Ed Wood, Jr.

:For the biopic film, see Ed Wood (film)

Early years

Wood's father, Edward Sr., worked for the Postal Service and his family was shunted around America. Eventually they settled in Poughkeepsie, New York where Ed Wood Jr. was born.

Related Topics:
Postal Service - Poughkeepsie - New York

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In childhood, Wood was interested in the performing arts and pulp fiction. He collected comics, pulp magazines and adored movies, most notably Westerns and anything involving the occult. As a result of his obsession with film, he would often skip school in favor of watching pictures at the local movie theatre. Stills from that day's picture would often be thrown in the trash by theatre staff but Wood would salvage them, making them additions to his extensive collection.

Related Topics:
Pulp fiction - Comics - Movies - Westerns - Occult - Skip school - Movie theatre

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It is reported that Wood's mother, Lillian, always wanted a girl and sometimes dressed young Ed up in skirts and dresses. Some have presumed this to be the origin of Wood's non-sexually oriented transvestite tendencies.

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One of his first paid jobs was as a cinema usher, although he also sang and played drums in a rock/country music band. Later, he fronted a singing quartet called Eddie Wood's Little Splinters. He also learned to play a variety of string instruments. Ed was given his first movie camera on his 17th birthday: a Kodak 'City Special'. One of the first pieces of footage he shot was of the Hindenburg disaster, a piece he was endlessly proud of.

Related Topics:
Rock - Country music - Camera - Kodak - Hindenburg disaster

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A patriotic boy, Wood enlisted in the Marines at age 17, just months after the events at Pearl Harbor. He survived much combat and became a war hero. He claimed that he had participated in the Battle of Guadalcanal while secretly wearing a brassiere and panties beneath his uniform.

Related Topics:
Patriotic - Marines - Pearl Harbor - Battle of Guadalcanal

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Fascinated by all things weird, Ed joined a carnival after being relieved from the Marines. His loss of several teeth during combat with Japanese soldiers and badly wounded leg from machine gun fire combined with his personal fetishes and acting skills made him a perfect candidate for the freakshow. Ed played, among other roles, 'the geek' and, perhaps more aptly, a half-man-half-woman. Still with rugged facial hair, he donned women's clothing and completed the illusion by creating his own breasts. This was achieved (allegedly) by piercing the nipple and inflating the breast skin with air. This experience resulted in a respect for carnival freakshows and a reinforced adoration of the bizarre. Carnivals appear in Ed's novels and movies quite often, most notably (and semi-autobiographically) in the novel Killer in Drag.

Related Topics:
Carnival - Japan - Machine gun - Freakshow - Breasts - Nipple

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Other of Wood's vices included soft drugs, alcohol and sex. While he respected women and was completely faithful to his girlfriends (most notably Dolores Fuller) and his wife Kathy O'Hara, Ed was a notorious womanizer in his younger days.

Related Topics:
Soft drugs - Alcohol - Sex - Dolores Fuller - Kathy O'Hara - Womanizer

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