The British film-maker John Daly, who has died of cancer aged 71, was a producer, executive producer, director, screenwriter and promoter who personified the word "entrepreneur". For more than 25 years he was the head of Hemdale Film, the company that he co-founded with his friend, the actor David Hemmings, which produced and/or distributed more than 100 movies from 1970 to 1995. Hemdale was originally set up as a talent agency in 1967, fresh after Hemmings' triumph as the star of Blow-Up, and started by managing the rock bands Yes and Black Sabbath, but also acquired the worldwide stage rights of Lionel Bart's hit musical Oliver!, and produced the London production of Grease, which starred Richard Gere, in 1973.
In 1974, Don King, the American boxing promoter, while looking for sponsorship of the Muhammad Ali v George Foreman fight in Zaire, pulled together a consortium that included the Hemdale Film Corporation, which became an official co-promoter of the Rumble in the Jungle. One of Daly's proudest possessions in his Los Angeles home was the photo of Ali standing over Foreman sprawled at his feet, signed by The Greatest: "John, you told me I could do it. Kindness to others is the rent we pay for our room on Earth."
Daly was born in south-east London, the son of a dockworker. As a teenager, he joined the Merchant Navy, working as a teaboy and later a waiter, before a two-year stint as an insurance salesman. But he was able to exercise his entrepreneurial skills only after he linked up with Hemmings, and Hemdale began producing films. Though much of their output was bread-and-butter movies, Hemdale, under Daly's aegis, managed to earn more than $1.5bn over the years.
Daly, who bought Hemmings' share of the business in 1971, was executive producer on most of them. He described his function thus: "I assemble the project team - actors, director, technicians, specialists - for the picture and oversee every element, from funding through production to marketing. It's about turning money into dreams."
Among the above-average Hemdale productions were Robert Altman's Images (1972), Ken Russell's Tommy (1975), Michael Schultz's Carbon Copy (1981), an interracial comedy in which Denzel Washington made his big-screen debut, John Schlesinger's The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) and James Foley's At Close Range (1986). But it was James Cameron's The Terminator (1984), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as an android assassin, made for about $6.5m, and grossing more than $78m worldwide, that placed Hemdale among the most successful independent film companies of the 1980s.
Oliver Stone's first major film, Salvador (1986), was pitched around until Hemdale took it up. "It took the English to make it," Stone recalled. "They saw these two scuzzbags [James Woods and James Belushi] as funny, almost in Monty Pythonesque terms. I sold it to John Daly as 'Laurel and Hardy go to El Salvador'." But the film was an emotional and political blow to the solar plexus of the US's "backyard" policies, which clearly delivered the message "no more Vietnams".
Stone, who had served in Vietnam, then offered Hemdale his script for Platoon (1986), written 10 years previously, but which nobody in Hollywood would touch. The film, which portrayed the mindless jingoism and brutality of the ordinary American soldier, went on to win Oscars for best picture, best director, best sound and best editing. Made on an incredibly low budget of $6.5m, and shot in just 54 days in the Philippines, it grossed more than $127.5m.
There were more Oscars (nine in all) for Bernardo Bertulucci's spectacular The Last Emperor (1987). Daly's company continued to produce more films of varying quality over the next few years. The last film that Hemdale instigated, other than distributed, was Nicolas Roeg's Cold Heaven (1991), which was barely released owing to lack of funds. A few years later, Orion bought the company and its assets.
In 2003, Daly became the chairman, chief executive and president of Film and Music Entertainment Inc and its subsidiaries. In the same year, he tried his hand at directing his own screenplay with The Petersburg-Cannes Express, a nicely photographed period piece that featured Nolan Hemmings, the son of Daly's erstwhile partner. Despite the cool reception the film received, Daly persevered with The Aryan Couple (2004), a flaccid Holocaust drama.
Daly's less than glorious excursion into directing failed to take the shine off his achievements as an enterprising producer, who was involved in films that gained 21 Oscar nominations and 13 wins, as well as many Golden Globes.
He is survived by a daughter and three sons.