Hal Needham

"Upset by the critical response to his work, the stuntman turned film director Hal Needham, who has died aged 82, took out advertisements in Variety and other trade papers. They featured quotes from negative reviews for his movies including Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and The Cannonball Run (1981), alongside a wheelbarrow overflowing with dollar bills.
Needham made a point. His rumbustious 1977 directorial debut had grossed over $100m – an enormous return on its modest budget. He was still milking that particular creation some 20 years later, producing and directing a series of television movies, including Bandit Goes Country and Beauty and the Bandit.
These and other films, many of which starred Burt Reynolds, were seen by an audience of hundreds of millions worldwide, yet few reference books acknowledged his 45-year-long career — an unjustified omission, if only because of his exceptionally rare transition from stuntman to Hollywood director.
Needham's career began with aeroplane stunt work on the Charles Lindbergh biopic The Spirit of St Louis (1957) and on the small screen as stunt double for Richard Boone on the western series Have Gun, Will Travel (1957-63). The son of a sharecropper, he grew up in rural Arkansas, and had moved west in his mid-20s, having worked in various manual jobs, including logging, and serving as a paratrooper during the Korean war from 1952. His first photographic exposure was on billboards as Viceroy cigarettes' answer to Marlboro Man."
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/27/hal-needham