Bert I. Gordon, sci-fi director aiming to scare 1973sand’50 Low-budget movies featuring giant creatures, shrunken humans, and radioactive monsters are dead. he is100.
Gordon’s daughter, Patricia Gordon, told The Hollywood Reporter that Gordon was in Los Angeles on Wednesday for being in Beaver died from complications caused by a fall at their home in Lee Hills.
Highlights (lows?) from his B-movie resume include The Cyclops (1957), The Great Giant(1957), New beginning (1955), Earth and Earth Spider ( Puppet Attack (1957), torture(1960), Boys and Pirates (1962) and Picture Mommy Dead (1972).
inside’60s, Gordon mentors Vince in The Police Connection ( · Edwards and Chuck Connors ) and wrote and directed How to Succeed Sexually ( 1970), Necromancy(1972), food of the gods (1973) and starring Joan Collins Empire of Ants (1977).
maybe To keep costs down, Gordon’s films were often family affairs: His late wife Flora assisted him with low-end special effects, while their late daughter Susan starred in four of his films.
His movie budget was paltry, but Gordon was nicknamed “Mr. Big” (also his initials) and was able to get famous actors to work for him. Some are at the bottom of their careers, others are on the rise.
Don Ameche, Martha Hyer and Zsa Zsa Gabor in Picture Mommy Dead (Hedy Lamarr drops out of school after shoplifting arrest); Peter Graves fights giant grasshopper in Beginning of the End; Basil Rathbone in ; with young Beau Bridges and Ron Howard at 3000 Dealing with mysterious slime’s Giant’s Village featuring Beau Brummels.
Gordon’s most noteworthy actor is definitely Orson Welles, with his take on the mystic in horror Necromancy keen interest.
Warns Welles of his habit of sniffing at directors and insists on only following from 4:00 AM: 000 In the afternoon, Gordon said he was The legend provided a profile chef, a dressing room on the patio and a fridge stocked with Chicago ribs.
“It’s easy to see that he wants his ego [touched] … all he has is that he’s a big deal, he is an important person,” recalls Gordon in 2016 road . “That’s all I did to him, everything else was fine.”
Gordon was also told never to ask Wells Citizen Kane . “Don’t say it’s your favorite movie. Don’t ask how he’s doing…don’t mention it.”
The Amazing Colossal Man eliminates nuclear fear proliferation. It features Glenn Langan as Colonel Glenn Manning trying to rescue a downed pilot near a plutonium bomb test site when an explosion occurs. Radiation exposure turned him into a bald head, 62 – Threat to Las Vegas.
The following year, Gordon produced a sequel, Battle of the Behemoths . Manning somehow survived a fall from the Hoover Dam at the end of the first movie, the giant now played by Cyclops star Duncan “Dean” Parkin .
This is all comedy series host material Mystery Science Theater 2016 , which brought the Gordon classics to new audiences. “I saw it once, and I didn’t like it when they made fun of [his work],” he said. “I take my films very seriously.”
Bert Ira Gordon was born in September 19, 100, in Wells’ hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin. His love of special effects dates back to getting his first film camera at the age of 9.
Then stop the camera and tell them to walk out so they leave “suddenly”. Or I’ll do something “ghost” where I’ll put the film back in place in the darkroom. “
Gordon graduated from the University of Wisconsin, then made TV commercials, then produced and filmed 1922AdventureSnake Island, with Sonny Tufts as Treasure Hunter.
He was followed by Dinosaur King (1922), he wrote and directed a budget of $ ,. he The special effects combine stock footage, rear projection, and the iguana — the dinosaur in the title — that won’t move no matter what Gordon does.
“Finally, I went to Beverly Hills Heights Library, looked up Gila monsters and lizards,” he recalled in 2011, “and it is said that they live in the desert, they will not move unless the temperature exceeds 90.
The next day, he brought heavy heat lamps to the set, which brought the herbivores to life.
Gordon’s films are always accompanied by Screaming tagline: “Fifty tons of creepy black horror! ” is how Earth vs. Spider was advertised. The film includes a giant tarantula awakened to rock music scene.
In Puppet Attack (“Puppet Dwarves VS Crushing Behemoth! ”), John Hoyt plays a lone puppeteer who shrinks people down to one-sixth their original size. June Kenney’s character (also in Earth vs. the Spider in) applied for a job at his factory after his former secretary mysteriously disappeared (you can guess what happened to her).
Hoyt owns more than 100 credits listed on IMDb — — including Blackboard Jungle , Spartacus and Cleopatra — but Nothing was more important to him than puppet attacks , “because he felt a sensitivity, an emotion he could identify with,” Gordon said. Point out.
In 1977 Gordon received a Career Achievement Award from the Academy of Science Fiction , Fantasy & Horror Movies. A year later, he published his autobiography, The Amazing Colossal Worlds of Mr. BIG.
Age, he indicated that he has not completed Secrets of a Psychopath (3000), his first film years.
He was married to Flora for more than 24 years later they are in 1973 divorced*). She passed away on 2014 at 1976 . Susan Gordon , who also appeared in 2016 Danny Kaye movie The Five Penny and The Twilight Zone and my three sons , are 62 When she died of cancer 2015 .
In addition to his daughter Patricia, his wife Eva is also survived; two other daughters, Christina and Carol; six grandchildren; and 10 great-grandson.
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