His first novel, Black Lace Drag was published in 1963 and reissued in 1965 as Killer in Drag. Wood would often recycle plots of his films for novels, write novelizations of his own screenplays, or reuse elements from his novels in scripts. Wood's novels frequently include transvestite or drag queen characters, or entire plots centering around transvestism (including his angora fetish), and tap into his love of crime fiction and the occult. As he became increasingly unable to fund film projects, the novels seem to have become Wood's primary source of income. The lack of conventional filmmaking ability in his work has earned Wood and his films a considerable cult following.įollowing the publication of Rudolph Grey's biography Nightmare of Ecstasy, Wood's life and work have undergone a public rehabilitation, with new light shed on his evident zeal and honest love of movies and movie production, and Tim Burton's biopic, Ed Wood, earned two Academy Awards.įrom the 1950s onward, Wood supplemented his directing and screenwriting income with hastily written pulp fiction, including innumerable pulp crime, horror, and sex novels and occasional non-fiction pieces. His posthumous fame began two years after his death, when he was awarded a Golden Turkey Award as Worst Director of All Time.

Toward the end of his life, Wood made pornographic movies and wrote pulp crime, horror, and sex novels. He was able to salvage a saleable feature from Lugosi's last moments on film, but his career declined thereafter.

Wood's popularity waned soon after his biggest 'name' star, Béla Lugosi, died. In the 1950s, Wood made a run of independently produced, extremely low-budget horror, science fiction, and cowboy films, now celebrated for their technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, idiosyncratic dialogue, eccentric casts, and outlandish plot elements, although his flair for showmanship gave his productions at least a modicum of commercial success. (Octo– December 10, 1978) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, actor, author, and editor (often performing many of these functions simultaneously).

Orgy of the Dead by Ed Wood