Portal:Horror/Selected biography archive/2006
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[edit] May 2006
George Andrew Romero (born 4 February 1940) is an American director, writer, editor and actor. He is best known for his Dead Series, a tetrology of horror movies with a zombie apocalypse theme and which are known for providing a commentary on contemporary society.
He was born and raised in New York City, and attended Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. After graduation, he began shooting mostly short films and commercials. He and friends formed Image Ten Productions in the late 1960s, and they chipped in roughly $10,000 apiece to produce what became one of the most celebrated horror films of all time: Night of the Living Dead (1968). The movie, directed by Romero and co-written with John A. Russo, became a cult classic in the 1970s. Romero updated his original screenplay and was executive producer of the remake of Night of the Living Dead directed by Tom Savini for Columbia/Tristar in 1990.
Romero's next films were less popular: There's Always Vanilla (1971), Jack's Wife/Season of the Witch (1972) and The Crazies (1973). Though not as acclaimed as Night of the Living Dead or some of his later work, these films had his signature social commentary while dealing with issues (usually horror-related) at the microscopic level. The Crazies, about a biospill that creates madness, and the critically acclaimed and arthouse success Martin (1976), a film that strikingly deconstructs the vampire myth, were the two standout efforts during this period. Like almost all of his films, they were shot in or around Romero's favorite city of Pittsburgh.
In 1978, Romero returned to the zombie genre with Dawn of the Dead (1978). Shot on a budget of just $1.5 million, the film earned over $55 million worldwide and was named one of the top cult films by Entertainment Weekly in 2003. Romero made a third entry in his "Dead Series" with Day of the Dead (1985), although this was less popular at the box office.
During this time, Romero also made Knightriders (1981), another festival favorite about a group of modern-day jousters who re-enact tournaments on motorcycles, and the successful Creepshow (1982), written by Stephen King, an anthology of tongue-in-cheek tales that were modeled after 1950s horror comics.
Throughout the latter half of the 1980s and 90s, Romero made various films, including Monkey Shines (1988) about a killer monkey; Two Evil Eyes (1990), an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation in collaboration with Dario Argento; the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Half (1992); and Bruiser (2000), about a man whose face becomes a blank mask. (continued...)
[edit] June 2006
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction, noted for combining these three genres within single narratives. Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, but his works have become highly important and influential among writers and fans of modern horror fiction.
Lovecraft wrote fiction as a youth, but then set it aside for some time in favour of poetry and essays, before returning to fiction in 1917 with more polished stories such as The Tomb and Dagon. The latter was his first professionally published work, appearing in Weird Tales in 1923. Also around this time he began to build up his huge network of correspondents. His lengthy and frequent missives would make him one of the great letter writers of the century. Among his correspondents were the young Forrest J. Ackerman, Robert Bloch (Psycho) and Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian series).
Lovecraft was listed along with his parents on the Phillips family monument. That was not enough for his fans, so in 1977 a group of individuals raised the money to buy him a headstone of his own, on which they had inscribed Lovecraft's name, the dates of his birth and death and the phrase, "I AM PROVIDENCE," a line from one of his personal letters. Lovecraft's grave in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence is occasionally marked with graffiti quoting his famous phrase from The Call of Cthulhu (originally from The Nameless City):
- "That is not dead which can eternal lie,
- And with strange aeons even death may die."
Much of Lovecraft's work was directly inspired by his nightmares, and it is perhaps this direct insight into the unconscious and its symbolism that helps to account for their continuing resonance and popularity. All these interests naturally led to his deep affection for the works of Edgar Allan Poe, who heavily influenced his earliest macabre stories and writing style. Lovecraft's discovery of the stories of Lord Dunsany moved his writing in a new direction, resulting in a series of imitative fantasies in a "Dreamlands" setting. It was probably the influence of Arthur Machen, with his carefully constructed tales concerning the survival of ancient evil, and his mystic beliefs in hidden mysteries which lay behind reality, that finally helped inspire Lovecraft to find his own voice from 1923 onwards. This took on a dark tone with the creation of what is today often called the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of alien extra-dimensional deities and horrors which predate mankind, and which are hinted at in aeon-old myths and legends. The strangeness of the mythos' style may have been influenced, and was certainly foreshadowed, by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. The term "Cthulhu Mythos" was coined by Lovecraft's correspondent and fellow author, August Derleth, after Lovecraft's death; Lovecraft jocularly referred to his artificial mythology as "Yog-Sothothery". His stories created one of the most influential plot devices in all of horror: the Necronomicon, the secret grimoire written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. The resonance and strength of the Mythos concept have led some to believe that Lovecraft had based it on actual myth, and faux editions of the Necronomicon have also been published over the years. (continued...)
[edit] July 2006
Abraham "Bram" Stoker (November 8, 1847–April 20, 1912) was an Irish writer, best remembered as the author of the influential horror novel Dracula.
Stoker was born on November 8, 1847 at Clontarf in Ireland, a coastal suburb of Dublin to Abraham Stoker and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley as the third of seven children. Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland and attended the Clontarf parish church (St. John the Baptist) with their children. Until he was 7 years old, recurring illness ensured that Bram could neither stand up nor walk on his own. This illness and helplessness was a traumatic experience which is noticeable in his literary work. Everlasting sleep and the resurrection from the dead, which are the central themes of Dracula, were of great importance for him, because he was forced to spend much of his life in bed.
His illness and his convalescence were considered miracles by his doctors. After his recovery, he became a normal young man who even became an athlete and soccer-star at the University of Dublin, where he studied history, literature, mathematics and physics at Trinity College. He was also president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society", and auditor of the College Historical Society. He became a civil servant, a career that didn't satisfy him. So he started to work as a journalist and as a drama critic (The Evening Mail). His interest in theatre lead to a lifelong friendship with the actor Henry Irving.
Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a former girlfriend of Oscar Wilde, in 1878. Stoker moved with his wife to London, where he became business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker. Through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met James McNeil Whistler and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the course of Irving's tours he got the chance to travel around the world.
He supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale Dracula which he published in 1897. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent eight years researching European folklore and stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers.
Stoker wrote several other novels dealing with horror and supernatural themes, but none achieved the lasting fame or success of Dracula. His other novels include The Snake's Pass (1890), The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), and The Lair of the White Worm (1911). (continued...)
[edit] August 2006
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author best known for his enormously popular horror novels. King was the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
King's stories frequently involve an unremarkable protagonist such as a middle-class family, a child, or many times a writer. The characters are involved in their everyday lives, but the supernatural encounters and extraordinary circumstances escalate over the course of the story. King evinces a thorough knowledge of the horror genre, as shown in his nonfiction book Danse Macabre, which chronicles several decades of notable works in both literature and cinema. He also writes stories outside the horror genre, including the novellas The Body and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (adapted as the movies Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption, respectively), as well as The Green Mile and Hearts in Atlantis. In the past, Stephen King has written under the pen name of Richard Bachman.
Stephen King was born in 1947 in Portland, Maine and is of Scots-Irish ancestry. When King was two years old, his father deserted his family. His mother, Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King, raised King and his adopted older brother David by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to Ruth's home town of Durham, Maine but also spent brief periods in Fort Wayne, Indiana and Stratford, Connecticut. King attended Durham Elementary School and Lisbon High School. He grew to stand 6'4" tall.
King has been writing since an early age. When in school, he wrote stories based on movies he had seen recently and sold them to his friends. This was not popular among his teachers, and he was forced to return his profits when this was discovered. The stories were copied using a mimeo machine that his brother David used to copy a newspaper, Dave's Rag, which he self-published. Dave's Rag was about local events, and King would often contribute. At around the age of thirteen, King discovered a box of his father's old books at his aunt's house, mainly horror and science fiction. He was immediately hooked on these genres.
From 1966 to 1971, King studied English at the University of Maine at Orono, Maine. At the university, he wrote a column titled "King's Garbage Truck" in the student newspaper, the Maine Campus. He also met Tabitha Spruce; they married in 1971. King took on odd jobs to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry. He used the experience to write the short story "The Mangler". The campus period in his life is readily evident in the second part of Hearts in Atlantis.
After finishing his university studies with a Bachelor of Arts in English and obtaining a certificate to teach high school, King taught English at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. During this time, he and his family lived in a trailer. He wrote short stories (most were published in men's magazines) to help make ends meet. As told in the introduction in Carrie, if one of his kids got a cold, Tabitha would joke, "Come on, Steve, think of a monster." (continued...)
[edit] September 2006
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was a highly influential director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. He directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades, from the silent film era, through the invention of talkies, to the colour era. Hitchcock was among the most consistently successful and publicly recognizable directors in the world during his lifetime, and remains one of the best known and most popular directors of all time, famous for his expert and largely unrivaled control of pace and suspense throughout his movies.
He was born in England, where he began his directing career before working primarily in the United States from 1939 on, applying for citizenship in 1956. The "Master of Suspense", as he was commonly known, and his family lived in a mountaintop estate high above Scotts Valley, California from 1940 to 1972. He died of a heart attack in 1980.
Hitchcock's films draw heavily on both fear and fantasy, and are known for their droll humour. They often portray innocent people caught up in circumstances beyond their control or understanding. This often involves a transference of guilt in which the "innocent" character's failings are transferred to another character, and magnified. Another common theme is the basic incompatibility of men and women; Hitchcock's films often take a cynical view of traditional romance.
Rebecca was the only one of his films to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, although four others were nominated. Hitchcock never won the Academy Award for Best Director. He was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in 1967, but never personally received an Academy Award of Merit.
Until the later part of his career, Hitchcock was far more popular with film audiences than with film critics, especially the elite British and American critics. In the late 1950s the French New Wave critics, especially Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and François Truffaut, were among the first to see and promote his films as artistic masterworks. Hitchcock was one of the first directors to whom they applied their auteur theory, which stresses the artistic authority of the director in the film-making process.
Through his fame, public persona, high degree of creative control and frequent return to favored themes, Hitchcock helped to transform the role of the director, which had previously been eclipsed by that of the producer. He is seen today as a director who managed to combine art and entertainment in a way very few have ever matched. His innovations and vision have influenced a great number of filmmakers, producers, and actors. (continued...)
[edit] October 2006
Boris Karloff (November 23, 1887 in East Dulwich, London, England – February 2, 1969), born William Henry "Bill" Pratt, was an English actor best known for his roles in horror films. After gaining fame, he was sometimes billed as "Karloff" and sometimes as "Karloff the Uncanny".
Orphaned in his youth, he was raised by his elder brothers and sister and attended Enfield Grammar School before moving to Uppingham School and Merchant Taylors' School, and eventually the University of London. Karloff's first goal in life was to join the foreign service — his brother, Sir John Henry Pratt, became a distinguished British diplomat — but he instead fell into acting. In 1909, Pratt travelled to Canada, changing his name to something more in keeping with his new vocation while on his way to an acting job with the Jeanne Russell Theater Co. in Kamloops, British Columbia. He spent years testing the waters in North America while living in smaller towns like Kamloops and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In 1912, while appearing in a play in Regina, Saskatchewan, Karloff volunteered to be a rescue worker following a devastating tornado where he organized a benefit concert for the victims of the tornado. He also lived in Minot, North Dakota for a year, performing in an opera house above a hardware store. For health reasons, he did not fight in World War I.
Some time between emigrating to Canada in 1909 and moving to California in 1910-11, William Pratt changed his professional name to "Boris Karloff." Pratt/Karloff always claimed he chose the name "Boris" because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that "Karloff" was a "family name." However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, "Karloff" or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. Whether or not his brothers (all dignified members of the British foreign service) actually considered young William the "black sheep of the family" for having become an actor, Karloff himself apparently worried they did feel that way. He did not reunite with his family again until 1933, when he went back to England to make The Ghoul, extremely worried that his siblings would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his elder brothers jostled for position around their "baby" brother and happily posed for publicity photographs with him.
Once Karloff arrived in Hollywood, California, he made dozens of silent films, but work was sporadic, and he often had to take up manual labor to pay the bills, like digging ditches and driving a cement truck (or "lorrie," as he called it.) His role as the Monster in Frankenstein (1931) made him a star. A year later, he played another iconic character, Imhotep, in The Mummy.
Karloff made a string of Universal horror movies in the 1930s, including several with Bela Lugosi, whose rejection of the lead role in Frankenstein made Karloff's subsequent career possible. Karloff played Frankenstein's monster three times; the other films being The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which also featured Lugosi as the demented Ygor. (continued)
[edit] December 2006
Stuart Gordon (born August 11, 1947) in Chicago, Illinois) is a director, writer and producer of films and plays. Most of Gordon's film work is in the horror genre, though he has also ventured into science fiction. Like his friend and fellow filmmaker Brian Yuzna, Gordon is a big fan of H. P. Lovecraft and has adapted several Lovecraft stories for the screen. They include Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak (from "The Outsider"), and Dagon, as well as the Masters of Horror episode "Dreams in the Witch-House."
Gordon attended the University of Wisconsin and soon after formed Screw Theater. In March 1968 Gordon's Screw Theater produced The Game Show at the UW Memorial Union. The goal of the production was to get the audience to leave. To that end the heat was turned to 90, ushers chained the doors behind the audience, the show's start time delayed and the content of The Game Show made as inane as possible. The audience finally demanded to leave one hour and fifty minutes into the two hour production. In the fall of 1968, he produced a version of Peter Pan that got him and his future wife arrested for obscenity. The story made national headlines until the charges were dropped in November 1968. As Gordon described it in a 2001 interview:
"I had been protesting against the war in Viet Nam, and got tear-gassed by the Chicago police, and it suddenly struck me that you could take Peter Pan and turn it into a political cartoon about the whole situation. So, Peter Pan became the leader of the hippies and yippies, Captain Hook became Mayor Daley, and the pirates became the Chicago police. We left all of the James Barrie dialogue intact, so when they all went off to Neverland they sprinkled pixie dust on themselves and think lovely thoughts, and up they go. That was an acid trip, which was visualized by a psychedelic light show that was projected onto the bodies of seven naked young ladies..." [1]
After the University of Wisconsin demanded future theatrical productions by Screw Theater be overseen by a University Professor, Gordon cut his University ties to form Broom Street Theater. Its first production, the new translation of Lysistrata, premiered in May of 1969. Gordon is married to Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, whom he frequently casts in his movies. Together in 1970, they founded the Chicago Organic Theater Company, for which Gordon also served as artistic director. With the company, he did several plays, such as Warp!, Sexual Perversity In Chicago, Bleacher Bums, ER, Bloody Bess. Warp! was later adapted into a comic book by First Comics. (continued)
