- Born
- Birth nameVictor Ronald Salva
- Height6′ (1.83 m)
- Born in Martinez, California, 20 miles outside San Francisco, Victor Salva had written and directed over 20 short and feature-length films before graduating from high school. In the mid-'80s his 37-minute short Something in the Basement (1986) took first place in the fiction category at the Sony/AFI Home Video Competition. A horror allegory about a young boy awaiting his brother's return from a bloody war, this highly acclaimed short went on to win several national awards (including a Bronze Plaque at the Chicago International Film festival) and brought Salva to the attention of Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola then produced Salva's first theatrical feature, Clownhouse (1989), which Salva again wrote and directed. Using the talented cast of his award-winning short, Salva called the film "a campfire story." However, his early career was derailed by the revelations of sexual misconduct with one of the film's underage stars. He was tried, convicted and spent a year in state prison. He described it as "a dark time in my confused young life, but also a time when I took responsibility for my own arrested development and the ramifications of growing up in a deeply dysfunctional family."
His next film brought him to Los Angeles. Based on characters he met in prison, The Nature of the Beast (1995), which Salva wrote and directed, starred Lance Henriksen and Eric Roberts and quickly became New Line Cinema's biggest direct-to-video title of that year. Salva next made his first big-studio picture, Powder (1995), a strange tale about an albino boy with special powers that ironically make him an outcast. "Powder" received much critical acclaim and made several top-ten lists for the year.
He next made Rites of Passage (1999), a coming-of-age thriller starring Jason Behr (Roswell (1999)), Dean Stockwell and James Remar which dealt with a homophobic father who unwittingly pushes his gay son into the arms of a psychotic killer. In 2001 Salva wrote and directed Jeepers Creepers (2001), which was one of the year's breakout hits and set a world record for largest Labor Day box-office in history, up until that time. Salva followed this up with his sixth feature film, Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003), breaking his old record and setting another Labor Day milestone, as of 2003. His next film, Peaceful Warrior (2006), an adaptation of Dan Millman's best-seller "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior", was very significant to him because of the year he spent in prison. The film starred Nick Nolte and Amy Smart.- IMDb Mini Biography By: A. Nonymous
- Frequently works with Ray Wise
- Often references classic monster movies in his films.
- Indulges in his navel fetish by having several close-up shots of his male actor's bellybuttons (Sean Patrick Flanery in Powder (1995), Jason Behr in Rites of Passage (1999), Justin Long in Jeepers Creepers (2001), and Al Santos in Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)).
- In 1995, the boy he molested (then in his 20s) publicly boycotted the film Powder (1995) to bring attention to Salva's sexual misdeeds, which contributed to the film's less-than-stellar box office.
- Is a convicted child molester. In 1988 he confessed to five felony counts of sexual relations with a 12-year-old boy who he videotaped in sexual situations. Salva spent a year in state prison for the crimes.
- Is said to resemble John Wayne Gacy.
- His biological father abandoned the family and Salva stated that his stepfather was often drunk and physically abusive.
- Grew up watching Creature Features (1971) on TV. This sparked his early interest in the horror/thriller genre.
- [on his films] Atmospheric and macabre, with no happy endings, but not to be taken totally seriously.
- [on Powder (1995)] [It] contains many of my thoughts from my time in prison in its subtext. It was a terrible time for me, enduring the constant taunts. I often felt like Flanery's [Sean Patrick Flanery] albino character. My power did not come from within myself, though; my close friend Francis [Francis Ford Coppola] gave me that power. He visited me weekly, we discussed my crimes. Francis helped me to accept my past . . . which is certainly powerful!
- Prison is a very dark place. When you go in, you literally walk -- naked -- under a sign that says, 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here.' You're really thrown on the garbage pile of humanity. It was a very humbling lesson to learn that there were people who belonged in prison and that I had to count myself among them. [Interview with Patrick Goldstein, 2006]
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