Ed Wood
Tim Burton’s film is about the director, Ed Wood, once considered “the worst director of all time.” Wood brought an interesting backstory to his life, his movies, and Burton’s bio-pic. Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, Wood’s mother apparently liked to dress him up in girls’ clothes. Women’s angora sweaters would be a life-long love of Wood’s. He enlisted in the marines after Pearl Harbor, later claiming that he entered all battles wearing women’s underwear. During the battle of Tarawa, Wood had a number of his front teeth knocked out in hand-to-hand combat with a Japanese soldier. For his service, he earned Silver and Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts, and a Sharpshooter's Medal. After the war, Wood joined a carnival heading to California, playing the half-man half-woman. In 1946, Wood arrived in Hollywood. His first feature film, Glen or Glenda (1952) featured Bela Lugosi and Wood’s own performance. Lugosi and Wood followed this with Bride of the Monster (the only Wood film to make money, although he didn’t see any of the profit having oversold shares to the film), and Plan 9 from Outer Space (which had only a few seconds of Lugosi who died just as filming began.) Wood continued to make what would become B-movie classics, such as Jail Bait (1954) and The Bride and The Beast (1958). Writer, director and actor, Wood thought of himself as another Orson Welles, albeit without the talent and taste. In his later years, he turned to writing pulp crime horror and sex novels. The few films he was able to direct were soft-core pornography that didn’t sell very well. When he died, in 1978 at the age of 53, Variety, the trade publication for the film industry, didn’t even run an obituary. On the other hand, in addition to Burton’s film, there is the annual “Ed Wood Film Festival” at the University of Southern California for students to write, film and edit an Ed Wood-inspired short film, the Church of Ed Wood in Sacramento, CA with 3,500 members, and with DVD sales a new generation of cult movie lovers.
