Otto Lang

Otto Lang (21 January 1908 – 30 January 2006) was a skier and pioneer ski instructor from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who lived and worked in the United States. After teaching skiing at a variety of smaller resorts in Austria, he joined the Hannes Schneider Ski School in St. Anton am Arlberg, one of the most prestigious ski schools of the era. Like many instructors who taught Schneider's Arlberg Method, Lang was eventually offered a chance to teach in the U.S., at Pecketts' on Sugar Hill in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He later moved out west and founded ski schools on Mount Rainier, Mount Baker and Mount Hood. After a visit to Sun Valley Resort at the request of his former student Nelson Rockefeller, Lang was offered a position at their ski school. In the 1930s, Sun Valley was one of the world's most glamorous resorts, the first ever to offer ski lifts. Eventually he became the director of the ski school at Sun Valley and became the ski instructor for Hollywood stars. Later he became a movie director and producer, primarily due to his contacts at Sun Valley, including an ongoing friendship with studio executive Darryl F. Zanuck. He demonstrated ski techniques in Jerome Hill's documentary Ski Flight ()