Here’s Why The FBI Went After The Director Of Die Hard

As Gail Sistrunk McTiernan waits in the visiting room, a man shuffles towards her. She’s waiting for her husband, director John McTiernan, who’s serving time in South Dakota’s Yankton Federal Prison Camp. She glances at the apparent stranger and realizes this shell of a man is her husband – the superstar at the helm of movies like Predator, Die Hard and Last Action Hero. So what’s happened to make her partner barely recognizable to her?

“John warned me,” Sistrunk McTiernan explained to the BuzzFeed news website at the time. “He said he would look like a scarecrow in a tan uniform. When I arrived at the prison, a man came in the room. I didn’t think I knew him. He was pasty and he had no life left in his eyes. I made eye contact with him to be polite... And I realized it was John...”

Scarcely recognizable to his wife that day, the Federal Bureau of Prisons knew him as prisoner 43029-112. Fellow inmates and prison staff called him “Mac,” or occasionally “Big Mac.” To friends and colleagues, he’s “McT.” But the rest of the world knows John McTiernan as the director of a slew of classic action movies.

From the mid-1980s, McTiernan’s directing credits included some of the most acclaimed and recognizable titles right across the action, thriller and sci-fi genres. First came the horror-mystery Nomads in 1985. Then the Oscar-nominated action flick Predator arrived on the big screen two years later. Before the decade closed out, the director earned another four Academy Award nominations with fan-favorite Die Hard in 1988.

In 1990 McTiernan drew further acclaim with the Oscar-winning The Hunt For Red October. The Academy was impressed enough with the movie’s effects and sound effects editing to award it a gong in 1991. The sound and editing personnel received two further nominations as well. But come 2013 the accomplished filmmaker was a million miles from his famed director’s chair.