Researching George Miller

Miller is a co-founder of the production houses Kennedy Miller Mitchell, formerly known as Kennedy Miller, and Dr. D Studios. His younger brother Bill Miller and Doug Mitchell have been producers on almost all the films in Miller's later career, since the death of his original producing partner Byron Kennedy.

In 2006, Miller won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Happy Feet (2006). He has been nominated for five other Academy Awards: Best Original Screenplay in 1992 for Lorenzo's Oil, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1995 for Babe, and Best Picture and Best Director for Fury Road in 2015.

Miller began his career when the reigning theory in psychology was behaviorism, which eschewed the study of mental processes and focused on observable behavior. Rejecting this approach, Miller devised experimental techniques and mathematical methods to analyze mental processes, focusing particularly on speech and language. Working mostly at Harvard University, MIT and Princeton University, he went on to become one of the founders of psycholinguistics and was one of the key figures in founding the broader new field of cognitive science, circa 1978. He collaborated and co-authored work with other figures in cognitive science and psycholinguistics, such as Noam Chomsky. For moving psychology into the realm of mental processes and for aligning that move with information theory, computation theory, and linguistics, Miller is considered one of the great twentieth-century psychologists. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Miller as the 20th most cited psychologist of that era.

He first performed standup at age 21, starting in Seattle and eventually in the late 1960's moving onto Southern California & Los Angeles comedy clubs, making his network television debut on The Tonight Show in 1976.

He appeared on national television programs several times through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; in particular appearing on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman and CBS' Late Show with David Letterman 56 times in two decades. He was a friend to many in the West Coast comedy scene who later enjoyed tremendous success, including David Letterman, Robin Williams, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld.

He died at age 61 at UCLA Medical Center after a long bout with leukemia, from a blood clot in his brain. Letterman reportedly paid for Miller's medical expenses throughout his battle with leukemia, including a major donation to UCLA so Miller could be admitted into an experimental treatment program, and was to have also paid for his funeral expenses (though unable to attend due to being hospitalized for a severe case of shingles).

Gerald McGeer left the mayor's position when he became a member of the House of Commons of Canada. Miller, a city alderman, won the 9 December 1936 city election which featured the first candidates of the Non-Partisan Association. After two years as Vancouver's top local politician, Miller was defeated by James Lyle Telford.

In 1952, Miller was elected to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly representing Vancouver—Point Grey representing the Progressive Conservative Party of British Columbia, but was defeated the next year in the 1953 provincial election.

George F. Miller was born in Chillisquaque Township, Pennsylvania. He attended Kirkpatrick's Academy in Milton, Pennsylvania. He taught school, studied law, was admitted to the bar of Union County, Pennsylvania, May 15, 1833, and commenced practice in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He was a member of the board of curators of the University at Lewisburg (now Bucknell University) from 1846 to 1882. He served as scribe of curators from 1847 to 1851, and secretary of the board of trustees of Bucknell University from 1848 to 1864.

Miller was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses. He resumed the practice of law, and served as president of the Lewisburg, Centre & Spruce Creek Railroad. He died in Lewisburg in 1885. Interment in Lewisburg Cemetery.

At age 17 Miller began school-teaching to raise funds for higher education. In 1882 he entered Franklin and Marshall Academy, and progressed to Muhlenberg College in 1884. He received his B.A. in 1887 and M.A. in 1890. While a graduate student, Miller was Principal of schools in Greeley, Kansas and then professor of mathematics as Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois. He corresponded with Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee for his Ph.D. in 1892. He then joined Frank Nelson Cole at University of Michigan and began to study groups. In 1895 he went to Europe where he heard Sophus Lie lecture at Leipzig and Camille Jordan at Paris. In 1897 he went to Cornell University as an assistant professor, and in 1901 to Stanford University as associate professor. In 1906 he went to University of Illinois where he taught until retirement in 1931.

Miller helped in the enumeration of finite groups of degree 8, 9, and 10. Arthur Cayley had listed 198 groups of degree 8 in 1891, and Miller found two more making the total 200 in 1893. Camille Jordan had given a list for degree 9 in 1872, re-examined by Cole, and brought up to 258 groups by Miller. In 1894 Miller produced a list of 294 intransitive groups of degree 10. In consequence, the Academy of Science of Cracow awarded a prize and "Miller came to prominence in the mathematical world abruptly."

Miller was president of the Mathematical Association of America 1921–1922 and gave a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1924 in Toronto. Miller's Collected Works were edited by Henry Roy Brahana and published by University of Illinois Press, the first two volumes appearing in 1935 and 1939. The final three volumes were published in 1946, 1955, and 1959. His doctoral students include H. L. Rietz.

Miller served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He was shot in the right leg during the Battle of Saipan.Miller served on the Tucson city council for fourteen years prior to becoming mayor in 1991. After serving as mayor for two terms, Miller declined to run again, and was succeeded by Bob Walkup on December 6, 1999. At the time of his retirement Miller was Tucson's longest serving public official, having spent twenty-two consecutive years in office: fourteen years as a city councilman and eight as mayor.

After retiring from politics Miller began teaching political science at Tucson's Pima Community College. He contributed opinion pieces to the Arizona Daily Star on various topics including his support for the annexation of unincorporated areas north of Tucson. He died in a nursing home in Tucson on December 25, 2014.