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| Kathy Wood, seen here with her dog McGinty in 1988, was married to Ed for over twenty years. |
Bob Blackburn's recently-published book, Kathy Wood & I: How I Fell Down the Ed Wood Jr. Rabbit Hole (Bear Manor Media, 2024), documents the author's decade-plus friendship with Ed Wood's widow, Kathleen O'Hara Everett Wood (1922-2006). Bob approached the publicity-shy Kathy shortly after attending a marathon of Wood's movies in 1992 and, after a few false starts, slowly but surely gained her trust. Bob remained her pal and confidant until Kathy's death in 2006.
Kathy's late husband started becoming more well-known during these years, largely because of Rudolph Grey's oral history, Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. (1992). That book was adapted into a lavish, star-studded biopic called Ed Wood (1994) by director Tim Burton, with Johnny Depp in the title role and Patricia Arquette playing Kathy. The publicity generated by Burton's movie led to some home video rereleases of Ed's vintage films and a smattering of documentaries, TV specials, and articles about the infamous director and his career. A radio industry professional himself and the son of a popular sportscaster, Bob Blackburn was there to serve as Kathy's guide through these unlikely events.
As a bonus, Kathy Wood & I includes a letter that Kathy drafted in 1998 and submitted to a Los Angeles probate court as part of a dispute over Ed Wood's estate. Her purpose in writing it was to demonstrate that she was Ed's partner, not just his wife. I didn't mention any of this in my review of the book last week, but I thought Kathy's letter deserved some extra attention, as it's really the closest thing to an autobiography she ever wrote. It also offers a fascinating glimpse into Ed Wood's private life that we won't get anywhere else.
A Canadian who relocated to Los Angeles in 1954 for professional reasons, Kathy O'Hara Everett first spotted Edward Davis Wood, Jr. in 1955 when they both started attending meetings of the Church of Religious Science at the Wiltern Theatre. Kathy considered Ed quite handsome but noticed he was always alone at these lectures. They finally met a few months later when a down-on-his luck Eddie approached Kathy at a Hollywood night spot called The Cameo Room. They remained a couple for the rest of Ed's life, eloping to Las Vegas in 1956 and staying married for 22 years.
"Life with Eddie wasn't a bed of roses," Kathy writes, "and I paid dearly for loving and standing by him." This sentence serves as a thesis statement for the entire letter.
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| Kathy Wood helped write this scene. |
By the time he met Kathy, Ed was 31 and had already made Glen or Glenda (1953), Jail Bait (1954), and Bride of the Monster (1955), but his most famous film, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), was still on the horizon. The creation of that now-classic sci-fi film is a big part of Kathy's letter. She served as Ed's typist and creative consultant on the script, as she details:
It was during this time that Eddie started writing Plan Nine from Outer Space (Grave Robbers From Outer Space). We spent many hours discussing the story and dialogue and the plot. I helped him with my ideas and typed a large part of the script as usual. It was a happy time and a crazy time. [...] Ed and I kept working on the Grave Robbers script, both of us throwing lines back and forth to each other. I remember one Sunday afternoon we were both stumped for some kind of horrific bomb. I grabbed our Bible and was reading it when some certain passage came to mind. Something about the powers of the sun (or the "Solarnite" bomb in the script). We had a lot of fun talking ideas back and forth on the script.
I've heard Kathy tell similar stories in documentaries about her husband, and I feel that the Bible passage she is referencing must be Revelation 16:8-9, which states: "The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him." Let's face it, if there's a book of the Bible that would have appealed to Eddie, it's Revelation, with its often surreal, grotesque, apocalyptic imagery.
For the most part, Kathy's letter describes her often chaotic domestic life with Ed Wood. Surprisingly, there were many good times along the way—pool parties, vacations, nights on the town. The Woods were social animals, and their circle of friends included many of the kooky characters we know from Ed's movies: Duke Moore, David De Mering, Bunny Breckinridge, Tor and Karl Johnson, Kenne Duncan, Dudley Manlove, and Paul Marco. These folks often did what they could to save Ed from impending doom, but occasionally, they couldn't even save themselves. That's life in Hollywood for you. It seems Ed and Kathy could never hold onto a residence or a vehicle for long, and Kathy's letter is full of stories of disputes with various landlords, including Plan 9 investor Ed Reynolds.
Money, or the lack of it, became the dominant issue in the Woods' lives. (Isn't that true for most of us?) While Kathy worked as a secretary and stenographer at various companies, including Muzak, Eddie's career as a writer-director was unreliable at best. He'd sell a screenplay or a novel, but the money would soon be gone. She also claims that some of Steve Apostolof's checks to Eddie bounced, which may explain her longstanding resentment toward the director-producer and his "cheap girly movies." Kathy does not dwell on Eddie's raging alcoholism, even though it was the chief cause of his professional decline and early death. As Kathy sees it, the drinking was just part of the problem, along with Eddie's "cranky" moods and his consumption of salty foods.
Every Ed Wood fan knows how this sordid story ends. In December 1978, the Woods were evicted from their Yucca St. apartment by the local sheriff and had to move in with actor Peter Coe. They'd undergone similar trials in the past, even rooming with Duke Moore in his one-bedroom unit for a while, but this final disgrace proved too much for Eddie. He died heartbroken—literally and figuratively—on December 10, 1978, at the age of 54. Kathy's letter comes to an abrupt conclusion here: "Our world had ended." There's no redemption arc, no deus ex machina, just loss and despair. She does not mention Ed's posthumous, ironic fame.
And yet, Kathy's letter is not merely an exercise in misery. She clearly had a lot of fond memories of her late husband, and that comes through in her writing about their marriage. She relates a bittersweet anecdote about the time Eddie tried (unsuccessfully) to nurse an injured bird back to health, for instance. She also remembers the way he kept her and a neighborhood child enraptured for hours with his action-packed and largely fabricated World War II stories. That child, Tim Brockman, grew up to be a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War.
Above all, through this letter, we get little glimpses of Ed Wood in his prime, back when he was still the life of the party. You can almost see why Kathy stuck by him for so many years, possibly hoping the old spark would somehow return. As it says on Kathy's grave: "She hitched her wagon to a star."
Kathy Wood and I: How I Fell Down the Angora Rabbit Hole is available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions right here. Or you can purchase it directly from the publisher.