Martin Landau
Landau in 2010
Born	(1928-06-20) June 20, 1928 (age 84)[1] Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, producer
Years active	1956–present
Spouse	Barbara Bain (m. 1957–1993) «start: (1957)–end+1: (1994)»"Marriage: Barbara Bain to Martin Landau" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Martin_Landau); divorced
Children	Susan Landau, Juliet Landau

Martin Landau (born June 20, 1928)^[1] is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible (for which he received several Emmy Award nominations) and Space:1999. He received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture and his first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Tucker: The Man and His Dream, and was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). His performance in the supporting role of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood (1994) earned him the Academy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe. He continues to perform in film and television and heads the Hollywood branch of the Actors Studio.

Early life[link]

Landau was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Selma and Morris Landau.^[2] His family was Jewish, and his father, an Austrian-born machinist, scrambled to rescue relatives from the Nazis.^[3] He attended James Madison High School and The Pratt Institute before finding full-time work as a cartoonist.^[4]

Career[link]

[edit] Cartoonist on The Gumps

At the age of 17, he began working as a cartoonist for the Daily News, illustrating Billy Rose's "Pitching Horseshoes" column and assisting Gus Edson on The Gumps comic strip during the 1940s and 1950s, eventually drawing the Sunday strip for Edson.^[5] (Some sources have confused him with the comic book artist Kenneth Landau and incorrectly claim that Martin Landau drew for comic books using the name Ken Landau as a pseudonym.)^[6] When he was 22, he quit the Daily News job in order to concentrate on theater.

Films, theater and TV[link]

Influenced by Charlie Chaplin and the escapism of the cinema, he pursued an acting career. He attended the Actors Studio, became good friends with iconic actor James Dean, and later was in the same class with Steve McQueen. In 1957, Landau made his Broadway debut in Middle of the Night. In 1959, Landau made his first major film appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest.

Landau took the role of master of disguise Rollin Hand in Mission: Impossible, becoming one of the TV show's better-known stars. According to The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier, by Patrick J. White (Avon Books, 1991), Landau initially declined to be contracted to the show as he did not want it to interfere with his film career; instead, for the first season he was credited in "special guest appearances by" him. He became a "full-time" cast member with the second season, although the studio agreed to only contract him on a year-by-year basis rather than the then-standard five years. The role of Rollin Hand required Landau to perform a wide range of accents and characters from dictators to thugs, and several episodes saw Landau playing dual roles—not only Hand's impersonation but also the person Hand is impersonating. He co-starred in the series with his then wife, Barbara Bain.

Landau (left) with Patrick Swayze, March 29, 1989

In the mid-1970s, Landau and Bain, teamed with Barry Morse, returned to television in the British science fiction series, Space: 1999, produced first by Gerry Anderson in partnership with Sylvia Anderson and then by Fred Freiberger. Although it remains a cult classic for its high production design values, the series was critically derided during its run and was cancelled after two seasons. Landau himself became very critical of the show's scripts and storylines, especially during its second season, but he praised the cast and crew. He wrote forewords for Barry Morse's 2006 theatrical memoir Remember with Advantages and for Jim Smith's critical biography of Tim Burton.

After Space: 1999, Landau appeared in supporting roles in a number of films and television shows of varying quality, including The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island, which again co-starred Bain. This was the last time the two acted together on screen, as of December 2007.

Landau at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.

In the late 1980s, Landau staged a major career comeback by winning an Academy Award nomination for his role in Tucker: The Man and His Dream. He later received a second nomination for Crimes and Misdemeanors and won the 1994 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his uncanny portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. Upon accepting the award, he was visibly frustrated by the orchestra's attempt to cut short his speech. When the music level rose, he pounded his fist on the podium and yelled "No!"^[7] He later stated that he had intended to thank Lugosi and dedicate the award to him and his frustration was that he did not get to mention the man whom he portrayed.^[8] Landau received a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe, and a Saturn Award for the role, as well as awards from several critics groups.^[9] When Landau won the Academy Award, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times said that "the award goes to Martin Landau; its shadow goes to Bela Lugosi." Landau admitted, on the Ed Wood DVD, to having been very impressed by the comment.

In 2006 Landau made a guest appearance on the TV series Entourage, playing a washed-up, but determined and sympathetic, Hollywood producer attempting to relive his glory days. Landau received a 2007 Emmy Award nomination for his performance in this role.

In June 2011 Landau began filming the Hallmark Hall of Fame made-for-TV movie of Mitch Albom's Have a Little Faith, in which he plays Rabbi Albert Lewis.^[10] The film had a "world premiere charity screening" November 16, 2011, in Royal Oak, Michigan, near Detroit.^[11] All ten theaters within the Emogine multiplex theater showed the film, with proceeds benefiting the "A Hole in the Roof Foundation" and the "Rabbi Albert Lewis Fund."^[11] The film premiered on ABC Sunday November 27, 2011, the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.^[12][13]

Acting coach[link]

Encouraged by his mentor Lee Strasberg, Landau also taught acting. Actors he has coached include Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston. In 2009, Landau, working with director Mark Rydell and screenwriter/playwright Lyle Kessler teamed up to produce an educational seminar, The Total Picture Seminar. It was an unusual two-day event covering the disciplines of acting, directing and writing for film. The three have worked together as a team for many decades at the Actors Studio teaching and coaching professional actors, writers, and directors.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Martin Landau has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6841 Hollywood Boulevard.

Personal life[link]

Landau has two daughters, Susan and Juliet, from his marriage to actress and former co-star Barbara Bain. Landau and Bain married on January 31, 1957, and divorced in 1993. Landau lives in West Hollywood, California.

Filmography[link]

Selected television[link]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Co., 1999.
• Hellmann, Paul T. Historical Gazetteer of the United States. Florence, Ky.: Taylor and Francis, 2005.
• Laufenberg, Norbert. Entertainment Celebrities. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford, 2005.
• Riggs, Thomas. Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television. Detroit, Mich.: Gale/Cengage Learning, 2004.
• Stewart, John. Italian Film: A Who's Who. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1994.
• Welsh, James Michael; Phillips, Gene D.; and Hill, Rodney. The Francis Ford Coppola Encyclopedia. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010.
• Who's Who in Entertainment. Wilmette, Ill.: Marquis Who's Who, 1989.
• Willis, John and Monush, Barry. Screen World 2005 Film Annual. New York: Applause, 2006.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Martin Landau

• Martin Landau at the Internet Movie Database
• The Total Picture Seminar - A Seminar with Martin Landau, Mark Rydell, and Lyle Kessler covering filmmaking.

Bela Lugosi
Bela Lugosi in 1920
Born	Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (1882-10-20)20 October 1882 Lugos, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania)
Died	16 August 1956(1956-08-16) (aged 73) Los Angeles, California, United States
Cause of death	Heart attack
Resting place	Holy Cross Cemetery
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1917–1956
Spouse	Ilona Szmick (1917–1920) (divorced) Ilona von Montagh (1921–1924) (divorced) Beatrice Weeks (1929–1929) (divorced) Lillian Arch (1933–1953) (divorced) 1 child[1] Hope Lininger (1955–1956) (his death)
Children	Bela George Lugosi
Parents	István Blaskó (father) Paula de Vojnich (mother)
Website
http://www.lugosi.com

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (20 October 1882 – 16 August 1956), commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen.^[2] He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his career.

Early life[link]

Lugosi, the youngest of four children,^[3] was born as Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó in Lugos (at the time part of Austria–Hungary, now Lugoj in Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker.^[4] He later based his last name on his hometown.^[3] He and his sister Vilma were raised in a Roman Catholic family.^[5] At the age of 12, Lugosi dropped out of school.^[3] He began his acting career probably in 1901 or 1902. His earliest known performances are from provincial theaters in the 1903–1904 season, playing small roles in several plays and operettas.^[6] He went on to Shakespeare plays and other major roles. Moving to Budapest in 1911, he played dozens of roles with the National Theater of Hungary in the period 1913–1919. Although Lugosi would later claim that he "became the leading actor of Hungary's Royal National Theater", almost all his roles there were small or supporting parts.^[7]

During World War I, he served as an infantry lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1914 to 1916. There he rose to the rank of captain in the ski patrol and was awarded a medal for being wounded at the Russian front.^[3]

Due to his activism in the actors union in Hungary during the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1919, he was forced to flee his homeland.^[3] He first went to Vienna, Austria, and then settled in Berlin, Germany, in the Langestrasse where he continued acting.^[3] Eventually, he traveled to New Orleans, United States as a crewman aboard a merchant ship.^[3]

Career[link]

Early films[link]

Lugosi's first film appearance was in the 1917 movie Az ezredes (known in English as The Colonel). When appearing in Hungarian silent films he used the stage name Arisztid Olt. Lugosi made 12 films in Hungary between 1917 and 1918 before leaving for Germany. Following the collapse of Béla Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, leftists and trade unionists became vulnerable. Lugosi was proscribed from acting due to his participation in the formation of an actors’ union. In exile in Germany, he began appearing in a small number of well received films, including adaptations of the Karl May novels, Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses (On the Brink of Paradise), and Die Todeskarawane (The Caravan of Death), opposite the ill-fated Jewish actress Dora Gerson. Lugosi left Germany in October 1920, intending to emigrate to the United States, and entered the country at New Orleans in December 1920. He made his way to New York and was legally inspected for immigration at Ellis Island in March 1921.^[8] He declared his intention to become a U.S. citizen in 1928, and on June 26, 1931, he was naturalized.^[9]

On his arrival in America, the 6 foot 1 inch (1.85 m), 180 lb. (82 kg) Béla worked for some time as a laborer, then entered the theater in New York City's Hungarian immigrant colony. With fellow Hungarian actors he formed a small stock company that toured Eastern cities, playing for immigrant audiences. He acted in his first Broadway play, The Red Poppy, in 1922. Three more parts came in 1925–1926, including a five-month run in the comedy-fantasy The Devil in the Cheese.^[10] His first American film role came in the 1923 melodrama The Silent Command. Several more silent roles followed, as villains or continental types, all in productions made in the New York area.

[edit] Dracula

Lugosi was approached in the summer of 1927^[11] to star in a Broadway production of Dracula adapted by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston from Bram Stoker's novel. The Horace Liveright production was successful, running 261 performances before touring. He was soon called to Hollywood for character parts in early talkies.

Despite his critically acclaimed performance on stage, Lugosi was not Universal Pictures’ first choice for the role of Dracula when the company optioned the rights to the Deane play and began production in 1930. A persistent rumor asserts that director Tod Browning's long-time collaborator, Lon Chaney, was Universal's first choice for the role, and that Lugosi was chosen only due to Chaney's death shortly before production. This is questionable, because Chaney had been under long-term contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer since 1925, and had negotiated a lucrative new contract just before his death.

Chaney and Browning had worked together on several projects (including four of Chaney's final five releases), but Browning was only a last-minute choice to direct the movie version of Dracula after the death of director Paul Leni, who was originally slated to direct.

Typecasting[link]

Through his association with Dracula (in which he appeared with minimal makeup, using his natural, heavily accented voice), Lugosi found himself typecast as a horror villain in such movies as Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Raven, and Son of Frankenstein for Universal, and the independent White Zombie. His accent, while a part of his image, limited the roles he could play.

Lugosi did attempt to break type by auditioning for other roles. He lost out to Lionel Barrymore for the role of Rasputin in Rasputin and the Empress; C. Henry Gordon for the role of Surat Khan in Charge of the Light Brigade; Basil Rathbone for the role of Commissar Dimitri Gorotchenko in Tovarich (a role Lugosi had played on stage). He did play the elegant, somewhat hot-tempered Gen. Nicholas Strenovsky-Petronovich in International House.

Regardless of controversy, five films at Universal — The Black Cat, The Raven, The Invisible Ray, Son of Frankenstein, Black Friday (plus minor cameo performances in 1934's Gift of Gab) and two at RKO Pictures, You'll Find Out and The Body Snatcher — paired Lugosi with Boris Karloff. Despite the relative size of their roles, Lugosi inevitably got second billing, below Karloff. Lugosi's attitude toward Karloff is the subject of contradictory reports, some claiming that he was openly resentful of Karloff's long-term success and ability to get good roles beyond the horror arena, while others suggested the two actors were — for a time, at least — good friends. Karloff himself in interviews suggested that Lugosi was initially mistrustful of him when they acted together, believing that the Englishman would attempt to upstage him. When this proved not to be the case, according to Karloff, Lugosi settled down and they worked together amicably (though some have further commented that Karloff's on-set demand to break from filming for mid-afternoon tea annoyed Lugosi).

Universal tried to give Lugosi more heroic roles, as in The Black Cat, The Invisible Ray, and a romantic role in the adventure serial The Return of Chandu, but his typecasting problem was too entrenched for those roles to help.

Lugosi addressed his plea to be cast in non-horror roles directly to casting directors through his listing in the 1937 Players Directory, published by the Motion Picture Academy, in which he (or his agent) calls the idea that he is only fit for horror films "an error."^[12]

Career path[link]

A number of factors worked against Lugosi's career in the mid-1930s. Universal changed management in 1936, and because of a British ban on horror films, dropped them from their production schedule; Lugosi found himself consigned to Universal's non-horror B-film unit, at times in small roles where he was obviously used for "name value" only. Throughout the 1930s, Lugosi, experiencing a severe career decline despite popularity with audiences (Universal executives always preferred his rival Karloff), accepted many leading roles from independent producers like Nat Levine, Sol Lesser, and Sam Katzman. These low-budget thrillers indicate that Lugosi was less discriminating than Karloff in selecting screen vehicles, but the exposure helped Lugosi financially if not artistically. Lugosi tried to keep busy with stage work, but had to borrow money from the Actors' Fund to pay hospital bills when his only child, Bela George Lugosi, was born in 1938.

From The Devil Bat, 1940

His career was given a second chance by Universal's Son of Frankenstein in 1939, when he played the character role of Ygor, who uses the Monster for his own revenge, in heavy makeup and beard. The same year saw Lugosi playing a straight character role in a major motion picture: he was a stern commissar in MGM's comedy Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo. This small but prestigious role could have been a turning point for the actor, but within the year he was back on Hollywood's Poverty Row, playing leads for Sam Katzman. These horror, comedy and mystery B-films were released by Monogram Pictures. At Universal, he often received star billing for what amounted to a supporting part. The Gorilla (1939) had him playing straight man to Patsy Kelly, in a role she told author Boze Hadleigh was her finest role.

Ostensibly due to injuries received during military service, Lugosi developed severe, chronic sciatica. Though at first he was treated with pain remedies such as asparagus juice, doctors increased the medication to opiates. The growth of his dependence on pain-killers, particularly morphine and methadone, was directly proportional to the dwindling of screen offers. In 1943, he finally played the role of Frankenstein's monster in Universal's Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, which this time contained dialogue (Lugosi's voice had been dubbed over that of Lon Chaney, Jr., from line readings at the end of 1942's The Ghost of Frankenstein because Ygor's brain had been transplanted into the Monster). Lugosi continued to play the Monster with Ygor's consciousness but with groping gestures because the Monster was now blind. Ultimately, all of the Monster's dialogue and all references to his sightlessness were edited out of the released film, leaving a strange, maimed performance characterized by unexplained gestures and lip movements with no words coming out. He also came to recreate the role of Dracula a second and last time on film in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948. By this time, Lugosi's drug use was so notorious that the producers were not even aware that Lugosi was still alive, and had penciled in actor Ian Keith for the role.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was Bela Lugosi's last "A" movie. For the remainder of his life he appeared — less and less frequently — in obscure, low-budget features. From 1947 to 1950, he performed in summer stock, often in productions of Dracula or Arsenic and Old Lace, and during the rest of the year made personal appearances in a touring "spook show" and on television. While in England to play a six-month tour of Dracula in 1951, he co-starred in a lowbrow movie comedy, Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (also known as Vampire over London and My Son, the Vampire). Upon his return to America, Lugosi was interviewed for television, and revealed his ambition to play more comedy, though wistfully noting, "Now I am the boogie man." Independent producer Jack Broder took Lugosi at his word, casting him in a jungle-themed comedy, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. Another opportunity for comedy came in September 1949 when Milton Berle invited Lugosi to appear in a sketch on Texaco Star Theater.^[13] Lugosi memorized the script for the skit, but became confused on the air when Berle began to ad lib.^[14]

Working with Ed Wood[link]

Lugosi in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, 1959

Late in his life, Bela Lugosi again received star billing in movies when filmmaker Ed Wood, a fan of Lugosi, found him living in obscurity and near-poverty and offered him roles in his films, such as an anonymous narrator in Glen or Glenda and a Dr. Frankenstein-like mad scientist in Bride of the Monster. During post-production of the latter, Lugosi decided to seek treatment for his drug addiction, and the premiere of the film was said to be intended to help pay for his hospital expenses. According to Kitty Kelley's biography of Frank Sinatra, when the entertainer heard of Lugosi's problems, he helped with expenses and visited at the hospital. Lugosi would recall his amazement, since he did not even know Sinatra.^[15]

During an impromptu interview upon his exit from the treatment center in 1955, Lugosi stated that he was about to go to work on a new Ed Wood film, The Ghoul Goes West. This was one of several projects proposed by Wood, including The Phantom Ghoul and Dr. Acula. With Lugosi in his famed Dracula cape, Wood shot impromptu test footage, with no storyline in mind, in front of Tor Johnson's home, a suburban graveyard and in front of Lugosi's apartment building on Carlton Way. This footage ended up in Plan 9 from Outer Space, which was mostly filmed after Lugosi's death. Wood hired Tom Mason, his wife's chiropractor, to double for Lugosi in additional shots.^[16] Mason is thinner than Lugosi, and in every shot covers the lower half of his face with his cape, as Lugosi sometimes did in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Following his treatment, Lugosi made one final film, in late 1955, The Black Sleep, for Bel-Air Pictures, which was released in the summer of 1956 through United Artists with a promotional campaign that included several personal appearances. To his disappointment, however, his role in this film was of a mute, with no dialogue.

Personal life[link]

In 1917, Lugosi married Ilona Szmick. The couple divorced in 1920, reputedly over political differences with her parents.

In 1929, Lugosi took his place in Hollywood society and scandal when he married wealthy San Francisco widow Beatrice Weeks, but she filed for divorce four months later. Weeks cited actress Clara Bow as the "other woman".^[17]

In 1933 he married 19-year-old Lillian Arch, the daughter of Hungarian immigrants. They had a child, Bela G. Lugosi, in 1938.^[18]

Lillian and Béla divorced in 1953,^[1] at least partially because of Béla's jealousy over Lillian taking a full-time job as an assistant to Brian Donlevy on the sets and studios for Donlevy's radio and television series Dangerous Assignment^[19] — Lillian eventually did marry Brian Donlevy, in 1966.

Lugosi married Hope Lininger, his fifth wife, in 1955. She had been a fan of his, writing letters to him when he was in hospital recovering from addiction to Demerol. She would sign her letters 'A dash of Hope'.

Death[link]

Lugosi's grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California

Lugosi died of a heart attack on August 16, 1956, while lying on a couch in his Los Angeles home. He was 73.^[20] The rumor that Lugosi was clutching the script for The Final Curtain, a planned Ed Wood project, at the time of his death is not true.^[21]

Lugosi was buried wearing one of the Dracula Cape costumes, per the request of his son and fourth wife, in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Contrary to popular belief, Lugosi never requested to be buried in his cloak; Bela G. Lugosi confirmed on numerous occasions that he and his mother, Lillian, actually made the decision but believed that it is what his father would have wanted.^[22]

Legacy[link]

In 1979, the Lugosi v. Universal Pictures decision by the California Supreme Court held that Bela Lugosi's personality rights could not pass to his heirs, as a copyright would have. The court ruled that under California law any rights of publicity, including the right to his image, terminated with Lugosi's death.^[23][24]

Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Blvd.

In Tim Burton's 1994 Ed Wood, Lugosi is played by Martin Landau who received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. According to Bela G. Lugosi (his son), Forrest Ackerman, Dolores Fuller and Richard Sheffield, Lugosi never used profanity, owned small dogs, or slept in coffins. The film fabricated much about the Hungarian actor.

Three Lugosi projects were featured on the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000. The Corpse Vanishes appeared in episode 105, the serial The Phantom Creeps throughout season two and the Ed Wood production Bride of the Monster in episode 423.

An episode of Sledge Hammer titled "Last of the Red Hot Vampires" was a homage to Bela Lugosi; at the end of the episode, it was dedicated to "Mr. Blaskó".

In 2001, BBC Radio 4 broadcast There Are Such Things by Steven McNicoll and Mark McDonnell. Focusing on Lugosi and his well-documented struggle to escape from the role that had typecast him, the play went on to receive the Hamilton Dean Award for best dramatic presentation from the Dracula Society in 2002.

A statue of Lugosi can be seen today on one of the corners of the Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest.

The Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York City features a live, 30-minute play that focuses on Lugosi's illegal entry into the country and then his arrival at Ellis Island to enter the country legally.^[25]

The cape Lugosi wore in the 1931 film Dracula still survives today in the ownership of Universal Studios.

The theatrical play Lugosi - a vámpír árnyéka (Lugosi - the Shadow of the Vampire, in Hungarian) is based on Lugosi's life, telling the story of his life as he becomes typecast as Dracula and as his drug addiction worsens. He was played by one of Hungary's most renowned actors, Ivan Darvas.

Andy Warhol's 1963 silkscreen The Kiss depicts Lugosi from Dracula about to bite into the neck of co-star Helen Chandler, who played Mina Harker. A copy sold for $798,000 at Christie's in May 2000.^[26]

Lugosi was also the subject of "Bela Lugosi's Dead", the first single by English rock band Bauhaus. It was released in August 1979 and it is often considered to be the first gothic rock record.

Bela Lugosi was a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers, ISBN 0-9773798-1-7 (hardcover)
• The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi by Arthur Lennig (2003), ISBN 0-8131-2273-2 (hardcover)
• Bela Lugosi (Midnight Marquee Actors Series) by Gary Svehla and Susan Svehla (1995) ISBN 1-887664-01-7 (paperback)
• Bela Lugosi: Master of the Macabre by Larry Edwards (1997), ISBN 1-881117-09-X (paperback)
• Films of Bela Lugosi by Richard Bojarski (1980) ISBN 0-8065-0716-0 (hardcover)
• Sinister Serials of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. by Leonard J. Kohl (2000) ISBN 1-887664-31-9 (paperback)
• Vampire over London: Bela Lugosi in Britain by Frank J. Dello Stritto (2000) ISBN 0-9704269-0-9 (hardcover)
• Lugosi: The Man Behind the Cape by Robert Cremer (1976) ISBN 0-8092-8137-6 (hardcover)
• Bela Lugosi: Biografia di una metamorfosi by Edgardo Franzosini (1998) ISBN 88-459-1370-8

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Official website
• Bela Lugosi at the Internet Movie Database
• More information at PORT.hu
• Bela Lugosi at AllRovi^{[dead link]}
• Bela Lugosi at the Internet Broadway Database
• Bela Lugosi at Find a Grave

Barbara Bain
Barbara Bain (2006)
Born	Millicent Fogel (1931-09-13) September 13, 1931 (age 80) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1958–present
Spouse	Martin Landau (m. 1957–1993) «start: (1957)–end+1: (1994)»"Marriage: Martin Landau to Barbara Bain" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Barbara_Bain)

Barbara Bain (born September 13, 1931) is an American actress.

Early life[link]

Bain was born in Chicago as Millicent Fogel, the daughter of immigrants from Russia.^[1] She graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in sociology. She moved to New York City, where she was a dancer and high fashion model. Bain studied with Martha Graham, thus cementing her interest in dancing. After attending Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio, she became an actress.

In 1958, Bain and Larry Hagman guest-starred in the last episode of Harbourmaster. She guest-starred as Nen Slausen in the 1959 episode "Fiddle Dee Dead" of Rod Cameron's syndicated series State Trooper.

February 20, 1960 featured in Perry Mason: Episode 85 (Season 3,Ep 16) "The Case of the Wary Wildcatter". Played "Madelyn Terry" the girlfriend of "Lucky Sterling"....

On December 23, 1960, she guest-starred in a Christmas episode of James Whitmore's legal drama The Law and Mr. Jones on ABC.

On December 30, 1963, Bain appeared with Jack Kelly, long after Maverick in "The Fenton Canaby Story" on ABC's Wagon Train, Season 7. Canaby is a former trailmaster with a dark secret he refuses to discuss. Bain plays Lucy Garrison, a young woman with her own questionable past, long before Mission: Impossible!, who is attracted to Canaby. Virginia Gregg plays Grace Lowe, who blames Canaby for her husband's death.^[2]

Career[link]

Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter, 1969.

On CBS's Mission: Impossible, Bain played Cinnamon Carter from 1966 until 1969 and again in one 1997 episode of Dick Van Dyke's Diagnosis: Murder. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Actress in a Television Series for her performance in Mission: Impossible in 1968. She won three consecutive Emmys for Best Dramatic Actress for that series in 1967, 1968, and 1969.^[3]

Her then husband, Martin Landau, also starred in Mission: Impossible. The two both left the series in 1969. She starred opposite Landau again in the science fiction television series Space: 1999 (1975–1977), as Dr. Helena Russell. Bain and Landau also performed together on screen in the 1981 made-for-TV film The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. Bain also appeared in Season 2 of the television series The Dick Van Dyke Show in the episode "Will You Two Be My Wife?". Bain appeared on an episode of My So-Called Life, playing main character Angela Chase's grandmother. She appeared in the episode "Matroyoshka" of Millennium, a late-'90s sci-fi series. In 1998, Bain was a special guest star in the Walker, Texas Ranger episode ("Saving Grace") as Mother Superior. In 2006, Bain had a minor role in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ("Living Legends"), which featured a suspect, played by Roger Daltrey, who used stretch rubber face masks, similar to those used in the old Mission: Impossible series, to kill his enemies. In 2008, Bain appeared in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" of the TV show Ben 10: Alien Force, voicing Verdona Tennyson, the grandmother of Ben Tennyson and Gwen Tennyson, alongside her daughter, Juliet Landau.

Personal life[link]

In 1957, she married actor Martin Landau, with whom she later starred on television. Landau and Bain divorced in 1993. The couple had two daughters, actress Juliet Landau and film producer Susan Bain Landau Finch^[4] (née Susan Meredith Landau). Bain is of the Jewish faith.^[5]

Barbara Bain has worked to further the cause of many charities, including literacy. When asked about watching daughter Juliet's career evolve, Bain told Attention Deficit Delirium: "I think it's wonderful. She wants it, she's very good at it, so she should do it. She's very gifted. I've seen her in the theater, and we've been on stage together. We did a play in Los Angeles together. It was gorgeous because I was in the wings and could watch her, and she could be in the wings and watch me. I handed her a handkerchief at the end of her big crying scene. I've never been nervous about her because she knows what she's doing, so I'm very calm when I watch her and very excited to see what she's doing. I don’t take pride because it doesn’t seem like anything that I did. It seems more exquisite pleasure, but not pride. I didn't do anything, she did it. In kindergarten she said she wanted to be a singer/dancer/actress. She does sing and did dance. She didn't mess around. She went right after what she was going to do."^[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Barbara Bain at the Internet Movie Database

Ed Wood
Wood in Glen or Glenda (1953)
Born	Edward Davis Wood, Jr. (1924-10-10)October 10, 1924 Poughkeepsie, New York, United States
Died	December 10, 1978(1978-12-10) (aged 54) Los Angeles, California, United States
Cause of death	Heart attack
Occupation	Screenwriter, film director, film producer, actor, author, and editor
Years active	1947–1978
Spouse	Norma McCarty (m. 1955–1956) «start: (1955)–end+1: (1957)»"Marriage: Norma McCarty to Ed Wood" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Ed_Wood) Kathleen O'Hara (m. 1959–1978) «start: (1959)–end+1: (1979)»"Marriage: Kathleen O'Hara to Ed Wood" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Ed_Wood)
Children	Kathleen Emily Wood
Military career
Born	Poughkeepsie, New York
Died	Los Angeles, California
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Marine Corps
Years of service	1942–1946
Battles/wars	World War II: Guadalcanal Campaign Battle of Tarawa

Edward Davis "Ed" Wood, Jr. (October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, actor, author, and editor, who often performed many of these functions simultaneously. In the 1950s, Wood made a number of low-budget genre films, now notable for their technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, large amounts of ill-fitting stock footage, idiosyncratic dialogue, eccentric casts and outlandish plot elements, although his flair for showmanship gave his projects at least a modicum of critical success.

Wood's popularity waned soon after his biggest name star Bela Lugosi died (in August 1956). He was able to salvage a saleable feature from Lugosi's last moments on film, but his career declined thereafter. Toward the end of his life, Wood made pornographic movies and wrote pulp crime, horror, and sex novels. His infamy began two years after his death, when he was awarded a Golden Turkey Award as Worst Director of All Time.^[1] The lack of filmmaking ability in his work has earned Wood and his films a considerable cult following.

Following the publication of Rudolph Grey's biography Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992), Wood's life and work have undergone a public rehabilitation of sorts, with new light shed on his evident zeal and honest love of movies and movie production. Tim Burton's biopic of the director's life, Ed Wood, earned two Academy Awards.

Early years[link]

Wood's father, Edward Sr., worked for the Postal Service and his family relocated numerous times around the United States. Eventually, they settled in Poughkeepsie, New York, where Ed Wood, Jr. was born.

During his childhood, Wood was interested in the performing arts and pulp fiction. He collected comics and pulp magazines, and adored movies, most notably Westerns, and anything involving the occult. He would often skip school in favor of watching pictures at the local movie theater, where stills from the day's movie would often be thrown in the trash by theater staff, allowing Wood to salvage them to add to his extensive collection.

It is believed that Wood's mother, Lillian, always wanted a girl and would sometimes, until he was about 12 years old, dress her son in skirts and dresses.^[2] For the rest of his life, Wood was a heterosexual crossdresser.

On his 12th birthday, Wood received his first movie camera, a Kodak "Cine Special". One of his first pieces of footage, and one that imbued him with pride, was the airship Hindenburg passing over the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, shortly before its famous fiery demise at Lakehurst, New Jersey.^[2]

One of his first paid jobs was as a cinema usher, and he also sang and played drums in a band. He later fronted a singing quartet called Eddie Wood's Little Splinters, having learned to play a variety of string instruments.

Wood enlisted in the Marines at age 17, just months after the Attack on Pearl Harbor. He served from 1942–46 and claimed that he had participated in the Battle of Guadalcanal^{[citation needed]} while secretly wearing a brassiere and panties beneath his uniform.

Fascinated by the exotic and bizarre, Wood joined a carnival following his discharge from the Marines. His several missing teeth and disfigured leg (wounds suffered while in combat) combined with personal fetishes and acting skills made him a perfect candidate for the freak show. Wood played, among others, the geek and the bearded lady. As the bearded lady, he donned women's clothing and created his own prosthetic breasts. Carnivals would be frequently depicted in Wood's works, most notably the semi-autobiographical novel Killer in Drag.

Wood's other habits included soft drugs, alcohol, and sex. He was a womanizer in his younger days, but in later life he was faithful to his girlfriends (most notably Dolores Fuller) and wife (Kathy O'Hara). Wood had one child, a daughter named Kathleen Emily Wood.^{[citation needed]}

Wood's first wife, Norma McCarty, kicked him out of their house not long after they were married. McCarty had a son, Michael ("Mac"), from a relationship prior to Wood.^[3]

Movies[link]

For a list of films involving Ed Wood, see Ed Wood Jr. filmography.

Ed Wood clad in wig and angora sweater for Glen or Glenda (1953)

About his films, Wood is quoted as stating,

"If you want to know me, see Glen or Glenda. That's me, that's my story, no question. But Plan 9 is my pride and joy."^[4]

Wood's film career began after moving to Hollywood in 1947. He wrote scripts and directed television pilots, commercials, and several forgotten micro-budget westerns with names such as Crossroads of Laredo and Crossroad Avenger: The Legend of the Tucson Kid. Wood wrote, produced, directed, and starred in Casual Company,^[5] a play from his unpublished novel^[6] which was based on his service in the United States Marine Corps. The play opened at the Village Playhouse in Hollywood to disastrous reviews on October 25, 1948.

[edit] Glen or Glenda

Wood's big break came in 1953 when he was hired by producer George Weiss to make an exploitation film, I Changed My Sex, based on the life of transsexual Christine Jorgensen. After Jorgensen refused to collaborate on the film, Wood wrote a new autobiographical screenplay titled Glen or Glenda, a sincere and sympathetic study of transvestism. Wood directed and, using the alias Daniel Davis, played the titular character who has a fetish for cross-dressing and angora sweaters.

Angora was regularly featured in his films. His wife Kathy O'Hara and others recall that Wood's transvestism was not a sexual inclination, but rather a neomaternal comfort derived mainly from angora fabric (Ann Gora also happened to be one of Wood's pen names). The medical experts in the film go to great lengths to stress that the transvestite is a perfectly normal heterosexual man who simply feels more comfortable and "more himself" when wearing women's apparel. There is even a fantasy vignette showing Glenda rebuffing the advances of a homosexual man. Even in his later years, Wood was not shy about going out in public dressed in drag as Shirley, his alter ego—female characters named Shirley also appear in many of his screenplays and stories.

Most of Wood's films have a rushed quality due to the tight shooting schedule and limited budgets. While most directors film around one to ten scenes per day, Wood might complete up to thirty scenes. He seldom ordered a retake, even if the original was obviously flawed. Glen or Glenda, shot in just four days for $26,000, was done in a semi-documentary style. Narration and voice-over dialog was added to generous amounts of film-library stock footage (a cost-saving trick he used in his later films). The love-interest role of Barbara was played by Wood's real-life girlfriend, Dolores Fuller. She went on to appear in his next two films. Bela Lugosi, who was not told the film was about a transvestite, was paid $1,000 in cash for one day of filming. In a dark haunted-house set, speaking in metaphors and nursery rhymes, he played a portentous, omnipotent narrator.

The centerpiece of the film is a 15-minute fantasy sequence that illustrates Glen's tormented state of mind. Wood utilizes a barrage of surreal, dream-like vignettes with personalized symbolism. Producer George Weiss also inserted footage of flagellation and bondage, reminiscent of the fetish films of Irving Klaw, from another production. In this sequence, Barbara is pinned beneath a large tree (in her living room), and Glen rescues her; they are married with the Devil acting as best man; a shirtless man vigorously flogs a woman reclining on a couch; lewd burlesque dancers gyrate to blaring jazz music and tear at their clothes; a woman gagged and bound to a yoke-like pole is untied by another gagged woman; a lust-crazed man roughly assaults a seductress in a flimsy negligee; an enraged Glenda rips Barbara's blouse to shreds after she laughs at his appearance. Bela Lugosi appears in several scenes also rejecting Glenda and repeating the phrase "snips and snails and puppy-dog tails". The film was released under several regional titles such as Transvestite, I Led Two Lives, and He or She?.

[edit] Middle years: Jail Bait and Bride of the Monster

Wood's next project was a proposed TV series called Dr. Acula, to star Lugosi as an investigator into the supernatural. When this fell through, he directed and produced the low-budget film Jail Bait (1954), a 1930s-style gangster film with a twist ending à la The Twilight Zone. Originally called The Hidden Face, the title was inexplicably changed to Jail Bait, from an offhand reference in the script to an illegal hand gun. Wood also co-wrote the screenplay with writer-producer friend Alex Gordon. It was Gordon who introduced Wood to Bela Lugosi in 1952. (Gordon soon went on to help create American International Pictures.) Lugosi was originally cast as the father of the lead character, but dropped out due to illness. Around this time, Wood became friends with a group of B-movie actors who became part of his entourage and stock company, appearing in most of his later films. These included Kenne Duncan, Lyle Talbot, Conrad Brooks, Duke Moore, Timothy Farrell, Swedish professional wrestler Tor Johnson, pin-up model and TV horror hostess Maila Nurmi (aka Vampira), gay socialite Bunny Breckinridge, and psychic Criswell.

In 1955, he produced and directed his first horror film, Bride of the Monster (originally titled Bride of the Atom). Although Wood took most of the writing credit, the original story, The Atomic Monster, was written by Alex Gordon. Wood contributed about half the dialogue, according to Gordon (in Starlog, November 1994). Bela Lugosi, in his last speaking role, stars as a mad scientist bent on creating an army of atomic supermen. 400-pound Tor Johnson plays Lobo, his lumbering henchman. Billy Benedict of The Bowery Boys has a walk-on role as a newspaper seller. The female lead, Loretta King, wears the same angora hat worn by Wood in Glen or Glenda.

The style and content of the film is highly reminiscent of the low-budget horror films Lugosi made for Monogram Pictures in the 1940s, particularly The Corpse Vanishes. Wood's script even recreates a laboratory scene from that film (Lugosi's mad scientist flogging his henchman) with the same fake, painted stone wall backdrop. Budget-saving film library footage of lightning, explosions, a nuclear blast, and a giant "atomic" octopus was also inserted. In one scene the hero, trapped in quicksand, is menaced by an obvious stock footage alligator. Contrary to what's seen in Ed Wood, Lugosi's stunt double was reduced to thrashing about in the mud with a large rubber octopus when the motor needed to turn it into a flailing beast could not be located (Burton's film implies that Lugosi himself performed the stunt, however the performer playing Varnoff in this scene is clearly not Lugosi). Allegedly, the octopus's motor was left behind when Wood and the crew stole the octopus from a Warner Bros. prop warehouse.

[edit] Plan 9 from Outer Space

In 1956, Wood planned to follow Bride of the Monster with The Ghoul Goes West (a.k.a. The Phantom Ghoul), which would have been a combination of his two favorite genres: Horror and Westerns. The story was mainly a rehash of Bride of the Monster in a western setting (a synopsis of the screenplay was published in Filmfax no. 18, December/January 1989–90). Lugosi, recently out of rehab for morphine addiction, was to star as the undertaker/mad scientist. Gene Autry and Lon Chaney, Jr. were also attached to the project for a time. Wood could only raise enough money to shoot one day's worth of silent test footage. A few random scenes were filmed of Lugosi at a funeral, in front of Tor Johnson's house, and stalking about in his Dracula costume (possibly intended for The Vampire's Tomb, another unrealized film). The scenes were filmed to show to prospective financial backers. Lugosi died soon afterward on August 16 and the footage became the seed for Wood's next project.

Plan 9 from Outer Space incorporated the final Lugosi scenes into a new story that combined horror and science fiction. Wood's chiropractor, his face hidden behind a cape, doubled for Lugosi in several scenes. Tor Johnson and wasp-waisted Vampira (Maila Nurmi) are memorable, even iconic, as zombies risen from the grave by alien invaders. The film was shot over a five-day period in November 1956 on a budget of around $20,000. All of Nurmi's scenes were filmed in just two hours (she was paid the union minimum wage of $200). Resorting again to the "docu-fantasy" approach, Criswell, the flamboyantly inaccurate TV psychic, acts as on-screen host and narrator. He cryptically describes the story as "something more than a fact". Cost-free stock footage of airliners, explosions and fighter jets were edited in. The flying saucers (made from plastic toy store models) are fired upon by an artillery barrage taken from World War II newsreels. Although completed in 1956, the film was not released until 1959, due to the inability of the producer to secure distribution.

Most notably, for Plan 9 he convinced members of churches of the Southern Baptist Convention (through his landlord at the time) to invest the initial capital, allegedly convincing them that a successful science fiction picture would make enough money to fund their own pet project of 12 movies about the 12 Apostles. They reportedly changed the name of the movie from Grave Robbers from Outer Space and removed lines from the script which they considered profane; one source alleges they required the actors to accept their church's baptism as part of the deal. The grave-diggers in the picture are the two primary backers. Wood's frequently being overruled by producers and financiers was one factor contributing to his depression and was something he personally blamed for his lack of commercial success.^[2]

Wood had planned to make another posthumous Lugosi collaboration to be called Ghouls of the Moon using additional unseen footage he had of Lugosi. Described as "wild stuff" by one of Wood's friends, the material was found to have deteriorated beyond usage when Wood opened the film can it was stored in. Thus the project was cancelled, with Wood moving on to Night of the Ghouls instead.

[edit] Later years: The Violent Years and Night of the Ghouls

Also in 1956, Wood's Teenage Girl Gang script was produced as The Violent Years, an exploitation film about a gang of juvenile delinquent high school girls. Directed by William M. Morgan, it starred first-time actress Jean Moorhead, a former Playboy Miss October 1955 centerfold model. The film is notable for its unusual girls-gone-bad premise and risqué abduction scene where a girl is bound and gagged with strips of her shredded dress while her boyfriend is sexually assaulted (off-camera) by the lusty girl gang. This foreshadows Wood's fearless, anything-goes attitude seen in his later, racier novels and films, as well as a demonstration of his life-long inability to see when he was being totaly ridiculous.

In 1958, Wood's screenplay Queen of the Gorillas was released as The Bride and the Beast, a fantasy tale about a gorilla reincarnated in the body of a beautiful woman. That same year Wood wrote, produced, and directed Night of the Ghouls (original title: Revenge of the Dead), an "old dark house" tale about a fake medium and evil spirits. The setting is the rebuilt house on Willows Lake that burned down in Bride of the Monster. There are frequent references to the mad scientist (Lugosi) and monster from the previous film, and Tor Johnson reprises his Lobo role, his face now half-destroyed from the fire. Paul Marco makes his third appearance as Kelton, the cowardly, inept policeman. Criswell, billed as himself, returns as host and narrator, rising from his coffin to introduce this tale of "Monsters to be pitied. Monsters to be despised!" (Tim Burton's Ed Wood biopic opens with a faithful recreation of this scene.) Criswell also plays a character role as one of the vengeful ghosts seen at the climax of the film.

In one of the early scenes, a girl (wearing an angora sweater) and her boyfriend are attacked by the Black Ghost. Wood, his face hidden by a dark veil, doubles for the female ghoul in several shots. A fight scene from the unfinished Hellborn was edited in (more scenes from that project appeared in The Sinister Urge). Most of Lieutenant Bradford's exploration of Dr. Acula's house was lifted from Wood's short film Final Curtain and given a voice-over by Criswell to integrate it into the current story. A publicity photo of Wood is seen on a wanted poster on the wall of the police station. The finale, with the ghouls reduced to skeletons and Criswell's epilogue, were used again in 1965 for Orgy of the Dead. For decades this remained a lost film that was never released to theaters. Wood lacked the funds to pay the film processing fees, so it languished in limbo until it was finally released on video in 1983.

Final years: scriptwriting and adult films[link]

Wood wrote and directed The Sinister Urge from his Racket Queen script. Released in December 1960, this lurid exposé on the "smut picture racket" purports to warn against the dangers of pornography. The story concerns a police manhunt for a sex maniac psycho-killer. The police are played by Wood regulars Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore, and Carl Anthony. Filmed in five days, this is the last mainstream film Wood directed, although it has grindhouse elements. Ironically, his career would soon spiral downward into a blur of "smut racket" nudie flicks, softcore pornography, and end with X-rated novels and films. The scenes of teenagers at a pizza place were shot in 1956 for the unfinished juvenile-delinquency film Rock and Roll Hell (a.k.a. Hellborn). This includes a fight scene performed by Ed Wood himself (uncredited) and Conrad Brooks.

In 1963, he wrote the screenplay for Shotgun Wedding, an exploitation film about hillbillies marrying child brides. Wood's transitional film, once again combining two genres, horror and grindhouse skin-flick, was Orgy of the Dead (1965). Wood wrote the screenplay, originally called Nudie Ghoulies, and handled various production details while Stephen C. Apostolof directed under the pseudonym A.C. Stephen. The film begins with a re-creation of the opening scene from the then unreleased Night of the Ghouls. Criswell, wearing one of Lugosi's old capes, rises from his coffin to deliver an introduction taken almost word-for-word from the previous film. Set in a misty graveyard, the Lord of the Dead (Criswell) and his sexy consort, The Black Ghoul (a Vampira lookalike) preside over a series of macabre performances by topless dancers from beyond the grave (recruited by Wood from local strip clubs). Together, Wood and Apostolof went on to make a string of sexploitation flicks up to 1977. Wood co-wrote the screenplays and occasionally acted. Venus Flytrap (1970), a US/Japan horror film, was based on an unproduced screenplay of Wood's from the 1950s.^[7]

His remaining output until his death in 1978 was confined to writing lurid crime and sex novels, often featuring girl gangs and transvestites, and a dozen obscure, low-budget adult films, some with an occult theme. Titles include The Photographer (1969), Take It Out in Trade (1970), The Only House in Town (1970), with Uschi Digard, Necromania (1971), The Undergraduate (1972), and Fugitive Girls (1974). As told in Nightmare of Ecstasy,^[8] Maila Nurmi declined Wood's offer to do a nude scene sitting up in a coffin for Necromania.

Wood as an author[link]

Beginning in the early 1960s, Wood supplemented his directing and screenwriting income with hastily-written pulp fiction, including innumerable pulp crime, horror, and sex novels and occasional non-fiction pieces. As he became increasingly unable to fund film projects, the novels seem to have become Wood's primary source of income.

Wood's novels frequently include transvestite or drag queen characters, or entire plots centering around transvestism (including his angora fetish), and tap into his love of crime fiction and the occult. Wood would often recycle plots of his films for novels, write novelizations of his own screenplays, or reuse elements from his novels in scripts. His first novel, Black Lace Drag was published in 1963 and reissued in 1965 as Killer in Drag. Among his other books are Orgy of the Dead (1965), Devil Girls (1967), Death of a Transvestite (1967), The Sexecutives (1968) and A Study of Fetishes and Fantasies (1973).

From 1963 until his death in December 1978, Wood wrote at least 80 novels in addition to hundreds of short stories and non-fiction pieces for magazines.^[9]

In a December 2010 published article at Mondo Film & Video Guide, indie print publisher Feral House, who in the last few years had re-printed dozens of Wood's novels, ended sales on all Wood titles. Feral House informed the online film magazine, that the estate of Ed Wood had requested a cease and desist, due to uncertainty about whether Wood might not have written all the novels published under his name.

[edit] Hollywood Rat Race

Descriptions of Wood's working methods in Nightmare of Ecstasy indicate he would work on a dozen projects at once, simultaneously watching television, eating, drinking, and carrying on conversations while typing.^[2] In his quasi-memoir, Hollywood Rat Race, Wood advises new writers to "just keep on writing. Even if your story gets worse, you'll get better". But mostly the book concerns the pitfalls of Hollywood, and has advice for those dreaming of making it in Hollywood. Wood does not candy coat the experience that a first-timer in the movie business will discover. He also devotes time in Hollywood Rat Race to making the reader wary of beauty pageant and modelling scams and con games, both in Hollywood and the world over.

As Wood's most famous films of the 1950s are not explicitly sexual or violent, the outré content of his novels may shock the unprepared reader even more than the remakably inept writing. Wood's dark side emerges in such sexual shockers as Raped in the Grass or The Perverts and in short stories such as Toni: Black Tigress, which exploit hot-button topics such as violence, rape, racial issues, juvenile delinquency and drug culture.

Unpublished[link]

Some of Wood's books remained unpublished during his lifetime. Hollywood Rat Race, for example, was written in the 1960s, and finished in 1965, but was not finally published until 1998. The non-fiction book is part-primer for young actors and filmmakers, and part-memoir. In Hollywood Rat Race, Wood recounts tales of dubious authenticity, such as how he and Bela Lugosi entered the world of nightclub cabaret.

Later years and death[link]

Wood had serious financial difficulties in his final years, often producing full movie scripts for as little as $100 in order to make ends meet. His career as a director had degenerated into making pornographic films such as Take It Out in Trade (1970), a softcore take on Philip Marlowe detective films, and Necromania (1971).

Wood also made occasional appearances as an actor, appearing in two films produced by a Marine buddy, Joseph F. Robertson. Love Feast (1969), also known as Pretty Models All in a Row, was his first lead role in a film since 1953's Glen or Glenda, as a photographer using his position to engage in sexual antics with professional models. He had a smaller role in Robertson's ode to swinger parties, Mrs. Stone's Thing. Wood appeared as a transvestite who spends his time at a party trying on lingerie in a bedroom. In Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy, Robertson makes a reference to Wood reappearing in a film called Misty,^[2] of which no other record remains.

His primary film work in the 1970s was working with friend Stephen C. Apostolof, usually cowriting scripts, but also serving as an assistant director and associate producer. His last known on-screen appearance was in Apostolof's Fugitive Girls (aka Five Loose Women), where he played a dual cameo as a gas station attendant called Pops and as the sheriff on the women's trail.

Wood's depression worsened, and with it a serious drinking problem. Evicted from his Hollywood apartment on Yucca Street, Wood and his wife moved into the North Hollywood apartment of friend Peter Coe. On December 10, 1978, only days after the move, 54-year-old Edward D. Wood, Jr., died of a heart attack while watching a football game alone in Coe's bedroom. In Nightmare of Ecstasy, it was reported Wood yelled out "Kathy, I can't breathe!", a plea his wife in the living room ignored for 90 minutes before finally going in to find him dead;^[2] apparently, he frequently feigned heart attacks and screamed for help as a way of teasing her, and at one point she even shouted at him to shut up.

Wood was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea. Wood's wife Kathy died on June 26, 2006,^[10] having never remarried.

Legacy[link]

Among connoisseurs of kitsch and bad cinema, Edward Wood Jr. is revered as one of the ultimate bad directors of all time for a variety of reasons. His cult status began two years after his death with his recognition in the Michael and Harry Medved book The Golden Turkey Awards, and has continued with the rediscovery of many of his long-lost works. In an essay paying homage to Wood in Incredibly Strange Films, Jim Morton writes: "Eccentric and individualistic, Edward D Wood Jr was a man born to film. Lesser men, if forced to make movies under the conditions Wood faced, would have thrown up their hands in defeat."^[11]

The University of Southern California holds an annual Ed Wood Film Festival, in which students of all disciplines are challenged to form teams to write, film and edit an Ed Wood-inspired short film based on a preassigned theme. Past themes have included Slippery When Wet (2006), What's That in Your Pocket? (2005), and Rebel Without a Bra (2004). 2007 saw a break in this tradition when the theme My eyes are killing me was accompanied by a theme object: a mirror.

Some of Wood's most famous films, including Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space have been remade as pornographic movies (as Glen & Glenda and Plan 69 from Outer Space, respectively). They were not simply spoofed or referenced, but reshot, with the same or similar script, and sex scenes worked into the original plots.

In 1998, Wood's previously unfilmed script I Woke Up Early the Day I Died was finally produced, starring Billy Zane and Christina Ricci, and has preserved the inept, goofy character that made Wood's films famous. Outside of a brief New York theatrical engagement, the film did not receive a commercial release in the United States, and was only available on video in Germany due to contractual difficulties.

Three of his films (Bride of the Monster, The Violent Years, and The Sinister Urge) have been featured on the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000, which has given those works wider exposure. Producers considered including Plan 9, but found it had too much dialogue for the show's format. Series head writer and host Michael J. Nelson recorded an audio commentary for a 2005/2006 DVD release of the film, which was newly colorized.

Reverend Steve Galindo of Seminole, Oklahoma, created a legally recognized religion in 1996 with Wood as its official savior.^[12] Originally founded as a joke, the Church of Ed Wood now boasts over 3,500 baptized followers. Woodites, as Steve's followers are called, celebrate Woodmas on October 10, which is Ed's birthday. Numerous parties and concerts are held worldwide to celebrate Woodmas. On October 4^[13]–5, 2003,^[14] horror host Mr. Lobo was canonized as the "Patron Saint of late night movie hosts and insomniacs" in the Church of Ed Wood.^[13][14]

The cult status of Ed Wood's movies is also represented in the music industry. Horror film director and heavy metal musician Rob Zombie titled his 2001 album The Sinister Urge after Wood's film.

One of Wood's heroes was Orson Welles for his cinematic ambition and passion. Wood also prided himself on the fact that he was the only filmmaker of his era other than Welles to be writer, director, and actor in his own films, although it is likely that Wood took on all of these functions to save time and money. Unlike the depiction in the Tim Burton movie Ed Wood, Wood never actually met his hero Welles.

Bela Lugosi, Jr. has been among those who felt Wood exploited the senior Lugosi's stardom, taking advantage of the fading actor when he could not refuse any work.^[15] Most documents and interviews with other Wood associates in Nightmare of Ecstasy suggest that Wood and Lugosi were genuine friends and that Wood helped Lugosi through the worst days of his depression and addiction.

The 1994 film Ed Wood, by director Tim Burton, tells the story of Wood and Lugosi and the making of their three films (Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 from Outer Space) from a sympathetic point of view. Wood was played by Johnny Depp and Lugosi by Martin Landau, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film also won an Academy Award for Best Makeup for Rick Baker. Burton's successes for previous studios such as Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox were at odds with his insistence on shooting the Wood film in black-and-white, and the studios turned it down as a probable box office failure. Eager to embrace Burton, Disney accepted the project, monochrome and all. As others had anticipated, the film received mass critical acclaim, but did poorly at the box office. It has since developed a cult following.

Documentaries[link]

• Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion, was released in 1992. This exhaustive two-hour documentary by Mark Carducci chronicles the making of Plan 9 from Outer Space and features interviews with Maila Nurmi (Vampira), Paul Marco, Conrad Brooks, et al. In 2000, Image Entertainment included the documentary on the DVD reissue of Plan 9 from Outer Space (in a two-disc set with Robot Monster).

• Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora, released in 1994 by Rhino Home Video, is a one-hour documentary on Wood's life and films. This includes rare outtakes and interviews with Dolores Fuller, Kathy Wood, Stephen Apostolof, and Conrad Brooks. Gary Owens narrates; Ted Newsom wrote and directed.

• The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr., written and directed by Brett Thompson, came out in 1995. This documentary about the life and films of Ed Wood features interviews with Wood's friends and co-workers and closely resembles Wood's own style, albeit with slightly better miniatures.

• The Incredibly Strange Film Show presented by Jonathan Ross.

Lost films[link]

Wood's 1972 film The Undergraduate is considered to be a lost film, along with his 1970 film Take It Out in Trade, which exists only in outtakes without sound (released by Something Weird Video). Wood's 1971 film Necromania was believed lost for years until an edited version resurfaced at a yard sale in 1992, followed by a complete unedited print in 2001. A complete print of the previously lost Wood pornographic film The Young Marrieds was discovered in 2004.

Collaborations[link]

Acting[link]

	Glen or Glenda	Crossroad Avenger	Jail Bait	Bride of the Monster	Final Curtain	Plan 9 from Outer Space	Night of the Ghouls	The Sinister Urge	Take It Out in Trade	Necromania	Crossroads of Laredo
Criswell						N	N			N
Carl Anthony						N		N
Conrad Brooks	N		N	N		N	N	N
Kenne Duncan	N						N	N
Harvey B. Dunn		N		N			N	N
Timothy Farrell	N		N
Dolores Fuller	N		N	N							N
Tor Johnson				N		N	N
Tom Keene		N				N
Bela Lugosi	N			N		N
Paul Marco				N		N	N
Tom Mason					N	N	N
Duke Moore					N	N	N	N	N		N
Bud Osborne		N	N	N			N
Lyle Talbot	N	N	N			N
Ed Wood	N	N				N	N	N	N

Other[link]

• William C. Thompson was Wood's cinematographer for all but Take it Out in Trade.
• Frank Worth composed music for Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	World War II portal
	United States Marine Corps portal

• B movie
• Ed Wood, a biopic on Wood's life
• Edward D. Wood, Jr. bibliography
• Edward D. Wood, Jr. filmography
• List of films considered the worst
• Z movie

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Rudolph Grey, Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr., Feral House, 1992, ISBN 978-0-922915-04-0; reprinted 1994, ISBN 978-0-922915-24-8
• Rob Conway, Ed Wood, Mad Genius: A Critical Study of the Films, McFarland, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7864-3955-3

External links[link]

• Edward D. Wood Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
• The Hunt for Edward D. Wood, Jr. Exhaustive guide to Ed's films and their commercial releases.
• A good website for him
• Ed Wood, Jr.'s magazine work (Caution: Adult images)
• Ed Wood: A Neighbor on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
• The Church of Ed Wood
• Ed Wood's lost TV pilot, "Final Curtain"

Woody Allen
Allen at the 2009 premiere of Whatever Works
Born	Allan Stewart Konigsberg (1935-12-01) December 1, 1935 (age 76) The Bronx, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor Director Screenwriter Comedian Musician Playwright
Years active	1950–present
Influenced by	Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick
Home town	New York City, New York
Spouse	Harlene Rosen (m. 1954–1959) «start: (1954)–end+1: (1960)»"Marriage: Harlene Rosen to Woody Allen" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Woody_Allen) Louise Lasser (m. 1966–1969) «start: (1966)–end+1: (1970)»"Marriage: Louise Lasser to Woody Allen" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Woody_Allen) Soon-Yi Previn (m. 1997) «start: (1997)»"Marriage: Soon-Yi Previn to Woody Allen" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Woody_Allen)
Partner	Mia Farrow (1980–92)
Children	Ronan Farrow (son) Bechet Dumaine Allen (daughter) Manzie Tio Allen (daughter)[1]
Relatives	Letty Aronson (sister)
Website
www.woodyallen.com

Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg, December 1, 1935) is an award-winning American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, and playwright, whose career spans over half a century.

He began as a comedy writer in the 1950s, penning jokes and scripts for television and also publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen started performing as a stand-up comic, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comic, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he insists is quite different from his real-life personality.^[2] In 2004, Comedy Central^[3] ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics, while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third greatest comedian.^[4]

By the mid-1960s Allen was writing and directing films, first specializing in slapstick comedies before moving into more dramatic material influenced by European art films during the 1970s. He is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late '70s.^[5] Allen often stars in his own films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup. The best-known of his over 40 films include the Academy Award-winners Annie Hall (1977), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Midnight in Paris (2011); and the Golden Globe-winning The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). Critic Roger Ebert has described Allen as "a treasure of the cinema."^[6]

He is also a jazz clarinetist who performs regularly at small venues in Manhattan.

Early life[link]

Allen was born Allan Stewart Königsberg in The Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, NY, the son of Nettie (born Cherrie; November 8, 1906 – January 27, 2002), a bookkeeper at her family's delicatessen, and Martin Königsberg (December 25, 1900 – January 13, 2001), a jewelry engraver and waiter.^[7] His family was Jewish and his grandparents were German immigrants who spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and German;^[8] both of his parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.^[8] Allen has a sister, Letty, who was born in 1943, and was raised in Midwood, Brooklyn.^[9] His childhood was not particularly happy: his parents did not get along, and he had a rocky relationship with his stern, temperamental mother.^[10] Allen spoke German quite a bit during his early years.^[11] While attending Hebrew school for eight years, he went to Public School 99 (now The Isaac Asimov School for Science and Literature)^[12] and to Midwood High School.^[13] During that time, he lived in an apartment at 1402 Avenue K, between East 14th and 15th Streets.^{[citation needed]} Unlike his comic persona, he was more interested in baseball than school and his strong arms ensured he was the first to be picked for a team.^[14][15] He impressed students with his extraordinary talent at card and magic tricks.^[16] To raise money he began writing jokes (or "gags") for the agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. According to Allen, his first published joke read: "Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O.P.S. prices – over people's salaries."^[17]

He began to call himself Woody Allen. He would later joke that when he was young he was often sent to inter-faith summer camps, where he "was savagely beaten by children of all races and creeds."^[16] At the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen.^[18] He was already earning more than both of his parents combined.^[14]

After high school, he attended New York University, where he studied communication and film. He later briefly attended City College of New York and soon flunked out. Later, he learned via self-study rather than the classroom.^[15] He eventually taught at The New School. He also studied with writing teacher Lajos Egri.^[15]p.74

Career[link]

Comedy writer[link]

He became a full-time writer for Herb Shriner, earning $75 a week at first.^[17] At the age of 19, he started writing scripts for The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, specials for Sid Caesar post-Caesar's Hour (1954–1957), and other television shows.^{[15][19]p.111} By the time he was working for Caesar, he was making $1500 a week; with Caesar he worked alongside Danny Simon, whom Allen credits for helping him to form his writing style.^[17][20]

In 1961, he started a new career as a stand-up comedian, debuting in a Greenwich Village club called the Duplex.^[17] Examples of Allen's standup act can be heard on the albums Standup Comic and Nightclub Years 1964–1968 (including his classic routine entitled "The Moose").^[21] Together with his managers, Allen developed a neurotic, nervous, and intellectual persona for his stand-up routine, a successful move which secured regular gigs for him in nightclubs and on television. Allen brought innovation to the comedy monologue genre and his stand-up comedy is considered influential.^[22]

Allen wrote for the popular Candid Camera television show, and appeared in some episodes.^[23][24][25]

Allen started writing short stories and cartoon captions for magazines such as The New Yorker; he was inspired by the tradition of four prominent New Yorker's humorists, S. J. Perelman, George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley and Max Shulman, whose material he modernized.^{[26][27][28][29][30]} Allen is also an accomplished author having published four collections of his short pieces and plays.^[31][32] These are Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects and Mere Anarchy. His early comic fiction was heavily influenced by the zany, pun-ridden humour of S.J. Perelman.

Playwright[link]

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He also became a successful Broadway playwright and wrote Don't Drink the Water in 1966. It starred Lou Jacobi, Kay Medford, Anita Gillette and Allen's future movie co-star Tony Roberts. A film adaptation of the play, directed by Howard Morris, was released in 1969, starring Jackie Gleason. Because he was not particularly happy with the 1969 film version of his play, in 1994, Allen directed and starred in a third version for television, with Michael J. Fox and Mayim Bialik.

The next play Allen wrote that was produced on Broadway was Play It Again, Sam, which he also starred in. The play opened on February 12, 1969, and ran for 453 performances. It also featured Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts. Allen, Keaton and Roberts would reprise their roles in the film version of the play, directed by Herbert Ross. For its March 21 issue, Life featured Allen on its cover.^[33] In 1981, his play The Floating Light Bulb premiered on Broadway and ran for 65 performances. While receiving mixed reviews, it was noted for giving an autobiographical insight into Allen's childhood, specifically his fascination with magic tricks. He has written several one-act plays, including 'Riverside Drive' and 'Old Saybrook' which both explore well-known Allen themes.

On October 20, 2011, Allen's one-act play Honeymoon Motel opened as part of a larger piece entitled Relatively Speaking on Broadway, along with two other one-acts by Ethan Coen and Elaine May.^[34]

Early films[link]

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His first movie was the Charles K. Feldman production What's New Pussycat? in 1965, for which he wrote the initial screenplay. Warren Beatty hired him to re-write a script and to appear in a small part in the movie. Over the course of the re-write, Beatty's role was lessened and Allen's increased. Beatty was upset and quit the production. Peter O'Toole was hired for the Beatty role, and Peter Sellers was brought in as well; Sellers was a big enough star to demand many of Woody Allen's best lines/scenes, prompting hasty re-writes. Because of this experience, Allen realized the importance of having control of his own writing. Despite the fact that most of his movies do not gross well and the fact that due to the small amounts of money his producers are able to raise he asks his actors to work for far less than what they would normally be paid, Allen remains one of a handful of writers and directors who has been able to maintain complete control over his own work.^{[citation needed]}

Allen's first directorial effort was What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966, co-written with Mickey Rose), in which an existing Japanese spy movie – Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi (1965), "International Secret Police: Key of Keys" – was redubbed in English by Allen and his friends with entirely new, comic dialogue.^{[citation needed]}

Allen also appeared in Feldman's follow-up to What's New Pussycat?, the James Bond spoof Casino Royale. A number of writers contributed to the film, but once again Allen scripted his own sequences, although in this case uncredited.^{[citation needed]}

Allen directed, starred in, and wrote Take the Money and Run in 1969. That same year he starred in his own TV special, The Woody Allen Special. On the show he performed standup comedy routines before a live audience and acted in a sketch with Candice Bergen in which they appeared nude but their bodies were kept hidden from view by the camera. The special also had Allen interviewing evangelist Billy Graham and performances by the pop vocal group The 5th Dimension, singing their hit singles "Workin' On A Groovy Thing" and "Wedding Bell Blues." The show's sponsor, Libby's, broadcast comical commercials starring Tony Randall as a detective.^{[citation needed]}

From 1971 to 1975, Allen co-wrote, directed, and starred in Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, and Love and Death. Take the Money and Run and Bananas were co-written by his childhood friend, Mickey Rose.^{[citation needed]}

In 1972, he wrote and starred in the film version of Play It Again, Sam, which was directed by Herbert Ross and co-starred Diane Keaton. In 1976, he starred in The Front (directed by Martin Ritt) a humorous and poignant account of Hollywood blacklisting during the 1950s.

Then came two of Allen's finest films. Annie Hall won four Academy Awards in 1977, including Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Diane Keaton, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for Woody Allen. Annie Hall set the standard for modern romantic comedy and also started a minor fashion trend with the clothes worn by Diane Keaton in the film (the masculine clothing, such as ties with cardigans, was actually Keaton's own). While in production, its working title was "Anhedonia," a term that means the inability to feel pleasure and its plot revolved around a murder mystery. Allen re-cut the movie after production ended to focus on the romantic comedy between Allen's character, Alvy Singer, and Keaton's character, Annie Hall. The new version, retitled Annie Hall (named after Keaton, Hall being her original last name and Annie a nickname), still deals with the theme of the inability to feel pleasure. The film is ranked at No. 35 on the American Film Institute's "100 Best Movies" and at No. 4 on the AFI list of "100 Best Comedies."

Manhattan, released in 1979, is a black-and-white film that can be viewed as an homage to New York City. As in many other Allen films, the protagonists are upper-middle class academics. The love-hate opinion of cerebral persons found in Manhattan is characteristic of many of Allen's movies including Crimes and Misdemeanors and Annie Hall. Manhattan focuses on the complicated relationship between a middle-aged Isaac Davis (Allen) and a 17-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway).

Between Annie Hall and Manhattan, Allen wrote and directed the dark drama Interiors (1978), in the style of the late Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, one of Allen's chief influences. Interiors represented a departure from Allen's "early, funny" comedies (a line from 1980s Stardust Memories).

1980s[link]

Woody Allen at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival

Allen's 1980s films, even the comedies, have somber and philosophical undertones. Some are influenced by the works of European directors, notably Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini.^[35][36] September resembles Bergman's Autumn Sonata, and Allen uses many elements from Bergman's Wild Strawberries^[37] in Another Woman. Similarly, the Federico Fellini classic Amarcord strongly inspired Radio Days.^[38] A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy in 1982 was adapted from Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night. It was the first of 13 movies Allen made starring Mia Farrow, who stepped in to Diane Keaton's role when Keaton was busy shooting Reds.

Stardust Memories features Sandy Bates, a successful filmmaker played by Allen, who expresses resentment and scorn for his fans. Overcome by the recent death of a friend from illness, the character states, "I don't want to make funny movies any more" and a running gag has various people (including a group of visiting space aliens) telling Bates that they appreciate his films, "especially the early, funny ones."^[39] Allen believes this to be one of his best films.^[40]

Allen combined tragic and comic elements in such films as Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which he tells two stories that connect at the end. He also produced a vividly idiosyncratic tragi-comical parody of documentary, Zelig.

He made three films about show business: Broadway Danny Rose, in which he plays a New York show business agent, The Purple Rose of Cairo, a movie that shows the importance of the cinema during the Depression through the character of the naive Cecilia, and Radio Days, which is a film about his childhood in Brooklyn and the importance of the radio. Purple Rose was named by Time as one of the 100 best films of all time and Allen has described it as one of his three best films, along with Stardust Memories and Match Point.^[41] (Allen defines them as "best" not in terms of quality but because they came out the closest to his original vision.)

In 1989, Allen teamed up with directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese to make New York Stories, an anthology film about New Yorkers. Allen's short, Oedipus Wrecks, is about a neurotic lawyer and his critical mother. His short pleased critics, but New York Stories bombed at the box office.

1990s[link]

His 1992 film Shadows and Fog is a black-and-white homage to the German expressionists and features the music of Kurt Weill. Allen then made his critically acclaimed drama Husbands and Wives (1992), which received two Oscar nominations: Best Supporting Actress for Judy Davis and Best Original Screenplay for Allen. His film Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) combined suspense with dark comedy and marked the return of Diane Keaton, Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston.

He returned to lighter movies like Bullets Over Broadway (1994), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, followed by a musical, Everyone Says I Love You (1996). The singing and dancing scenes in Everyone Says I Love You are similar to many musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The comedy Mighty Aphrodite (1995), in which Greek drama plays a large role, won an Academy Award for Mira Sorvino. Allen's 1999 jazz-based comedy-drama Sweet and Lowdown was also nominated for two Academy Awards for Sean Penn (Best Actor) and Samantha Morton (Best Supporting Actress). In contrast to these lighter movies, Allen veered into darker satire towards the end of the decade with Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Celebrity (1998). Allen made his only sitcom "appearance" to date (2009) via telephone on the show Just Shoot Me! in a 1997 episode, "My Dinner with Woody" which paid tribute to several of his films. Allen also provided the lead voice in the 1998 animated film Antz, which featured many actors he had worked with and had Allen play a character that was similar to his earlier neurotic roles.

2000s[link]

Small Time Crooks (2000) (a remake of the 1942 film comedy Larceny, Inc., written by S. J. Perelman and starring Edward G. Robinson) was his first film with the DreamWorks studio and represented a change in direction: Allen began giving more interviews and made an attempt to return to his slapstick roots. Small Time Crooks was a relative financial success, grossing over $17 million domestically but Allen's next four films floundered at the box office, including Allen's most expensive film, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (with a budget of $26 million). Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, and Melinda and Melinda were given "rotten" ratings from film-review website Rotten Tomatoes and each earned less than $4 million domestically.^[42] Some critics claimed that Allen's films since 1999's Sweet and Lowdown were subpar and expressed concern that Allen's best years were now behind him.^[43] Others have been less harsh; reviewing the little-liked Melinda and Melinda, Roger Ebert wrote, "I cannot escape the suspicion that if Woody had never made a previous film, if each new one was Woody's Sundance debut, it would get a better reception. His reputation is not a dead shark but an albatross, which with admirable economy Allen has arranged for the critics to carry around their own necks."^[44] Woody gave his godson Quincy Rose a small part in Melinda and Melinda. Allen was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.^[45]

Woody Allen in concert in New York City, 2006

Match Point (2005) was one of Allen's most successful films of the decade, garnering very positive reviews.^[46] Set in London, it starred Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Scarlett Johansson. It is also markedly darker than Allen's first four films with DreamWorks SKG. In Match Point, Allen shifts his focus from the intellectual upper class of New York to the moneyed upper class of London. It earned more than $23 million domestically (more than any of his films in nearly 20 years) and over $62 million in international box office sales.^[47] Match Point earned Allen his first Academy Award nomination since 1998, for Best Writing – Original Screenplay and also earned directing and writing nominations at the Golden Globes, his first Globe nominations since 1987. In an interview with Premiere Magazine, Allen stated this was the best film he has ever made.^[48]

Allen returned to London to film Scoop, which also starred Johansson, Hugh Jackman, Ian McShane, Kevin McNally and Allen himself. The film was released on July 28, 2006, and received mixed reviews. He has also filmed Cassandra's Dream in London. Cassandra's Dream was released in November 2007, and stars Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor and Tom Wilkinson.

After finishing his third London film, Allen headed to Spain. He reached an agreement to film Vicky Cristina Barcelona in Avilés, Barcelona and Oviedo, where shooting started on July 9, 2007. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall and Penélope Cruz.^[49][50] Speaking of his experience there, Allen said: "I'm delighted at being able to work with Mediapro and make a film in Spain, a country which has become so special to me." Vicky Cristina Barcelona was well received, winning "Best Musical or Comedy" at the Golden Globe awards. Penélope Cruz received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film.

Allen has said that he "survives" on the European market. Audiences there have tended to be more receptive to Allen's films, particularly in Spain, France and Italy – countries where he has a large audience (something joked about in Hollywood Ending). "In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now," Allen said in a 2004 interview. "The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films – if they get a good film they're twice as happy but money-making films are their goal. They only want these $100 million pictures that make $500 million."^[51]

In April 2008, he began filming for a movie focused more towards older audiences starring Larry David, Patricia Clarkson^[52] and Evan Rachel Wood.^[53] Released in 2009, Whatever Works,^[54][55] described as a dark comedy, follows the story of a botched suicide attempt turned messy love triangle. Whatever Works was written by Allen in the 1970s and the character now played by Larry David was originally written for Zero Mostel, who died the year Annie Hall came out.

2010s[link]

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, filmed in London, stars Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Anupam Kher, Freida Pinto and Naomi Watts. Filming started in July 2009. It was released theatrically in the US on September 23, 2010, following a Cannes debut in May 2010, and a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2010. Allen announced that his next film would be titled Midnight in Paris,^[56] starring Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Michael Sheen, Gad Elmaleh and French First Lady Carla Bruni. The film followed a young engaged couple in Paris who see their lives transformed. It debuted at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on May 12, 2011. Allen said he wanted to "show the city emotionally," during the press conference. "I just wanted it to be the way I saw Paris – Paris through my eyes," he added.^[57] Midnight in Paris has overthrown Hannah and Her Sisters as Allen's most successful film at the box office in the United States.^[58] It has also opened to much critical acclaim, and has been considered by many critics to mark his return to form.^[59] His next film, To Rome with Love, is a Rome-set comedy slated for a 2012 release. The film will be structured in four different vignettes featuring dialogue in both Italian and English. The film will mark Allen's return to acting since his last role in Scoop.^[60]

Future projects[link]

For many years, Allen wanted to make a film about the origins of jazz in New Orleans. The film, tentatively titled American Blues, would follow the vastly different careers of Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. Allen has stated that the film would cost between $80 and $100 million and is therefore unlikely to be made.^[61]

It was announced in February 2012 that Allen would adapt Bullets Over Broadway into a Broadway musical scheduled to open in 2013.^[62]

Distinction in the film world[link]

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Life-size statue of Woody Allen in Oviedo, Spain

Over the course of his career, Allen has received a considerable number of awards and distinctions in film festivals and yearly national film awards ceremonies, saluting his work as a director, screenwriter, and actor.^[19]

• Allen's film Annie Hall won four Academy Awards in 1977, including Best Picture.
• Allen won the 1978 O. Henry Award for his short story The Kugelmass Episode, published in The New Yorker on May 2, 1977.
• Allen twice won the César Award for Best Foreign Film, the first in 1980, for Manhattan and the second in 1986, for The Purple Rose of Cairo. Seven other of his movies were nominated for the prize.
• In 1986, Allen won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay for The Purple Rose of Cairo. In 2009 he won the same award for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. In 2012, he won the Best Screenplay award for Midnight in Paris which was also nominated for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical, Best Director and Best Actor (Comedy/musical) – Owen Wilson. Overall, Allen has been nominated five times as Best Director, five times for Best Screenplay and twice for Best Actor (Comedy/musical).
• At the 1995 Venice Film Festival, Allen received a Career Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.
• In 1996, Allen received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of America.
• In 2002, Allen won the Prince of Asturias Award. Subsequently, the city of Oviedo, Spain, erected a life-size statue of Allen.^[63]
• In 2002, Allen received the Palme des Palmes, a special lifetime achievement award granted by the Cannes Festival.^[64]
• In a 2005 UK poll The Comedian's Comedian, Allen was voted the third greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.^[4]
• In June 2007, Allen received a PhD Honoris Causa from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain.

Academy Awards[link]

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Woody Allen has won 4 Academy Awards: three Best Original Screenplays (Annie Hall (1978, shared with Marshall Brickman), Hannah and Her Sisters (1987) and Midnight in Paris (2012)), and one Best Director (Annie Hall (1978)). Mr. Allen has been nominated a total of 23 times: 15 as a screenwriter, seven as a director, and once as an actor.^[65] He has more screenwriting Academy Award nominations than any other writer; all are in the Best Original Screenplay category. He is tied for third all-time with seven Best Director nominations.

Annie Hall won four Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Actress in a Leading Role – Diane Keaton). The film received a fifth nomination, for Allen as Best Actor in a Leading Role. Hannah and Her Sisters won three, for Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role categories; it was nominated in four other categories, including Best Picture and Best Director.

His actors have regularly received both nominations and Academy Awards for their work in Allen films, particularly in the Best Supporting categories: In 1987 Michael Caine^[66] and Diane Wiest^[67] won for Hannah and Her Sisters^[68], in 1995 Diane Wiest again won for Bullets Over Broadway^[69], in 1996 Mira Sorvino^[70] won for Mighty Aphrodite ^[71], and in 2009 Penelope Cruz^[72] won for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.^[73]

Despite friendly recognition from the Academy, Allen has consistently refused to attend the ceremony or acknowledge his Oscar wins. He broke this pattern only once. At the Academy Awards ceremony in 2002, Allen made an unannounced appearance, making a plea for producers to continue filming their movies in New York City after the 9-11 attacks, where he stated, "I didn't have to present anything. I didn't have to accept anything. I just had to talk about New York City."^[74] He was given a standing ovation before introducing a montage of movie clips featuring New York.

BAFTA[link]

Allen has won a number of British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards and nominations for best picture, best director, best actor, and best screenplay. In 1997, he received the honorary BAFTA Fellowship for his work.

• 1978 – Won – Best Film – Annie Hall
• 1978 – Won – Best Screenplay – Annie Hall (with Marshall Brickman)
• 1978 – Won – Best Direction – Annie Hall
• 1980 – Won – Best Film – Manhattan
• 1980 – Won – Best Screenplay – Manhattan (with Marshall Brickman)
• 1985 – Won – Best Screenplay – Broadway Danny Rose
• 1986 – Won – Best Film – The Purple Rose of Cairo
• 1986 – Won – Best Screenplay – The Purple Rose of Cairo
• 1987 – Won – Best Screenplay – Hannah and Her Sisters
• 1987 – Won – Best Direction – Hannah and Her Sisters
• 1993 – Won – Best Screenplay – Husbands and Wives
• 2012 – Nominated – Best Screenplay – Midnight in Paris
• Nominated for best film for Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Crimes and Misdemeanors.
• Nominated for best actor for Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters.
• Nominated for best director for Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors.
• Nominated for best screenplay for Zelig, Radio Days, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Bullets Over Broadway (with Douglas McGrath).

Theatre[link]

Although best known for his films, Allen has also enjoyed a very successful career in theater, starting as early as 1960, when Allen wrote sketches for the revue From A to Z. His first great success was Don't Drink the Water, which opened in 1968, and ran for 598 performances for almost two years on Broadway. His success continued with Play it Again, Sam, which opened in 1969, starring Allen and Diane Keaton. The show played for 453 performances and was nominated for three Tony Awards, although none of the nominations were for Allen's writing or acting.^[75]

In the 1970s, Allen wrote a number of one-act plays, most notably God and Death, which were published in his 1975 collection Without Feathers.

In 1981, Allen's play The Floating Light Bulb opened on Broadway. The play was a critical success but a commercial flop. Despite two Tony Award nominations, a Tony win for the acting of Brian Backer (who also won the 1981 Theater World Award and a Drama Desk Award for his work), the play only ran for 62 performances.^[76] As of January 2008^[update], it is the last Allen work that ran on Broadway.

After a long hiatus from the stage, Allen returned to the theater in 1995, with the one-act Central Park West, an installment in an evening of theater known as Death Defying Acts that was also made up of new work by David Mamet and Elaine May.^[77]

For the next couple of years, Allen had no direct involvement with the stage, yet notable productions of his work were being staged. A production of God was staged at The Bank of Brazil Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro,^[78] and theatrical adaptations of Allen's films Bullets Over Broadway^[79] and September^[80] were produced in Italy and France, respectively, without Allen's involvement. In 1997, rumors of Allen returning to the theater to write a starring role for his wife Soon-Yi Previn turned out to be false.^[81]