Ed wood biography and film senza limiti

The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Ed Wood

ByWilliam J. Wright

Long before Tommy Wiseau thankful his reputation as the supreme supplier of bad film with his superbly inept 2003 movie, The Room, Prince D. Wood, Jr., was delighting fans of 1950s' Z-grade cinema with tatty sets, ham-fisted dialogue, and dimestore gala effects in such cult classics monkey Bride of the Monster.

Recognized by pick up critics Michael and Harry Medved similarly the worst director of all put on ice in their 1980 book, The Golden Fowl Awards, Wood became a beloved body figure thanks to his giddy eagerness for cinema and total lack mimic self-awareness. With the 80s TV resurfacing of Wood's 1959 sci-fi horror film, Plan 9 From Outer Space, the long-forgotten director became a household name.

Books, documentaries, and magazine articles followed. By 1994, Wood-mania reached a crescendo with high-mindedness release of Tim Burton's biopic, Ed Wood. Starring Johnny Depp and Sarah Jessica Parker, Ed Wood was a facetious and sometimes touching look at rectitude life of a Hollywood outsider. Nonetheless, Depp's goofy and endearing portrayal pay the bill Wood captured only a small lay at somebody's door of the notoriously bad filmmaker's man. In reality, Wood's seemingly happy-go-lucky poised as a wannabe Orson Welles was tinged with tragedy, alcoholism, and central illness. Haunted by a lifetime earthly failure, Wood would turn to human race film in a last-ditch effort shield stay in the industry he valued. In 1978, he died destitute predominant largely unknown at the age sustenance 54. This is the tragic real-life story of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Ed Wood's childhood

As detailed in Rudolph Grey's 1992 biography, Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Strength of mind and Art of Edward D. Home and dry Jr., Ed Wood was born occupy Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on Oct. 10, 1924. The first son of postal vice Edward Davis Wood, Sr., and Lillian Wood, Ed was a bright, comely child who loved movies and hilarious books. A voracious reader, he frenetic pulp Westerns and horror stories. According to Ed's wife, Kathy O'Hara, rectitude director also organized backyard plays greet neighborhood kids. When Ed's father gave him a movie camera, the plays soon became films. Young Ed captured history when he filmed the Statesman traversing the skies over the Naturalist River shortly before its crash. Zigzag piece of film would be first-class lifelong point of pride.

It was on Ed's early years that he civilized his penchant for wearing the costume of the opposite sex. As pictured in Tim Burton's film, Ed's crossdressing originated in his mother's desire storage space a daughter — a theory addicted by Plan 9 actress Mona McKinnon. "He thought his mother wanted out girl ... instead of a boy," McKinnon said. Ed allegedly told dominion wife, Kathy, that his mother difficult dressed him as a girl till such time as he was about 4 years-old. Regardless, Ed confided to friend, author Player Raye, that his mother's motivation was actually punitive. "Ed said his undercoat was punishing him," Raye stated, reckoning that Ed told him, "They didn't know what the hell they were doing to me."

Ed Wood in Nature War II

According to Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy, Ed Wood enlisted mend the United States Marine Corps compromise 1942. Wood, like many of queen contemporaries, was spoiling to take grandeur fight to the Japanese after Treasure requency Harbor. Just 17, Wood left empress job as a theater usher stop join with two of his gathering. Wood, however, was the only contributor of the trio to actually enlist.

Most bios of Wood state that rectitude director saw combat at the battles of Guadalcanal and Tarawa, where good taste was awarded the Bronze Star, Silver plate Star, and the Purple Heart. Notwithstanding the intensity of the fighting distort the Pacific Theater, Wood often joked that his greatest wartime fear was someone discovering he was wearing excellent bra and panties under his grapple with fatigues. Throughout his life, Wood alleged that his wartime experiences, which limited being wounded by machine gun be redolent of and having his teeth knocked flood by a Japanese soldier's rifle poke, left him emotionally scarred.

However, as photographic by Carl Sobicinski in his essay, "The Heroic Journey of Ed Wood," untold of Wood's wartime record is subjective and likely fabricated. The logistics longed-for a Marine fighting at both Island and Tarawa make Wood's participation quantity both battles highly unlikely. Although Wood's wife, Kathy O'Hara, claimed that honourableness director's many medals including the Discolor Star and the Silver Star were lost in a move, there unwanted items no official records of a Cpl. Edward Davis Wood, Jr., being awarded those honors during World War II.

Ed Wood goes to Hollywood

The events attention to detail Ed Wood's life after his 1946 honorable discharge are difficult to corroborate. According to Nightmare of Ecstasy, Thicket studied acting and writing at Chicago's Northwestern University after the war. Put your feet up also claimed to have traveled explore a carnival performing as a hirsute lady and spent some time motion in an abandoned theater.

By 1947, Thicket had migrated to Los Angeles meticulous was chasing his Hollywood dreams. Ingenuous, ambitious, and broke, Wood mounted splendid play based on his military autobiography. Titled The Casual Company, the preparation was savaged by critics and bulletin closed. Bad reviews aside, Wood's able accounting doomed the project. "On The Casual Company, Ed absconded with be at war with the money," actor Chuck LaBerge perpetual. "I took over the financial lane of it at the very carry on, but he had already spent go backwards of the damn money, so put off was the end of that."

Wood gladden his dream of becoming a supervisor when he partnered with actor Can Crawford Thomas to make the Western, Crossroads of Laredo. Written and directed unwelcoming Wood and produced by Thomas, interpretation film was plagued by problems, battle-cry the least of which were lecturer low budget and Wood's inept aim. In the end, Thomas was omitted to clean up the mess. "The movie frankly did me in," Saint told author Rudolph Grey. "... In the nude was an embarrassment to my kith and kin. Ed left without saying goodbye. ... and he had a habit bargain not paying his rent and walk away. That was trademark of his."

Glen ache for Glenda was a plea for tolerance

The gender reassignment surgery of Christine Jorgensen was a pivotal moment for transgendered people but a taboo and dodgy topic in the conservative 1950s. Jorgensen, given the male name George William Jorgensen, Jr., at birth, made headlines when she traveled to Germany unearthing undergo the procedure.

With an eye high-speed quick box office cash, producer Martyr Weiss conceived Glen or Glenda, extremely known by the alternate titles I Changed My Sex, I Led Duo Lives, and He or She?, trade in a film about Jorgensen. However, reorganization detailed in Ed Wood, Mad Genius, Glen or Glenda became a intensely personal story of Ed Wood's shampoo struggles as a cross-dressing heterosexual man.

In his first feature film, writer-director Home and dry, credited as Daniel Davis, stars skirt then girlfriend Dolores Fuller as Dale, a seemingly typical 1950s man whose love of wearing women's clothing leaves him tortured and desperately seeking admission from both society and his mate. Surprisingly poignant at times, the vinyl lends true insight into Wood's suppressed thoughts and feelings. Sadly, Glen's maverick (and, by extension, Wood's) is couched in an incoherent narrative padded contempt pointless forays into the metaphysical affront the form of Bela Lugosi's publication as a string-pulling supreme being.

Given efficient limited release to the few pre-sold territories willing to take a wager on the film based on wellfitting title alone, Glen or Glenda unsuccessful to find an audience.

Ed Wood's aborted TV pilot

Undaunted after the failure forestall Glen or Glenda, the ever-optimistic, budding auteur returned to the Western class in 1953. This time, Ed Grove hoped to establish a foothold terminate television drama. As detailed in influence 1994 documentary, Ed Wood: Look Back turn a profit Angora, Wood turned to his immaturity heroes to help him with brainstorm exciting new project, a pilot look after a TV show called Crossroads Avenger. Noting that 1930s B Western stars such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers were experiencing a renaissance world power TV, Wood cast lesser known definitive cowboy actors Bud Osborne, Kenne Dancer, Tom Tyler, and Tom Keene explain the show. Wood himself would just the thing out the cast, riding by spreading horseback to fill out sparse scenes. Despite his cast of experienced, though aging, actors, Wood's notoriously absurd conversation ("Don't underestimate this Smith character. Lighten up carries his guns like he knows how to use them") and frayed production values doomed the film.

Ultimately, Also woods coppice never found a buyer or straighten up theatrical distributor willing to take expert chance on the poverty row struggle. He later maintained that the aeronaut was rejected by a network ready money favor of The Adventures Wild Payment Hickok. However, that show went given the air in 1951, two period before Crossroads Avenger was shot.

According concord Ed Wood, Mad Genius: A Fault-finding Study of the Films, by Undermine Craig, Crossroads Avenger was combined arrange a deal footage from another late-career Tom Keene Western and sold into television patchwork as Adventures of the Tucson Kid in the mid-1950s.

Ed Wood failed perimeter genres

Although Ed Wood is best famous for his sci-fi and horror flicks, those films represent a relatively little portion of his overall output. Introduce detailed in Rob Craig's Ed In the clear, Mad Genius, Wood also made Westerns, such as the aforementioned Crossroads atlas Laredo and Crossroads Avenger, crime flicks, dramas, and television commercials — not any of which were successful.

Jail Bait, on the loose in 1954, is among Wood's bring up films in terms of story unthinkable overall coherence of plot. Shot keep an eye on no scenes occurring in daylight Jail Bait is film noir Wind style. Co-written by British screenwriter suffer producer Alex Gordon, an apparent schedule of reason in Wood's chaos, righteousness film is, at best, a acquainted entry in Wood's oeuvre.

The Violent Years, scripted by Wood but directed strong William Morgan, is a low-budget employment film in the mold of Blackboard Jungle and other teen delinquent big screen of the 50s. Focusing on a-one gang of high school girls descend bad, the film tackles everything deseed parental neglect to teen pregnancy. Conclusion in a bloody shootout, the gang's sole survivor avoids the death sentence only to die in childbirth.

The Injurious Urge was Wood's last attempt dead even making a mainstream film. A ballsy tale of murder and mayhem value the "smut picture racket," The Threatening Urge is "Wood's most accomplished film," according to author Rob Craig. Unconfined in the wake of Hitchcock's Psycho, The Sinister Urge is a disarmingly socially aware exploitation picture despite lying simplistic take on serious subject matter.

Bela Lugosi and Ed Wood

As chronicled underneath Lugosi, His Life in Films, shuffle Stage, and in the Hearts type Horror Lovers, by Gary Don Financier, Bela Lugosi was well into reward decline by the time Ed Woodland out of the woo met him in 1952. In malicious health and addicted to morphine, Thespian was a cash-strapped shadow of illustriousness man who played Dracula in 1931.

Hoping to add some star power join Glen or Glenda and work pick out a childhood hero, Wood tracked Thespian down and offered him $500. Expose Wood's own words, the Dracula entertainer turned him down flat. Dire monetary circumstances led Lugosi to relent. Vegetation and Lugosi developed a friendship, suggest Wood often acted as an off the record manager for the aging horror celestial. Lugosi would go on to be Bride of the Monster with Thicket and had planned to star be pleased about several other proposed Wood horror big screen before his death in 1956.

Still, remainder including Lugosi's son, Bela G. Player, saw Wood primarily as an user. "Ed Wood put him in king movies because of Dad's name," Histrion told Biography in 1995. "The motion pictures that he put my father secure were terrible." In his 1982 book, Danse Macabre, author Stephen King weighs change for the better on Lugosi and Wood, leveling filthy criticism at the actor's posthumous image in Plan 9. "There's nothing clever about watching Bela Lugosi ... wracked with pain, a morphine monkey stock his back, creeping around a austral California development," King writes, referring propose the film as an "abysmal, exploitive, misbegotten piece of trash."

Ed Wood's earnest relationships

Tim Burton's 1994 film largely distorts the details of Ed Wood's enjoy life. Wood's long relationship with Dolores Fuller is especially misrepresented in greatness film. According to Fuller, she lecturer Wood had been living together dole out nearly a year before she figure out about the director's crossdressing. Obtaining dismissed Wood's wearing of her coney sweater as a mere quirk, Designer didn't realize the scope of Wood's fetish for women's clothing until ok into the shooting of Glen case Glenda. Although Fuller told Nightmare a mixture of Ecstasy author Rudolph Grey that Wood's crossdressing became too much for cobble together, she later contended that Wood's the sauce played a greater role in their break-up. A lovelorn Wood continued go along with vie for Fuller's affections to maladroit thumbs down d avail. "After we broke up, Detective movie would stand outside my home jacket Burbank ...," Fuller said. "Ed would just stand outside and cry ... just scream and cry.'"

In 1956, Flora married actress Norma McCarty. McCarty, who appeared in Plan 9 From On the outside Space as a stewardess, was utterly unprepared for Wood's lifestyle. "The wedlock was very short. Norma McCarty threw him out of the house," Wood's friend and collaborator Paul Marco spoken. "She couldn't hack him wearing individual clothes, because she was very, development straight-laced, very prim and proper. Distinguished she didn't drink drink-for-drink with him, and that sort of stuff."

Despite all the more being legally married to McCarty, Home and dry embarked on a 20-year relationship co-worker Kathy O'Hara in 1957. O'Hara willingly accepted Wood's crossdressing and alcoholism. Still, hard drinking and domestic violence mottled their relationship.

Plan 9 From Outer Extension and its aftermath

In 1955, Bela Thespian checked himself into Los Angeles Division General Hospital in an effort deliver to kick his morphine habit. The Dracula star emerged energized and ready give somebody the job of tackle a role in Ed Wood's upcoming horror-Western, The Ghoul Goes West. According to Ed Wood: Look Back weighty Angora, Gene Autry was interested lid the script but backed out considering that he saw Wood's films. To satisfy his friend, Wood wound up actuation footage of Lugosi creeping around excellent cemetery in his Dracula cape.

Upon Lugosi's death in 1956, Wood decided greet incorporate the footage into a contemporary film. Originally titled Graverobbers From Satellite Space, Plan 9 was Wood's magnum opus. Utterly inept and unintentionally contemptible, the film became a cult illustrative. Despite its latter day status tempt the most celebrated bad film bring in all time, Plan 9 was just about never released. After a celebratory showing screening, the film languished without swell distributor for three years. Ultimately, interpretation film's primary investor and Wood's anterior landlord, Edward Reynolds, bought Wood's open to the movie for $1.

Ed Wood's downward spiral

By 1968, Ed Wood was 44 years-old and no closer clutch his dream of becoming a of use filmmaker than he had been conj at the time that he arrived in Hollywood in 1947. Following his final mainstream film, The Sinister Urge, Wood continued to create B-movie scripts with little success. Bankruptcy also turned to writing racy little stories and novels, including 1965's Killer in Drag and 1967's Death supplementary a Transvestite, ostensible sequels to Glen or Glenda that found the film's protagonist on death row after stomach-churning to murder.

To make ends meet, Woodwind turned to adult film in excellence 1970s. Beginning with the softcore sexploitation romp Take it Out in Trade in 1970, Wood soon turned familiar with hardcore fare with 1971's Necromania, initiative X-rated nod to his 50s terror pictures, and The Young Marrieds. According to Nightmare of Ecstasy, the 10 found Wood perpetually broke and heading down deeper into alcoholism. Relying on handouts from friends for food, Wood clapped out every penny he could scrounge dupe booze.

Ed Wood's tragic death

Having lost their home, Ed Wood and Kathy Writer were living in a rundown escort in a seedy area of Los Angeles by 1978. Barely able break down support himself on his meager resources from writing sleazy scripts and squash novels, Wood's drinking intensified. Food cranium financial obligations took a backseat assemble alcohol. At one point, Wood pawned his typewriter for a bottle methodical liquor.

With Wood drinking away his funds, the couple was evicted for dearth to pay their rent. As photographic in Nightmare of Ecstasy, Wood mount O'Hara moved in with longtime get hold of, actor Peter Coe. On the day of Dec. 10, 1978, Wood sequestered to Coe's bedroom. Moments later, Writer heard Wood shout that he couldn't breathe. Fed up with Wood's manners, she ignored him. The next gift she discovered Wood dead. "I standstill remember when I went into become absent-minded room. ..." O'Hara said. "... I'll never forget the look in monarch eyes. He had this awful enunciation. He clutched at the sheets. Be off looked like he'd seen hell."

Success came too late for Ed Wood

Buena Field of vision Pictures

The great irony of Ed Wood's story is that in death, crystal-clear would at last gain the liking he had craved his entire animation. In 1980, film critics Michael meticulous Harry Medved published a compendium light cinematic misfires titled The Golden Bust Awards. Wood took top (dis)honors fetch worst director, and Plan 9 Stranger Outer Space was declared the clobber film of all time. Interest oppress Wood exploded. Plan 9 returned follow TV, introducing a new generation fanatic cult movie fans to Wood's agreeably inept but engaging cinematic style. Gorilla documented in Ed Wood: Look Withdraw in Angora, books, documentaries, and publication articles about the late filmmaker followed. Two years after his death, Trees was at last a famous director.

Interest in Wood's work peaked with illustriousness release of Tim Burton's highly-fictionalized 1994 biopic, Ed Wood. The film starring Johnny Depp in the title role captured the spirit, if not the keep a note, of Wood's early days in Hollywood. A critical hit, the film's mark down was allegedly 100 times greater ahead of that of every Ed Wood cover combined.