Biography
After studying at the USC School of Cinema, Gregg Champion apprenticed with directors such as Blake Edwards, Nicholas Roeg, and John Badham, maintaining an eight-year collaboration with Badham. His producing credits include the feature films "Blue Thunder" (Columbia), "Short Circuit" (Tri-Star), and "Stakeout" (Touchstone). Champion also worked as the Action Director on these films and on Warner Bros.' bicycle racing movie "American Flyers," starring Kevin Costner.
Champion's directing credits feature the fish-out-of-water action-comedy "The Cowboy Way," starring Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland (Universal), and the action-comedy "Short Time," starring Dabney Coleman and Teri Garr (Fox). His television producing and directing work includes the award-winning and Emmy-nominated "The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn," starring Sidney Poitier, Dianne Wiest, and Mary-Louise Parker; CBS Special Movie Presentations "Dodson's Journey," featuring Ellen Burstyn and Penelope Ann Miller; and "The Last Brickmaker in America," again starring Sidney Poitier. He directed multiple episodes of the television series "The Magnificent Seven" for CBS/MGM and "Walker, Texas Ranger" with Chuck Norris for CBS. Other long-form projects include the Emmy-nominated drama "Miracle Run," starring Mary-Louise Parker, Aidan Quinn, and Zac Efron; the romantic comedy "Stealing Christmas," starring Tony Danza, Lea Thompson, and Betty White for the USA Network; and the action-drama "14 Hours" for TNT, which earned Champion the Christopher Award for Best Director. He won a second Christopher Award for directing "Amish Grace," starring Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Tammy Blanchard, which became Lifetime Movie Network's highest-rated original movie.
More recently, Champion choreographed intense action sequences with Emile Hirsch in the A&E four-hour miniseries "Bonnie & Clyde," where he also served as 2nd Unit Director. He directed the gymnastics biopic "The Gabby Douglas Story," a two-hour special event movie for Sony and Lifetime, which received four NAACP Award nominations, including Best Director, and won the 2015 Christopher Award for Best Movie.
