Biography for Edward D. Wood Jr.

It would not be until 1953 that Wood was able to make his first feature--and one of his most famous--"Glen or Glenda?". As was typical of all of Wood's output, the film was made extremely cheaply, quickly and, one might add, poorly. A longstanding affection for the then broken-down former horror star Bela Lugosi resulted in some largely incoherent ramblings by Lugosi grafted onto a cliched and stilted yet hilarious screenplay about a man with an inordinate fondness for wearing angora sweaters. Full of lousy acting and incredibly inept technical credits, the film is one of a half dozen Wood efforts that literally gives credence to the phrase "it's so bad that it's good". It is of course easy to sense that Wood made his films with a certain tongue in cheek, and yet "Glen or Glenda?", as with his later efforts, has too much that seems to be intended soberly and too much that is poorly done to be entirely justified as a sly wink at audiences for schlock cinema. At the same time "Glen" is also one of Wood's most personal films, a genuinely heartfelt plea for tolerance for those who gain not only sexual pleasure but also comfort and a universally deserved sense of human identity via cross-dressing.

Wood continued to make films on a semi-regular basis until the early 1960s. Many of them were largely one-person efforts, and so it is difficult to lay the blame on--or give the credit to--anyone else but Wood. He formed an instantly recognizable stock company: Lugosi; bald, 300-pound wrestler Tor Johnson; the ghoulish, wasp-waisted Vampira; aging 30s leading man and character actor Lyle Talbot; talentless blonde leading lady Dolores Fuller; eccentric "psychic" The Great Criswell, and others. Many of his films fall squarely into the realm of science-fiction and horror, including "Bride of the Monster" (1956), "Night of the Ghouls" (1959) and, his most (in)famous epic, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1958). Replete with paper plate-like flying saucers, a chiropractor with a cape over his face standing in for Lugosi (who died during early production), and a ridiculous plot about raising the dead in order to conquer Earth, "Plan 9" has been called the worst film ever made. While any such judgments are instantly disputable, the film is certainly not the least entertaining film of all time, and its portentous narration, oddly enough, unerringly satirizes so many movie conventions it's almost eerie.

In the 60s Wood's fortunes went even farther downhill, despite a reportedly happy marriage to his second wife. He continued to indulge his penchant for the lurid by writing screenplays and trash novels under several pseudonyms. His achievements included the books "To Make a Homo", "Raped in the Grass", "Night Time Lez" and "Toni: Black Tigress". Late in the decade and into the early 70s he also began making a number of erotic features such as "The Photographer" (1969), in which a nudie photographer is assaulted by a group of fetishistic women. Later softcore credits include "Necromania" and "The Only House" (both 1971, and his last directing credits), and screenplays for the likes of "Dropout Wife" (1972), "Fugitive Girls" (1974), and "Beach Bunnies" (1976). An alcoholic for years, Wood died in poverty several years before his renaissance--which hit a new peak with Tim Burton's affectionate biopic "Ed Wood" (1994)--got underway.