HOME

 



Widely considered America's worst filmmaker, Edward Wood Jr. displayed cinematic discipline and talent leagues beyond almost all pornographers.

Tim Burton's 1994 biopic Ed Wood tells the true story of the cross-dresser who made I Changed My Sex in 1953, and Plan 9 From Outer Space in '59 - widely considered the low point of American cinema. Burton, however, does not follow the progress of Wood into pornography.

In 1962, Ed wrote Shotgun Wedding, a rip-off of the late '30s flick Child Bride. In 1965, Ed helped Stephen C. Apostoloff create Orgy of the Dead - the story of evil spirits who return from the grave to perform striptease. In the early '70s, Wood and Apostoloff made numerous softcore flicks such as Snow Bunnies, Drop-out Wife and Fugitive Girls. While Stephen refused to go hardcore, Ed, dressed in women's underwear and Angora sweaters, ventured into realms few men had traveled before.

In 1970, Edward Wood Jr. met a guy at a club who wanted to buy porn movies. Wood told him to gather two thousand dollars and he'd make him two versions of the one movie. After a ten-year hiatus, Ed returned to directing with the pornographic Take It Out In Trade.

Ed thought porn beneath him and his skin productions include little of the passion he invested in such grandly awful movies as Plan 9. His best X-rated film Necromania appeared in 1971. Shot for $7000, the 16mm color picture starred Rene Bond, Ric Lutze, and Marie Arnold. Wood made the hardcore scenes in a motel where room temperature reaching 110 degrees. Rene Bond passed out. After receiving a sprinkling of water, she revived to suck and f--- Ric Lutze in a coffin.

"Necromania exemplifies the trend toward better entertainment in X rated films," Ed wrote in his book Censorship, Sex and the Movies. "When the patron lays down his 3, 5, or whatever bills at the box office he is not going to leave the theater feeling cheated."

Wood poured out pornographic novels for publishers such as Triumph News, Viceroy Books and Pendulum to support his thirst for alcohol. Publisher Bernie Bloom says "Ed's work alone equaled the other four writers. He had a fantastic imagination...smoke poured out of the typewriter..."

Ed loved to talk women's fashion with Bernie's wife Blanche. He said if he could have anything in life, he'd come back as a blonde female. Popular with beautiful women, several of whom he married, Wood denied ever having gay sex.

The cross-dresser produced some of the first Swedish Erotica 8mm loops for Caballero. His titles may have included Massage Parlour, Girl Friday and The Jailer. When Deep Throat came out, Ed said, "What the hell was that? I've been writing these for the last six years." [All quotes from the book "Nightmare of Ecstasy"]

"Ed Wood was a crazy genius," Bloom told Ed Wood biographer Rudolph Grey, author of Nightmare of Ecstasy. "Way ahead of his time. Everybody was afraid to do the things he'd do."

Ed wrote and directed a series of hardcore 20 minutes loops on Super 8mm film called Sex Education Correspondence School, released in 1975. "They were part of this home study guide Pendulum put out," remembers Ed's colleague Charles Anderson. "You'd get these 8mm movies with the books. We did a romantic situation with a husband and wife at home that progressed into hardcore. But it had the pretense of self-help."

Hollywood actor Aldo Ray degenerated into alcoholism in the 1960s and became a regular drinking buddy of Ed. "We talked a lot about life," Ray told Grey. "We agreed to take advantage of the now."

Ray became the first Hollywood star to work (clothed) in a pornographic film, appearing in 1977's Sweet Susan.

Florence Dolder lived next to Ed Wood in his final years in a dirty little apartment complex Yucca Flats on Yucca Street and Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. "The girl upstairs rented out her one child, a girl four or five years of age, to porno movies. Eddie reported it. He was furious… Writing porno was killing him. He was too good for porno. It ate away at him. Eddie was a gentlemen." Kathy Wood says her husband loved the song Amazing Grace, and while deeply depressed he wrote the book Saving Grace.

On the morning of December 7, 1978, LA County Sheriff deputies evicted Ed and Kathy Wood from their apartment on Yucca Street. Ed screamed that he had contacts in Hollywood. Then he tried to be nice, and pled for a couple of more hours to call people. The deputies apologized but said Ed and Kathy had to leave. While Kathy screamed obscenities, Ed slumped down in the hallway against the wall and cried.

The couple moved in with Ed's actor friend Peter Coe. Wood downed numerous shots of vodka over the weekend. At noon on Sunday, December 10, he felt bad and decided to lie down. When Ed ordered his wife to get him another drink, she refused. Then he screamed "Kathy, I can't breathe."

Tired of Ed always telling her what to do, Kathy ignored him. After a few minutes of quiet, she sent a friend to check on Wood. At age 54, he was dead of a heart attack.

"I still remember when I went into that room that afternoon and he was dead, his eyes were wide open," says Kathy. "I'll never forget the look in his eyes. He clutched at the sheets. It looked like he'd seen hell." [Ibid]