(1924-1978) US filmmaker and pulp writer monumentalized posthumously for his eccentric lifestyle and surreally inept attempts at genre B-movies, of which especially Glen or Glenda? (1953) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) have attained belated but unassailable cult status. His films are characterized by dreamlike narrative logic, bombastic dialogue, a repertory cast of vivid oddballs (including the elderly Bela Lugosi), and the elevation of budgetary corner-cutting to something like an artform. A tendentiously sanitized and upbeat biopic, Ed Wood (1994) was directed, extremely well, by Tim Burton; the true story is much sadder. Once the object of wilfully innocent ridicule, his life and films underwent a significant revaluation in the 1990s, boosted by Burton's film, which celebrated Wood's creative dauntlessness, outsider vision and lifestyle, and unwitting anticipation of Postmodern aesthetic values. A memoir-cum-tutorial, Hollywood Rat Race, was published posthumously in 1998. [NL]

Edward Davis Wood Jr

born Poughkeepsie, New York: 10 October 1924

died Los Angeles, California: 10 December 1978

works

• Hollywood Rat Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998) [nonfiction: pb/]

about the filmmaker

• Rudolph Grey. Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Portland, Oregon: Feral House, 1992; rev 1994) [nonfiction: pb/]
• Rob Craig. Ed Wood, Mad Genius: A Critical Study of the Films (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009) [nonfiction: hb/]
• Jean Marie Stine. Ed Wood: The Early Years (San Francisco, California: Renaissance E Books, 2001) [nonfiction: ebook: na/]

links

Previous versions of this entry

• 10/08/2011
• 20/12/2011
• 05/04/2012
• 21/08/2012