Alan Smithee(I)

The DGA decided that the name got so much exposure from the film Hollywood brucia (1997) that it was no longer an effective alias. The film Supernova (2000) was the first "post-Smithee" film; Smithee's successor was named "Thomas Lee" but it didn't take and the classic Smithee pseudonym has remained in use up to this day.

When I refused to take directing credit for the film Ultima notte a Cottonwood (1969), as did Robert Totten, the Directors' Guild made up a pseudonym for Totten and myself, 'Allen Smithee.' As the picture was well received, I told my young friends who wanted to be directors to change their name to Smithee and take credit for direction of the picture. I don't know if anyone did this. I still think under certain circumstances, they might have cracked the 'magic barrier' and become directors. - Don Siegel, "A Siegel Film," London: Faber and Faber, 1993 (320, 321).