70 Facts About Ed Wood

Notable for their campy aesthetics, technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, use of poorly-matched stock footage, eccentric casts, idiosyncratic stories and non sequitur dialogue, Ed Wood's films remained largely obscure until he was posthumously awarded a Golden Turkey Award for Worst Director of All Time in 1980, renewing public interest in his life and work.

Ed Wood collected comic books and pulp magazines, and adored movies, especially Westerns, serials, and the occult.

Ed Wood often skipped school in order to watch motion pictures at the local movie theater, where stills from last week's films would often be thrown into the trash by theater staff, allowing Wood to salvage the images, and to add to his extensive collection.

On his 12th birthday, in 1936, Ed Wood received as a gift his first movie camera, a Kodak "Cine Special".

One of Ed Wood's first paid jobs was as a cinema usher, and he sang and played drums in a band.

In 1942, Ed Wood enlisted at age 17 in the United States Marine Corps, just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Ed Wood had false teeth that he would slip out from his mouth when he wanted to make his wife Kathy laugh, showing her a big toothless grin.

Ed Wood later claimed that he feared being wounded in battle more than he feared being killed, mainly because he was afraid a combat medic would discover him wearing a pink bra and panties under his uniform during the Battle of Tarawa.

In 1947, Ed Wood moved to Hollywood, California, where he wrote scripts and directed television pilots, commercials and several forgotten micro-budget westerns, most of which failed to sell.

In 1948, Ed Wood wrote, produced, directed, and starred in The Casual Company, a play derived from his own unpublished novel which was based on his service in the United States Marine Corps.

Ed Wood joined the Screen Actors Guild in 1951, and worked very briefly as a stuntman among other things.

When writing, Ed Wood used a number of different pen names, including Ann Gora and Akdov Telmig.

In 1952, Ed Wood was introduced to actor Bela Lugosi by friend and fellow writer-producer Alex Gordon.

In 1953, Ed Wood wrote and directed the semi-documentary film Glen or Glenda with producer George Weiss.

Fuller was shocked when she learned soon afterward that Ed Wood actually was a transvestite.

In 1953, Ed Wood wrote and directed a stage show for Lugosi called The Bela Lugosi Review that was put on at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas.

When Lugosi appeared on the TV show You Asked For It that same year, he announced that Ed Wood was producing a Dr Acula TV show for him, but it never materialized.

Ed Wood acted as Lugosi's dialogue coach when he guest-starred on The Red Skelton Show in 1954, alongside Lon Chaney Jr.

Ed Wood produced and directed the horror film Bride of the Monster, based on an original story idea by Alex Gordon which he had originally called The Atomic Monster.

In 1956, Wood wrote the screenplay for the film The Violent Years, which was directed by William M Morgan, starring Playboy model Jean Moorhead, Timothy Farrell, and serial star I Stanford Jolley.

In late 1956, Ed Wood co-produced, wrote, and directed his science fiction opus Plan 9 from Outer Space, which featured Bela Lugosi in a small role.

In 1957 Ed Wood wrote and directed a pilot for a suspense-horror TV series to be called Portraits in Terror that ultimately failed to sell.

In 1958, Ed Wood wrote, produced, and directed Night of the Ghouls, starring Kenne Duncan, Tor Johnson, Criswell, Duke Moore, and Valda Hansen.

For many years, it was thought to be a lost film, but distribution of the film was held up for 25 years because Ed Wood hadn't paid the lab bill.

In 1958, Ed Wood wrote the screenplay for The Bride and the Beast, which was directed by Adrian Weiss.

Ed Wood wrote the screenplay for a 1959 "nudie cutie" film called Revenge of the Virgins, which was directed by Peter Perry Jr.

Also in 1960, Ed Wood wrote the screenplay for The Peeper, which he intended as a direct sequel to his 1960 film The Sinister Urge, but it was never produced.

Ed Wood contributed to the plot of Jane Mann's 1961 screenplay Anatomy of a Psycho.

In 1963, Ed Wood wrote the screenplay for Shotgun Wedding.

Ed Wood wrote the screenplay from a story idea by Jane Mann.

Ed Wood co-wrote the screenplays with Apostolof and occasionally even acted in some of the films.

Ed Wood had a smaller role in Robertson's second film, Mrs Stone's Thing, as a transvestite who spends his time at a party trying on lingerie in a bedroom.

Ed Wood did not participate in the actual making of the movie.

In 1970, Ed Wood wrote and directed his own pornographic film, Take It Out in Trade, starring Duke Moore and Nona Carver.

In 1970, Ed Wood produced a 45 rpm record which featured Tor Johnson on one side, reading The Day The Mummy Returned, and Criswell reading The Final Curtain on the other.

From 1971 to 1972, Ed Wood directed an unknown number of short X-Rated films produced by the Swedish Erotica film company.

Ed Wood was paid $100 for every ten loops he subtitled.

At the time of his death, Ed Wood was working on a biographical screenplay based on the last years of actor Bela Lugosi to be called Lugosi Post Mortem, which was supposed to star actor Peter Coe as Lugosi and Karl Johnson as his father Tor Johnson.

The nearly completed script was left behind the last time Ed Wood was evicted and is presumed to have been discarded in the trash.

Ed Wood was working on a screenplay for a film called Venus De Milo, a mystery that would explain the famous statue's missing arms.

Technically, Ed Wood's last acting job was in the 1978 Stephen Apostolof film Hot Ice.

Ed Wood played a janitor in the film, but his scene was cut out at the last minute due to his drunkenness on the set.

Ed Wood died soon after this film was made in 1978, at age 54.

In 1965, Ed Wood wrote the quasi-memoir Hollywood Rat Race, which was only published years later in 1998.

Ed Wood was in a long term relationship with actress and songwriter Dolores Fuller, whom he met in late 1952.

Ed Wood was in the process of divorcing her first husband Donald Fuller, with whom she had had two sons.

Fuller later said she initially had no idea that Ed Wood was a crossdresser and was mortified when she saw Ed Wood dressed as a woman for the first time in Glen or Glenda.

The couple broke up in 1955 after Ed Wood cast another actress for the lead role in Bride of the Monster and because of Ed Wood's excessive drinking.

In 1956, soon after his breakup with Fuller, Ed Wood married actress Norma McCarty.

The marriage ended approximately one month later after McCarty discovered that Ed Wood was a crossdresser, and while it has been reported that their marriage was annulled, according to film archivist Wade Williams, they neither annulled the marriage nor legally divorced.

Ed Wood moved in with Paul Marco for a short while after McCarty left him.

Later in 1956, Ed Wood met Kathy O'Hara in a bar one night where he was drinking with Bela Lugosi.

Ed Wood occasionally sent money to his mom in the mail without O'Hara's knowledge.

Ed Wood was shocked to learn he had fathered an illegitimate daughter after World War II with a young woman he had dated while he was in the Marines.

Ed Wood visited the Woods and stayed over at their house for a couple of days, but apparently the two Kathys did not get along well.

Ed Wood directed many of his pornographic films in drag, but usually would not take the time to shave, which made for a bizarre sight, according to his friends.

Ed Wood always swore that he had never had a single homosexual relationship in his life, and was even considered quite a womanizer by many of his acquaintances.

Ed Wood once said that his greatest fantasy was to be reincarnated as a gorgeous blonde.

Ed Wood called the studio and told them that Agar was not dead.

One night, a transvestite was beaten to death in the hallway just outside Ed Wood's apartment door and the sound of gunshots outside the building was a nightly occurrence.

Stories abound of the two beating each other; Ed Wood sometimes knocked Kathy unconscious.

Cremer said Ed Wood began the interview sober, but quickly became intoxicated as the interview proceeded.

Ed Wood went out in the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of Wild Turkey.

Ed Wood smashed the bottle on the kitchen counter and then came after me with it.

Ed Wood lunged at me but he was so drunk, I just pushed him against the wall and he collapsed.

Ed Wood spent the weekend drinking vodka and desperately calling old friends for money, but to no avail.

Ed Wood was cremated at the Utter-McKinley mortuary, and his ashes were scattered at sea.

In 1994, director Tim Burton released the biopic Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp in the title role and Martin Landau, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi.

Ed Wood's 1972 film The Undergraduate was a lost film, as was his 1970 film Take It Out in Trade, but they both eventually turned up years later.

Ed Wood is said to have filmed some scenes of Lon Chaney Jr.