a successful career in television. Her production company, Valhalla Entertainment, has a deal with Universal Cable Productions to develop new television and digital series and has achieved a breakout hit with AMC’s zombie drama, “The Walking Dead,” which shoots in Georgia.
A fourth-generation Los Angeles native, Hurd hasn’t worked in California for nearly a decade and has been outspoken advocate for expanding and strengthening California’s film and television tax-credit program to curb so-called runaway production.
“The impact from lost production to other states and countries amounts to billions of dollars,’’ Hurd said in a March interview with the Los Angeles Times. “With a competitive tax credit, California can reclaim its position as the entertainment capital of the world.”
Hurd serves on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors and chairs the Academy's Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowships Committee. She also is a long-standing officer in the Producers Guild of America and played a key role in launching the annual Produced By Conference.
An avid scuba diver, Hurd serves on the advisory boards of Heal the Bay, Reef Check and Artists for Peace and Justice.
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