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Tran-Sisters An ITG Monthly Column
ED WOODS I first met Ed Wood Jr. in the early 1970s. He and I were both writing for Eros Goldstripe publications. Our editor was Bill Hill, though he would soon be replaced by Dennis Rodriguez. They had offices on Sherman Oaks Ventura Blvd., not far from where it crosses Sepulveda Blvd. On the day when freelancer's checks were cut, the half-dozen of us who were always too broke to wait for them to be mailed would gather in the waiting room like hungry vultures. One of the regulars was a small, defeated-looking little man in a shabby suite that, like its wearer, had obviously seen better days. I can't say I particularly noticed him or paid him any attention. I was too focused on my own concerns, and the one or two younger writers I knew. I guess I assumed he was just another of the literary failures who sometimes become hangers-on in the porno industry because they are unable to make a living writing for anything else. I'd met a lot of them, typically living sterile lives in bleak little apartments, knowing by the time they were forty that their lives were over, there was no where else they were going. Total non-entities and non-starters in their lives. Gosh knows, the dried-up little man in the Eros lobby sure looked the part. At any rate, it was several weeks before Bill said something about what did I think of Ed Wood, and it slowly dawned on me that the little man I had dismissed so lightly was the notorious, and beloved, film director. I probably screeched something like, "That's Ed Wood?" (Hey, when you are twelve years old watching one of his films on TV at a slumber party, you don't notice the cardboard tombstones, the wrinkled "grass" or that no one can act their way out of a paperback. That mist rising up and the combined sight of Vampira and Tor Johnson is enough to terrorize any group of prepubescents. (One only notices the absurdities, and delights in them. at twenty-two. Thus owing the man two debts, one for drama one for comedy.) Needless to say, I made sure to get acquainted with the little man the next time I saw him. This was not a high-point in his life. He was about at bottom, and he was not a very prepossessing figure to talk to. He was unshaven and half-tanked a lot of the time. And mostly all he could do was brag about his glory days making Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster and Plan Nine. I didn't care. I was in heaven. I was talking to the legendary Ed Wood! Mostly what he told me was the same lies he told everybody else. That he had been cheated out of first prize on Major Bowes' Amateur Hour as a young man. That he'd been wounded and decorated fighting in World War II. That after the war he played a half-man half-woman in the circus. That he'd studied under famed dance instructor Martha Graham. That he was a heterosexual crossdresser, repelled by the thought of sex with another man. That he liked to wear women's clothing because when he was a kid, his mother made him wear dresses as a punishment. That his films were shot on such hasty schedules because the budgets were so small. And all that other hooey! And like everyone else, I believed every word of it. It was only about ten years ago, when all the well-deserved brouhaha over him was bubbling up around the making of the Tim Burton film, that I began to wonder, then doubt, then begin to dig out the truth. I don't remember precisely what set me off. One clue was a remark Ed made to someone about having only three hundred dollars to film Bella Lugosi and having to spend almost all of it on a role of film. I quickly looked up prices for a roll black and white film stock in the mid 1950s, and it came to about fifty dollars. So where did the rest of the money go? And then I read something Maila Nurmi ('50s TV horror host Vampira to you) about raising the funds for Plan Nine. After Tor Johnson's famous fundraising stunt in the swimming pool, Nurmi said, "Those Baptists gave and gave and gave." These were Hollywood (e.g. "rich") Baptists, and yet Ed Reported raising only $35,000 after a genuine (or so they thought) miracle. That seemed too little. I began to cross compare statements made by Ed at one time, with statements made at others. I began combing accounts and statements by friends. Finally I interviewed a number, and conducted some extensive file searches. The result was a picture of Ed Wood Jr. very much at a variance with the one he painted of himself. But one just as fascinating. The greatest differences were in his childhood and youngmanhood. Perhaps because once he reached Hollywood, there were witnesses to almost everything he did and said. Not much room for invention there. In the stories he told his Hollywood cronies about his early days, however, Ed had more room to invent, inflate and fabulate. And he took it! Here are 14 myths Ed created about himself that I found are completely untrue: Myth #1: Ed was a decorated hero of the Pacific Theater in World War II. Myth #2: Ed's right leg was chewed up by machine gun fire, resulting in a series of disfiguring scars. Myth #3: Ed missing front teeth were knocked out by a Japanese in hand-to-hand combat on Tarawa. Myth #4: Ed was combat veteran who fought along side his "gyrene" on Maumea, Tarawa, the Marshal Islands and other famous hot spots of the Pacific campaign. Myth #5: Ed secretly continued to serve his country after the war--undercover as a spy. ferreting out Russian agents who had infiltrated the U.S. as performers in the Ice Capades. Myth #6: Ed played a half-man half-woman in a side show by putting a needle in his boobs and blowing them up like a balloon. Myth #7: During a brief period after the war, Ed performed the "geek" act in a carnival. Myth #8: Immediately after being discharged from the military in 1946, Ed studied under famed dance instructor Martha Graham. Myth #9: Ed worked in the story department at Universal Studios. Myth #10: Ed directed dozens of early television commercials. Myth #11: Ed was a transvestite Myth #12: Ed was a heterosexual crossdresser, repelled by the thought of sex with another male. Myth #13: Ed's TG inclinations were the result of his mother having dressed him in girl's clothing to punish him as a child. Myth #14: Ed's films were shot on such hasty schedules, with such cheap props because the budgets were minuscule. In my next column I will reveal the truth behind each one. Jean Marie Stine (Jean Marie Stine is a former board member of the IFGE and the Tiffany Club of New England, a contributing editor for both the online magazine "InternationalTG" and the print zine "Transformation," and the author of the classic erotic transgender sci-fi novel, "Season of the Witch" (filmed as "Synapse"), recently released as an e-book at http://www.renebooks.com . You can read her sensational new short novels of gender transgression and forced feminization, "Les Feres Dabolique" and "In the Kingdom of the Sons" in thee erotic e-zine, www.SuspectThoughts.com . Her controversial TG story, "A Pearl of Great Price" appears on the e-zine www.BloodMoonz.com . And, mystery fans can check out her locked-room mystery "Murder in Cabin-13A" on the e-zine http://www.Conundrum.com . |
