We have a very soft spot in our hearts for what we like to think of as “underdog cinema.” Not so much the guys that think they are auteurs and are making art on a shoestring… No, we’re talking the hardworking schlubs who attempt to make a commercial product with no budget of which to speak — especially those whose movies that have acquired an appealing patina of age. Certainly ’80s direct-to-VHS dreck is cooler than today’s “world premiere DVDs,” but what we’re talking here is the golden exploitation trash of the ’50s, ’60s, and even the ’70s as epitomized by the films of Ed Wood, Jr. (Plan 9 From Outer Space, Glen Or Glenda?, Bride Of The Monster, and many others).Like most people, this writer’s awareness of Ed Wood was limited to a vague knowledge of Plan 9 but not of the story of the man himself. In fact in ‘93, when Tim Burton was filming exterior night shots for his biopic outside the historic Pantages Theater, blocking Hollywood Boulevard and our access to The Frolic Room (a favorite watering hole adjacent to the theater), our reaction was: “Who the fuck is Ed Wood? What a dumb name for a movie.”

Fast foward a few months and the Hollywood publicity machine had done its job: Not only was Ed Wood not a stupid title, our asses were in paid seats and we were engrossed in the B&W tale of the seedier side of tinseltown yesteryear, picking out Hollywood landmarks and favorite bars like Boardner’s, which was used for Ed’s likely-fantasy meeting-in-the-booth with Orson Welles. And we were transfixed by Johnny Depp’s wild-eyed, nearly psychotically optimistic (and strangely inspirational) portrayal of Wood — a man in love with making movies, who would not let reality (or his fixation on white Angora sweaters) stand in the way of his dream.

You know the phenomenon, where you become aware of something that you didn’t know — then when you do, you see references to that thing or person everywhere? Well, that’s the deal with Ed Wood (in fact, this is being written on October 10th, the anniversary of his birthday — a fact not known until this article was well underway. Cue the theremin, please!).

Turns out a friend of a friend lived in the same Yucca Street ’20s-vintage apartment building as Ed’s widow Kathy (played in a highly fictionalized manner in the Burton biopic by Patricia Arquette). This fellow was a bit of a guardian angel to the 72 year-old Kathy Wood, driving her to do her shopping and generally looking after her. Seems that this was the same apartment building (a short stumble from Playboy Liquor) that she and Ed had occupied in the ’70s. While his feature filmmaking days were behind him, Ed supported Kathy, himself, and his growing thirst for alcohol by penning hundreds of articles and short stories for adult magazines and cranking out nearly 100 pornographic novels (as well as, writing and directing “smut films”) until his vodka-hastened death in 1978.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving 1995, a slighty surreal tableau unfolded: Here was a tinseltown turkey day gathering populated by the surviving denizens of the Ed Wood universe and others that knew Kathy and had no place better to go, including a cameo appearance by Paul Marco (Kelton The Cop in Plan 9, Bride Of The Monster, and Night Of The Ghouls), who passed out business cards to the party goers, displaying the Hollywood hustle that had enabled him to continue to eek out a living on the horror and sci-fi convention circuit nearly forty years after the fact.

But the real star of the evening was Kathy, who despite her seventy-some years was a petite, shapely and attractive woman with an innate sweetness and an intense, enduring love for her husband, who had died nearly twenty years before.

“You know, I went down to that set and I told that Johnny Depp that he was goodlooking, but not nearly as handsome as my Eddie!”

“Eddie wasn’t queer. He was no homo. He just liked women’s clothing.”

“Eddie wasn’t the ‘Worst Director in the World.’ He just didn’t have any money.”

There was a spark… And a friendship ensued, with Kathy occasionally remarking: “If I was 30 years younger, you had better watch out.”

The feeling was mutual.

After moving to San Francisco in the late ’90s, this writer never had the opportunity to see or speak with Kathy again, although our mutual friend would pass along greetings and the occasional tidbit of news.

Kathy spearheaded the production of I Woke Up Early The Day I Died released in 1998, based on a “lost” script that was said to be Ed’s favorite. The movie was a dialogue-free (!), dark comedy starring Billy Zane as an asylum escapee with a smorgasbord of a supporting cast that included Kathy herself, as well as Christina Ricci, Bud Cort, Ann Magnuson, John Ritter, Sandra Bernhard, Eartha Kitt, a couple of Joaquin Phoenix’s siblings, Ricky Schroder, Nicollette Sheridan, Tippi Hedren, Karen Black, Tara Reid, Leif Garrett, and Vampira.

Kathleen O’Hara Everett Wood, aged 84, died of esophageal cancer on June 26, 2006 at Hollywood Presbyterian Queen of Angels Hospital.

She is missed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.