ack Hill, sometimes referred to as a legendary cult-film director, grew up around movies--his father was a set designer for Warner Brothers since 1925, and later for Walt Disney Studios, where he eventually designed the Disneyland Castle. Jack went to the University of California to study film, where he was a classmate of Francis Ford Coppola--they worked together on student productions and later both apprenticed with Roger Corman, working on The Terror, among other films. While Coppola went on to Oscardom, Jack continued with low-budget exploitation films, several of which were highly profitable, especially The Big Doll House, which initiated the short-lived women-in-prison genre. His so-called "blaxploitaton" films Coffy and Foxy Brown were major hits. Nowadays his films are hailed as cult classics, thanks primarily to Quentin Tarantino, who saw Jack Hill's work as it made its way to video, with almost all of his films now available for viewing on various streaming channels as well as DVD releases.