Ed Wood
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Edward Davis Wood, Jr. (October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978) was an American motion picture director, screenwriter, actor and producer. In the 1950s, Wood made a run of independently produced, extremely low-budget horror, science fiction and cowboy films, now celebrated for their technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, idiosyncratic dialogue, eccentric casts and outlandish plot elements, although his flair for showmanship gave his productions at least a modicum of commercial success.
Wood's popularity waned soon after his biggest "name" star, Bela Lugosi, died. He was able to salvage a saleable feature from Lugosi's last moments on film, but his career declined thereafter. Toward the end, Wood made pornography and wrote pulp crime, horror, and sex novels. His posthumous fame began two years after his death, when he was awarded a Golden Turkey Award as Worst Director of All Time. The lack of conventional 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, Wood's life and work have undergone a public rehabilitation, with new light shed on his evident zeal and honest love of movies and movie production, and Tim Burton's biopic, Ed Wood, earned two Academy Awards -- an unattainable honor for Wood himself.
