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1-20 of 20
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
One of the most prolific B-movie composers, Albert Glasser started off as a copyist in the music department at Warner Brothers in the late 1930s, learning the art of film scoring from scratch while working under such big guns as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. He graduated to orchestrating, and by the mid-'40s was composing and directing his own scores. A hard, fast worker, Glasser found his musical skills put to the test in the frantic, down-to-the-wire world of B-picture making. He scored a staggering 135 movies between 1944 and 1962, not counting at least 35 features for which he received no credit. In addition to scoring 300 television shows and 450 radio programs, he arranged and conducted for noted American operetta composer Rudolf Friml and orchestrated for Ferde Grofé Sr. (with whom he first collaborated on the sci-fi classic Rocketship X-M (1950)).- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
The future stage, screen and TV star (real name: Fred Eisley) was born in Philadelphia. His father was general sales manager and "troubleshooter" for a large company, and his work kept the family on the move (up and down the East Coast) throughout Eisley's young life. As early as the days of school plays Eisley knew that he wanted to be an actor, but because he lacked show-business contacts he felt nothing would come of his aspiration. He later took drama courses at the University of Miami, "not because I thought I could really be an actor, but because I was taking the easy way out to get a degree". Finally following up on his longtime ambition, Eisley landed a job with a stock company in Pennsylvania, where he worked opposite James Dunn in a stage production of "A Slight Case of Murder." Later roles in long-running plays like "Mister Roberts", "Picnic" and "The Desperate Hours" ensued, along with some early movie (Operation Pacific (1951), Fearless Fagan (1952)) and television (Racket Squad (1950)) work. Eisley later went on to TV and exploitation movie stardom.- Producer
- Additional Crew
In the late 1950s Arthur A. Jacobs joined forces with his friend Richard E. Cunha on the low-budget chiller Giant from the Unknown (1958) and the sci-fi/horror adventure She Demons (1958). Jacobs was also involved with the Wrather Corporation, ending up as vice-president in charge of production and distribution. He later worked for actors-turned-TV producers Danny Thomas, Sheldon Leonard and Aaron Spelling.- Producer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Jules V. Levy, Arthur Gardner and Arnold Laven met in 1943 in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Force; they were stationed at the Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, CA (with other notables such as Capt. Ronald Reagan, Capt. Clark Gable and Lt. William Holden, etc.), making training films. Levy, Gardner and Laven resolved that they would start their own independent motion picture company after they got out of the Air Force; all were discharged in 1945, but their company wasn't formed until 1951 (in the interim, Levy and Laven worked as script supervisors and Gardner as an assistant director and production manager). The first Levy-Gardner-Laven film was 1952's Without Warning! (1952); in the decades since, they have produced dozens of additional features and several TV series (including The Rifleman (1958), Law of the Plainsman (1959), The Detectives (1959) and The Big Valley (1965).- Producer
- Director
- Actor
Chicago-born Bernard Glasser grew up in what he calls "the movie generation" and fell in love with pictures at the ripe old age of four. In the late 1940s, while working as a teacher at Beverly Hills High School, he got his feet wet in the film industry by working as a production assistant. In 1950 he invested in an old motion picture studio and turned it into a rental lot, Keywest Studios. Glasser leased his facility to producers like Roger Corman (The Fast and the Furious (1954)), Burt Lancaster (Apache (1954)) and others as well as using the facilities to make a five-day, $50,000 film of his own--The Three Stooges' Gold Raiders (1951), directed by Glasser's friend Edward Bernds. When Glasser's studio lease expired in 1955, he and Bernds combined forces on a series of budget features for Robert L. Lippert's Regal Films.
Working overseas during the 1960s, often in collaboration with producer/writer Philip Yordan, Glasser added to his filmography such well-remembered films as Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Day of the Triffids (1963) and Crack in the World (1965).- Bryant Haliday was born in Rhode Island and spent time in an English Benedictine monastery. Entering Harvard to study international law, he became involved with a group of students who were interested in putting on plays. He caught the acting bug and abruptly gave up law to become a man of the theater. They bought an abandoned church, converted it into the Brattle Theatre (Haliday called the Cambridge, Massachusetts, landmark "an unashamed imitation of the Bristol Old Vic") and produced 64 plays, joining the cast of over 50. He later opened a small movie revival house and began hunting in Europe for film acquisitions; picking up the rights to classics like The Seventh Seal (1957) and The Bullocks (1953). Haliday and partner Cyrus Harvey founded Janus Films. Haliday was also a movie actor, turning up most regularly in the horror thrillers of his producer friend Richard Gordon (Devil Doll (1964), Voodoo Blood Death (1965), The Projected Man (1966)), among others). Late in life he lived in France, where he worked as a producer, writer and actor in Paris theater and on French TV.
- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Del Tenney was born in Mason City, Iowa, and moved to California with his parents when he was 12. Attending Los Angeles City and State college, he developed an interest in the theater, became an actor and made a living at it for most of his young adult life. He acted on stage, did extra work in films (Stalag 17 (1953), The Wild One (1953)) and then came to New York looking for work. He found it--working in restaurants and as a detective--but he also managed to land roles in summer stock. Deciding to move behind the camera, Tenney started off as assistant director on some risqué low-budget pictures, then co-wrote and co-directed (without credit) his production of Violent Midnight (1963), a Connecticut-made suspenser with Shepperd Strudwick, Jean Hale, 'Sylvia Miles' and Margot Hartman (Mrs. Tenney). Tenney next made schlock horror history, bringing to the screen the cheapo classics The Horror of Party Beach (1964) and (his favorite) The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964).- Director
- Sound Department
- Writer
Edward Bernds was born in 1905 in Chicago, Illinois. While in his junior year in Lake View High School, he and several friends formed a small radio club and obtained amateur licenses. In the early '20s there was considerable prestige for an amateur operator (a "ham") to have commercial radio licenses, and Bernds was in a good position to get into broadcasting when he graduated in 1923, a year when radio stations began popping up all over Chicago. He found employment--at age 20--as chief operator at Chicago's WENR. When talking pictures burst onto the scene in the late '20s, Bernds and broadcast operators like him relocated to Hollywood to work as sound technicians in "the talkies". After a brief stint at United Artists, Bernds quit and went to work at Columbia, where he worked as sound man on many of Frank Capra's '30s classics. He later graduated to directing two-reel shorts and then features.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Gordon Hessler was born in Germany, the son of a Danish mother and an English father. Educated in England, he moved to the US while in his late teens and spent several years working in documentaries. At Universal, "I guess because I had an English accent", Hessler was placed under contract to Alfred Hitchcock and went to work on the master director's TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), climbing the ladder from story reader to associate producer and finally to producer in the series' final year. A novelette rejected for the show became the basis for The Woman Who Wouldn't Die (1965), Hessler's first feature film as director. When production of the AIP Edgar Allan Poe series was shifted to Britain, Hessler collaborated with producer Louis M. Heyward and horror enthusiast/ screenwriter Christopher Wicking on three Poe films and on the sci-fi shocker Scream and Scream Again (1970). Carrying on in the fantasy field, he also directed the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion swashbuckler The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) and additional small-screen suspensers like the Psycho (1960)-inspired Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973) with Bette Davis.- Make-Up Department
- Actor
- Art Department
During the horror/sci-fi boom of the 1950s, makeup man Harry Thomas was associated with some of the most memorable personalities and pictures of the period. He worked with Roger Corman, Edward D. Wood Jr., Tor Johnson and Richard E. Cunha, and contributed to such films as Frankenstein's Daughter (1958), Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Killers from Space (1954), The Neanderthal Man (1953), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and many more. Thomas began his career in the 1930s when one of his first jobs was at MGM working under renowned makeup artist Jack Dawn and his assistant William Tuttle. Thomas is best-known for his work on horror movies, in which he almost invariably had to make something out of nothing.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Herman Cohen's motion picture career began at his local cinema, the Dexter Theater in Detroit, during his preteen years--he worked there as a "gofer" and later as an usher. He next became assistant manager of Detroit's Fox Theater. After a Marine Corps hitch, Cohen worked as sales manager for the Detroit branch of Columbia Pictures, then relocated to Hollywood and worked in the publicity department of Columbia there. He produced his first movies for Jack Broder's Realart Pictures in the early 1950s and made several subsequent pictures for Allied Artists and United Artists. Cohen made exploitation history in the mid-1950s when he began producing some of American-International's earliest hits, among them the cult favorite I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). Many of his later horror pictures were shot in England, among them the Joan Crawford-starring Berserk (1967) and Trog (1970).- Producer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Getting his start in the movie business in Universal's contract and playdate department in New York City, Howard W. Koch moved on to 20th Century-Fox as a film librarian and then entered production as second assistant director on The Keys of the Kingdom (1944). After many films as assistant director, Koch joined forces with his professional benefactor Aubrey Schenck and Edwin F. Zabel to strike a three-picture production deal with United Artists that was to start with the western War Paint (1953). The success of these pictures opened up the deal for more UA films by Koch, Schenck and Zabel (Bel-Air Productions). With Schenck, Koch produced TV's Miami Undercover (1961) and also worked as a director on such series as Maverick (1957), Hawaiian Eye (1959), Cheyenne (1955) and The Untouchables (1959). From 1961 to 1964 Koch was vice-president in charge of production for Sinatra Enterprises; among his many executive-producer credits during this period was the chilling The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He became the production head at Paramount in 1964 and then shifted gears two years later to form his own production unit, which supplied major features to Paramount for years. By all accounts one of the best-loved men in Hollywood, Koch was a recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1990 Oscarcast.- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Actor
A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jack H. Harris first entered show business by way of vaudeville, singing and dancing with Cliff Edwards' (aka "Ukeleke Ike") Kiddie Revue at age six. Working his way up from an early job as a theater usher, Harris went into publicity and learned distribution, eventually opening his own offices. Dissatisfied with the minor black-and-white films foisted upon him, he quickly developed an itch to produce his own pictures. Linking up with the moviemaking ministers of Pennsylvania's Valley Forge Film Studios, Harris collaborated on The Blob (1958), a film that eventually grossed more than a hundred times its $240,000 cost. In the decades since, Harris has followed up on this early success with 4D Man (1959), Dinosaurus! (1960), Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) and a "Blob" sequel (Beware! The Blob (1972)) and a remake (The Blob (1988)).- Script and Continuity Department
- Animation Department
- Actress
Born Katena Ktenavea in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of midtown Manhattan, the future TV and film actress grew up in Los Angeles and began her acting career on the stage and radio in the late '40s. She made her film debut in the campy sci-fi adventure Mesa of Lost Women (1953). Five years later she starred as the imperious Dr. Myra in director Jerry Warren's Teenage Zombies (1959), which led to a series of roles in Warren's impoverished productions. Always busy outside of acting (in modelling, real estate and in various jobs in the animated cartoon business), Victor felt that the stigma of being a regular in Warren's movies stymied her mainstream acting career.- Producer
- Writer
- Production Manager
Born in New York City, Louis Heyward was headed for a career as a lawyer while at the same time moonlighting as a writer of scripts for various radio series. After a six-year Air Force hitch, he landed a job with the Associated Press but continued to dabble with radio scripts, and later found an eight-year home as a comedy writer on daytime TV's The Garry Moore Show (1950). Other jobs in New York TV included writing comedy material and skits for The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952) (the program was Emmy-nominated in 1956, the same year Heyward won the Sylvania Award as its top comedy writer) and developing The Dick Clark Show (1958). Migrating to Hollywood, he held executive posts at 20th Century-Fox and MCA before joining forces with American International Pictures, first as a writer, then as director of motion picture and TV development and ultimately as head of the company's London-based foreign arm. He later became the vice-president of development at Barry & Enright, producers of game shows, features and TV movies.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Prior to his Hollywood acting career, New York-born Mel Welles held a variety of jobs, including clinical psychologist, writer and radio deejay. After some stage work he wound up in Hollywood, making his film debut in Appointment in Honduras (1953). His best and favorite role, as flower shop owner Gravis Mushnick in director Roger Corman's horror comedy The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), was one of his last before leaving the US in the early 1960s and forging a long acting-producing-directing career in Europe. After his return to the US Welles again acted, did voice-over work and made appearances at autograph shows.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Casting Director
Michael Fox first "trod the boards" in grade school plays in his hometown of Yonkers, New York. After toying with the idea of becoming a history teacher, Fox did "something as foreign to my nature as one could think of", becoming a "boomer" (a migratory railroad worker) and taking jobs as a brakeman with various lines. His interest in acting was rekindled in the mid-'40s and he appeared in several "little theater" plays in Los Angeles. An acting-directing stint in a Players Ring production of "Home of the Brave" caught the eye of Harry Sauber, an associate of exploitation mogul "Jungle Sam" Sam Katzman, and Fox landed his first film role (A Yank in Indo-China (1952)). He appeared in dozens of movies (and innumerable TV episodes) in the decades since; one of his regular TV roles was as the coroner in the courtroom drama Perry Mason (1957).- Cinematographer
- Director
- Writer
Hawaiian-born Richard E. Cunha received his film training in the newsreel and motion picture units of the US Army Air Corps during World War II. He made his first step into the civilian film business by making industrial films and commercials, and then moved on to write, shoot and direct such early TV shows as "The Adventures of Marshal O'Dell" and "Captain Bob Steele and the Border Patrol" for Toby Anguish Productions. Cunha and his friend Arthur A. Jacobs then plunged into the adventurous arena of shoestring 1950s exploitation by forming Screencraft Enterprises and cranking out the horror/sci-fi films Giant from the Unknown (1958) and She Demons (1958) (both directed by Cunha). Cunha later added to his legend by helming two more well-remembered schlock titles, Frankenstein's Daughter (1958) and Missile to the Moon (1958).- Director
- Actor
Robert Gist was a tough kid who grew up around the Chicago stockyards during the Depression. Reform school-bound after injuring another boy in a fistfight, Gist instead ended up in Chicago's Hull House, a settlement house where he first became interested in acting. Work in Chicago radio was followed by stage acting roles in Chicago and on Broadway (in the long-running "Harvey" with Josephine Hull). While acting in "Harvey", he made his film debut in New York-shot scenes for 20th Century-Fox's Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Gist was also seen on Broadway in director Charles Laughton's "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" (1954) with Henry Fonda and John Hodiak. While shooting Operation Petticoat (1959) in Key West, Florida, Gist told director Blake Edwards that he was interested in directing; Edwards later hired him to helm episodes of the TV series Peter Gunn (1958). Gist has also directed for TV's Naked City (1958), The Twilight Zone (1959), Route 66 (1960) and many others.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
The son of a hardware merchant and cousin of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, Robert Hutton was born in Kingston, New York, and attended Blair Academy in New Jersey. For several seasons the future film actor was a leading man and director with the Woodstock Playhouse stock company in New York. He supplemented his income by posing for the photographic illustrations in sensational magazines and tabloids like "Modern Confessions". He spent several years as a Warner Brothers contract player, but went through some lean times after he left the studio and even considered going into some other field. Hutton stuck with show business, working in movies, TV and even doing some writing and directing. After working in England for several years he returned to the US and settled again in Kingston, NY, where he was born. He suffered a broken back in an in-home fall and spent his last days in a nursing-care facility. He told an interviewer, "I lived a fantasy in Hollywood. I met and worked with so many people now considered legends. And then, just when I wondered why I was even alive, I broke my back, and the Lord opened up a whole new world of opportunity for me". Hutton wrote an autobiography but it was never published because (according to Hutton) he wouldn't dish dirt on the stars he knew.