Benjamin Robert Clark was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor.
18 Facts About Bob Clark
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Bob Clark is best known for his work in the Canadian film industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where he was responsible for some of the most successful films in Canadian film history such as Black Christmas, Murder by Decree, Tribute, Porky's, and A Christmas Story.
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Bob Clark won three Genie Awards with two additional nominations.
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Bob Clark was born in New Orleans in 1939, but grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and later moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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Bob Clark grew up poor, as his father died during his childhood and his mother was a barmaid.
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Bob Clark did briefly play semi-pro for the Fort Lauderdale Black Knights.
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Bob Clark's career began with She-Man: A Story of Fixation featured in a gender-bender double feature.
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Bob Clark's first film, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, was a blend of comedy and graphic horror.
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Bob Clark had moved to Canada, then a tax haven for Americans, and these Canuxploitation productions were small by Hollywood standards but made Bob Clark a big fish in the small pond of the Canadian film industry of that era.
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Bob Clark executive-produced the moonshine movie Moonrunners, which was used as source material for the TV series The Dukes of Hazzard.
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Bob Clark later produced the 2000 TV movie The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood.
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Bob Clark followed this with a movie of the Bernard Slade play Tribute, starring Jack Lemmon reprising his Broadway role, for which Lemmon was nominated for an Academy Award and 11 Genies including a win for Lemmon's performance.
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Bob Clark returned to his B-movie roots, though, co-writing, producing, and directing Porky's, a longtime personal project.
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Bob Clark wrote, produced, and directed the film's first sequel, Porky's II: The Next Day, which did not feature the title character, and introduced two new antagonists with perhaps greater relevance, a blustering fundamentalist preacher, and a sleazy local politician who cynically caters to his influence, while seducing a teenage girl.
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Bob Clark instead collaborated with Jean Shepherd on A Christmas Story, which critic Leonard Maltin described as "one of those rare movies you can say is perfect in every way".
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Bob Clark continued to stay active in the film industry until his death, with lower-budget fare mixed in with brief runs at higher targets.
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Bob Clark was nominated twice for the Razzie Awards as "Worst Director", for Rhinestone and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.
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Bob Clark was divorced, and had two sons, Michael and Ariel.