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| What does this humble garment have to do with Ed Wood? Let's find out! |
As long as he’s been infamous, Ed Wood has always been linked with clothing. The "worst director of all time" bit has gone hand in hand with the cross-dressing bit since the beginning of his rediscovery in the '80s, almost as if one is a bonus added punchline to the other. Not only did this guy direct Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), goes the legend, but he did it in an angora sweater.
Much has been written about Eddie's passion for women's clothing, including a lot by Eddie himself. He started his career with the semi-autobiographical plea for tolerance, Glen or Glenda (1953), and ended it with stacks of adult paperbacks filled with cross-dressing and gender-bending characters, each clad in outfits Eddie never failed to describe in loving, microscopic detail.
Very little, by comparison, has been written, whether about or by Eddie, concerning men's clothing. And that's the corner of Eddie's closet I’d like to get into today. Let's push aside Eddie's alter ego Shirley's sizable wardrobe and look at what he wore by day. Specifically, his polo shirts.
This odyssey all began with one of the aforementioned adult paperbacks, an adaptation of the Wood-scripted Steven Apostolof flick Orgy of the Dead (1965). Ever since I first read in Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992) that this feature length series of striptease acts had been improbably adapted into a piece of literature by Wood himself, and saw the striking cover art by Robert Bonfils, I knew I had to own my own copy someday.
When that day finally came, decades later, I was struck by an oddity among the many photo illustrations. I had heard the tale of how Eddie had absconded with publicity stills taken on the set of Orgy by Robert Charles Wilson for use in this publication, but I wasn't expecting to see, inexplicably, a photo of Eddie himself right there on page 107.
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| I'm afraid to break the spine of this thing. |
While it's unquestionably strange to have a photo of a book's author in the middle of a book otherwise populated with photos of topless women, and while there is no film director character in the movie or novel, and while the photo appears incongruously in the middle of a morbid tale of a unscrupulous mortician, I thought, at least it being a behind-the-scenes photo from the set renders it not entirely out of left field?
Later, however, I noticed Eddie wearing the same polo shirt from the Orgy photo in a photo from the set of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Even though it's within the realm of possibility for one man to wear the same (or a similar) polo shirt on several occasions over several years, I began to wonder if the out-of-place photo of Eddie in the Orgy novel wasn’t even from the set of the movie, making it even more out-of-place than I had originally thought.
Like most thoughts about Eddie that cross my mind, this one made it onto Bob Blackburn’s Ed Wood, Jr. Facebook group where fellow group member Edward Fisher pointed out Eddie was wearing a similar polo in footage originally shot for the abandoned juvenile delinquent film Hellborn (1956) and later repurposed for both Night of the Ghouls (aka Revenge of the Dead) (1959) and The Sinister Urge (1960), as well as in a publicity photo taken on the set of Bride of the Monster (1955). So, maybe the photo from Orgy isn’t necessarily from the Plan 9 set, and isn't necessarily from the Orgy set, either, but could be from any number of sets. Eddie simply wore this (or a similar) polo on camera that often.
On the trail of Eddie's polo, my first stop was that behind-the-scenes footage I mentioned before of Eddie on the set of Orgy. I hadn't seen it in years, but I dug out my Big Box of Wood (2011) DVD set and checked it out. Turns out, Eddie's in a white, long-sleeved, button-up dress shirt in that footage. Also, while not having transitioned entirely into the worse-for-wear Eddie of The Photographer (1969), he looked a little heavier than he was in the photo in the novel. Reviewing this footage reminded me that portions of it are double exposed with footage of another bevy of topless women, and I wondered what set (or living room) that was from. But one mystery at a time, please.
So, he was not wearing the Plan 9 polo on the set of Orgy that day. That's not to say he wasn't some other day, which led me to take a closer look at the Hellborn footage and behind-the-scenes Bride photo. Was this just a shirt he wore all the time?
Luckily, I'm somewhat of a polo shirt expert. Not academically, or anything, but I did wear one almost every day of my professional life from 2003-2019. I say almost, because sometimes, I wore a sweater (no, not angora). Then, Covid hit, work from home began, and my polo days became fewer and farther between. What was once a closet almost exclusively filled with polo shirts became one in which polos were but an afterthought among graphic tees. Still, my decade-plus of experience has equipped me to tell you my findings.
I've analyzed Ed's various polos, and I've concluded that what we have here are three different, but similar, polos. I'll break them down for you.
Polo 1: Bride of the Polo
Later, however, I noticed Eddie wearing the same polo shirt from the Orgy photo in a photo from the set of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Even though it's within the realm of possibility for one man to wear the same (or a similar) polo shirt on several occasions over several years, I began to wonder if the out-of-place photo of Eddie in the Orgy novel wasn’t even from the set of the movie, making it even more out-of-place than I had originally thought.
Like most thoughts about Eddie that cross my mind, this one made it onto Bob Blackburn’s Ed Wood, Jr. Facebook group where fellow group member Edward Fisher pointed out Eddie was wearing a similar polo in footage originally shot for the abandoned juvenile delinquent film Hellborn (1956) and later repurposed for both Night of the Ghouls (aka Revenge of the Dead) (1959) and The Sinister Urge (1960), as well as in a publicity photo taken on the set of Bride of the Monster (1955). So, maybe the photo from Orgy isn’t necessarily from the Plan 9 set, and isn't necessarily from the Orgy set, either, but could be from any number of sets. Eddie simply wore this (or a similar) polo on camera that often.
On the trail of Eddie's polo, my first stop was that behind-the-scenes footage I mentioned before of Eddie on the set of Orgy. I hadn't seen it in years, but I dug out my Big Box of Wood (2011) DVD set and checked it out. Turns out, Eddie's in a white, long-sleeved, button-up dress shirt in that footage. Also, while not having transitioned entirely into the worse-for-wear Eddie of The Photographer (1969), he looked a little heavier than he was in the photo in the novel. Reviewing this footage reminded me that portions of it are double exposed with footage of another bevy of topless women, and I wondered what set (or living room) that was from. But one mystery at a time, please.
So, he was not wearing the Plan 9 polo on the set of Orgy that day. That's not to say he wasn't some other day, which led me to take a closer look at the Hellborn footage and behind-the-scenes Bride photo. Was this just a shirt he wore all the time?
Luckily, I'm somewhat of a polo shirt expert. Not academically, or anything, but I did wear one almost every day of my professional life from 2003-2019. I say almost, because sometimes, I wore a sweater (no, not angora). Then, Covid hit, work from home began, and my polo days became fewer and farther between. What was once a closet almost exclusively filled with polo shirts became one in which polos were but an afterthought among graphic tees. Still, my decade-plus of experience has equipped me to tell you my findings.
I've analyzed Ed's various polos, and I've concluded that what we have here are three different, but similar, polos. I'll break them down for you.
Polo 1: Bride of the Polo
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| Ed Wood (center, seated) on location at Lake Marsh. |
This is a light-colored polo with dark trim around the collar and sleeves. The breast pocket (crammed with cigarettes) does not appear to have any trim. Seen here on the set of Bride of the Monster.
Polo 2: Polo 9 from Outer Space
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| I wonder who's on the cutting room floor? |
This is also a light-colored polo, but this time appears to have white trim around the dark trim on the collar, sleeves and maybe breast pocket, adding a little more detail and a double stripe look. Seen here on the set of Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Polo 3: Hellpolo, a.k.a. Revenge of the Polo, a.k.a. Night of the Polo, a.k.a. The Sinister Polo
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| Eddie, then past 30, convincingly portrays a juvenile delinquent. |
Another light-colored affair, including dark trim on the breast pocket, but lacking the detail of the extra light-colored strips around the collar and sleeves. Seen here on the set of Hellborn, et al.
In conclusion: much like Paul Marco (polo?) has a trilogy of Kelton the cop movies, I believe Ed Wood has a trilogy of polo shirts, and the one pictured in the Orgy of the Dead novelization is from a group of publicity stills shot on the set of Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Of course, the real mystery is why. Why is there a photo of the novelist on the set of an unrelated movie in the middle of the novel, apropos of nothing? Of course, we'll likely never know, so we're only left to guess. My guess is the most important thing about this book to Eddie was that he wrote it. And that comes from a sense of pride. So, he wanted to put his stamp on it. Sure, his name's on the cover, spine and title page. But in a world where he'd received very little recognition for any of his accomplishments, who would acknowledge him if he didn't do it himself? Maybe it was a minor rebellion of an artist who rarely got his due.
After all, who would ever notice? And if they did, who would ever know it was him? It would be his little secret. An Easter egg of sorts, from an angora rabbit. Just on the off chance there'd be a weekly column dedicated to him one day.