Ed Wood, Jr.
Grade Z Genius
Readers and film aficionados in general have long been aware of that masterpiece of transvestite cinema - Glen or Glenda, a/k/a I Changed My Sex. But how many are aware that the film is autobiographical? The lead role of Glen was played by the director Edward D. Wood, Jr., under the pseudonym Daniel Davis.
Wood, the director/producer/screenwriter of such classics as Plan Nine From Outer Space, Bride of the Monster, Jail Bait and Night of the Ghouls, was a lifelong transvestite with an affinity toward Angora sweaters. This was used as the central conflict in Wood's screenplay for Glen or Glenda, as the hero, Glen, longs to wear the Angora sweater of his girlfriend, Barbara. The suffering girlfriend was played by Wood's real-life live-in lover Dolores Fuller.
Fuller has talked of her late friend's passion for women's things. She described him as the first transvestite she had ever met and that he had developed his longing for Angora when he dressed up as the Easter Bunny when he was little. It made him feel so good that from then on he was hooked. He would wear his Angora sweaters whenever he was working on one of his screenplays because he said it helped him create.
In 1963, Wood became partners with producer/screenwriter Alex Gordon in a venture called Angora Pictures. Every script Wood turned in featured a leading lady wearing an Angora sweater. No pictures were ever made. Wood had tried to get a vanity license plate saying Angora but someone had gotten it ahead of him.
The details of Ed wood's early life are sketchy but he did serve with distinction in the U.S. Marine corps in World War II. He arrived in Hollywood after the war but no one knows how he found his way into motion pictures.
He did make an impression in movietown because of his affinity toward women s pantsuits. He was a very typical ex-marine, sitting in his office, striking a masculine pose, smoking a cigarette, but wearing a ladies pantsuit with pantyhose and heels or an Angora sweater. He didn t wear a dress or skirt as far as anyone could remember, nor did he ever remove his facial hair. He wore a mustache or heavy beard for most of his life. And friends recall Wood stating many times that he had been wearing a bra and panties underneath his uniform while storming a beach in the pacific during WWII.
Wood surrounded himself with a small select circle of friends, most of whom were put to work in his pictures. The psychic Criswell, the ex-wrestler Tor Johnson, drug-addict Bela Lugosi, Dolores Fuller, the effeminate Dudley Manlove, and the many aspiring starlets that eventually found their way into Angora for their beloved director.
Ed Wood also had a drinking problem, though not to the extent of his biggest name star, the Hungarian-born Bela Lugosi, an outcast from hollywood due to his expensive drug and alcohol addictions. He became friends with Wood who provided him with a paycheck and sometimes the much-needed drugs themselves in exchange for ludicrous screen performances. One scene in particular, in the script for Bride of the Monster, has the line "Don't be afraid of Lobo- - he's as harmless as a kitten," but the way the line was muttered by Lugosi in the final picture came out "Don't vorry about Lobo Ñ he's harmless as kitchen." He was unwilling, or unable to do a retake so Wood left it in as is. Lugosi died after filming a few scenes in his beloved Dracula get-up in 1958. Wood took the scenes, rewrote a script around them, hired an extra to replace Lugosi and made the legendary Plan Nine From Outer Space.
After Plan Nine, Wood found few opportunities to work in Hollywood so he took a job as a writer for Pendulum Press, publishers of transvestite fiction and other pornography. Among his literary titles were TV Lust, and Diary of a Transvestite Hooker. He returned to the cinematic world in 1972, directing Necromancer, in which he appeared as lustful wizard. It was his last film.
The last years of his life were particularly difficult. His alcoholism was worse and he was constantly being put out of apartments. He liked dogs, keeping four or five of them around at all times, but he wouldn't clean up after them. Wood and his wife Kathy lived in squalor, although he kept large amounts of cash around in drawers and suitcases. He was a generous person, too, frequently giving away what little he had to those he though were worse off than himself.
He died of a heart attack while watching television at his home in 1978. He was 56 years old. His wife at the time remarked that the world had lost one of its great directors.
Ed Wood, Jr., always maintained a strong sense of himself and his value as an artist. He was completely sincere in what he was doing and genuinely believed that his movies were the best he could do under the circumstances. He enjoyed playing the role of the director. And this is how he would want to be remembered, sitting in his director's chair, like a lesser Cecil B. DeMille, shouting into his megaphone, having people running here and there at his instruction. And, of course, he would be wearing one of his beloved pantsuits, stockings, high heels and an Angora sweater.
Go to:
En Femme Archives
CDS Archives
CDS Home
© 1999 by cdspub.com
|