Director Curtis Harrington 2007 Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Gene Curtis Harrington (September 17, 1926 – May 6, 2007) was an American film and television director whose work included experimental films, horror films, and episodic television.[1] He is considered one of the forerunners of New Queer Cinema.[2]

Biography

Harrington was born in Los Angeles on September 17, 1926, and grew up in Beaumont, California. His first cinematic endeavors were amateur films he made while still a teenager. He attended Occidental College and the University of Southern California and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a film studies degree.[1]

He began his career as a film critic, writing a book on Josef von Sternberg in 1948. He directed several avant-garde short films in the 1940s and '50s, including Fragment of Seeking, Picnic, and The Wormwood Star (a film study of the artwork of Marjorie Cameron). Cameron also co-starred in his subsequent film Night Tide (1961) with Dennis Hopper. 

Harrington worked with Kenneth Anger, serving as a cinematographer on Anger's Puce Moment and acting in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) (he played Cesare, the Somnambulist). Harrington had links to Thelema shared with his close associate Kenneth Anger, and Marjorie Cameron who frequently acted in his films.[3] One of Harrington’s mentors was avant-garde film pioneer Maya Deren, an initiated voodoo priestess.

Roger Corman assigned Harrington to turn some Russian science fiction footage into a whole new American movie; the result was Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965), which led to further films such as Games.

He also directed Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) with Shelley Winters, What's the Matter with Helen? (1972) with Winters and Debbie Reynolds, and Killer Bees (1974) with Gloria Swanson in one of her last film roles.

Harrington made two made for television movies based on screenplays by Robert Bloch: The Cat Creature (1973) and The Dead Don't Die (1975).

Harrington had a cameo role in Orson Welles's unfinished The Other Side of the Wind. In the 1970s and 1980s, Harrington directed episodes of Dynasty, Wonder Woman, The Twilight Zone, and Charlie's Angels for television.

Harrington was the driving force in locating the original James Whale production of The Old Dark House (Universal Pictures, 1932). Even though the rights had been sold to Columbia Pictures for a remake, he got George Eastman House to restore the negative. On the Kino International DVD, there is a filmed interview of Harrington explaining why and how this came about (the contract stipulated that they were allowed to save the film only, not release it, essentially to prove no profit motive). Harrington was an advisor on Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters, about the last days of director James Whale, since Harrington had known Whale at the end of his life. Harrington also has a cameo in this film.

Harrington's final film, the short Usher, is a remake of an unreleased film he did while in high school, Fall of the House of Usher. His casting of Nikolas and Zeena Schreck in his updated version of Edgar Allan Poe’s ”Fall of the House of Usher” is in keeping with the magical thread that runs through the film-maker’s career. Financing of the film was partly accomplished through the Shreck's brokering of the sale of Harrington's signed copy of Crowley's The Book of Thoth.[4]

He died on May 6, 2007, of complications from a stroke he had suffered in 2005.[1] He is interred in the Cathedral Mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

House of Harrington a short documentary about the director's life, was released in 2008. It was directed by Jeffrey Schwarz and Tyler Hubby and filmed several years before Harrington's death. It includes footage of his high school film Fall of the House of Usher.

Curtis Harrington's memoir Nice Guys Don't Work in Hollywood was published by Drag City.

Filmography

Short films

Fall of the House of Usher (1942)
Fragment of Seeking (1946)
Picnic (1948)
On the Edge (1949)
The Assignation (1952)
Dangerous Houses (1952)[5]
St. Tropaz (1952) - unfinished[5]
The Wormwood Star (1956) - documentary about Marjorie Cameron
The Four Elements (1966) - Industrial Short
Usher (2000)

Theatrical films

Night Tide (1961) [not released widely until 1963]
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
Queen of Blood (1966)
Games (1967)
What's the Matter with Helen? (1971)
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971)
The Killing Kind (1973)
Ruby (1977)
Mata Hari (1985)

TV-movies

How Awful About Allan (1970)
The Cat Creature (1973)
Killer Bees (1974)
The Dead Don't Die (1975)
Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978)

TV series

The Legend of Jessie James (1966) - 2 episodes
Baretta (1975-1976) - 2 episodes
Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected (1977) - 1 episode ("A Hand For Sonny Blue")
Logan's Run (1978) - 1 episode
Lucan (1978) - 1 episode
Sword of Justice (1978) - 1 episode
Vega$ (1978) - 1 episode
Charlie's Angels (1978-79) - 2 episodes
Wonder Woman (1979) - 1 episode
Darkroom (1981) - 2 episodes and opening credits
Hotel (1983-84) - 2 episodes
Glitter (1984) - 1 episode
Dynasty (1983-85) - 6 episodes
The Colbys (1985-87) - 5 episodes
The Twilight Zone (1987) - 1 episode

Acting roles

The Fall of the House of Usher (1942)
Fragment of Seeking (1946)
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)
Ironside (1967) – episode Let My Brother Go
The Other Side of the Wind (1972)
Gods and Monsters (1998)
Usher (2002)

References

1. Martin, Douglas (May 10, 2007). "Curtis Harrington, Director Of Horror Films, Dies at 80". New York Times.
2. Glbtq.com
3. Obituary for Curtis Harrington in Fortean Times
4. http://www.Nikolasschreck.eu
5. Toscano, Mark (2013). Conversations in the Back of the Theatre: Preserving the Short films of Curtis Harrington (DVD Booklet). Drag City/Flicker Alley.