The 2022 Ed-vent Calendar, Day 2: Eddie's little brother, Bill

I tried to make this picture of Bill Wood look Christmasy. Did I succeed?

The second installment of this series is going to be a lot shorter and less elaborate than the first. That's the way these pop culture advent calendars usually work. Some days, you'll get something substantial. Other days, not so much. If you're working your way through a Lego advent calendar, for instance, you shouldn't expect to find a minifig behind every door. That wouldn't be cost-effective. So instead, you get a few minifigs scattered throughout the month, and in between, you get little accessories. Like maybe one day, you'll get a nice hat for your minifig. 

Well, today's article is a Lego hat.

Remember Howard William "Bill" Wood (1926-1986), Ed Wood's little brother? The one who made a career out of the military but didn't live to see age 60? I wrote a whole article about him back in January 2021. At the time, I said I didn't even have a photograph of the man, but when I was looking through my archives for material for this project, I found that wasn't true. In fact, I do have a news clipping from the November 17, 1955 edition of The Poughkeepsie Journal that includes a picture of Bill. When I stumbled upon it, I hastily added it to my original article. But I thought I'd post it here, too, so more people could see it.

Ed Wood's brother, Bill, at age 29 in 1955.

He looks an awful lot like Eddie, doesn't he? Actually, he looks like Ed Wood crossed with Howard McNear, the actor who played Floyd the barber on The Andy Griffith Show. Bill would have been 29 years old at the time this picture was taken, but he somehow looks substantially older. Maybe everyone looked older back then. He was already a husband and father by then, but the army, in its infinite wisdom, had him futzing around with airplanes in Canada.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 113: Howard William Wood (1926-1986)

Today, we're putting together a jigsaw puzzle with lots of missing pieces.

"The records will tell the story."

-Patrick/Patricia in Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda (1953)

Today, as a change of pace, let's talk about Ed Wood's younger brother Bill. As far as I know, no one's ever written an article about this man, and I think it's high time someone did.

You might not know that Edward D. Wood, Jr. even had a brother if you had only seen the Tim Burton biopic from 1994 or most of the well-known documentaries about Eddie like Flying Saucers Over Hollywood or Look Back in Angora. Howard William Wood (1926-1986), referred to by relatives as William or Bill Wood, is not mentioned in any of them. He's barely mentioned in Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992). However, that landmark biography does contain a couple of interesting anecdotes about Eddie's younger sibling. In a chapter called "Childhood/The World Outside," Eddie's mother Lillian remembers:

Junior and his brother William, they always got along good. If anybody did anything to each other, they were right there to tackle 'em. But... he was very jealous of Junior. I don't know why, because we did for both of them. We never did for one and not the other. Never.

A small brass Buddha.

About 100 pages later, in the chapter "The Wood Spooks," Eddie's widow Kathy says:

When Eddie's brother Bill was sent to Vietnam, he came over to our house on the way over. It was around Christmas. I put out all the best silver and cooked a big dinner... We sat there drinking the whole bunch of us, and it ended up in a big fight. I had given Bill a little brass statue of Buddha a newscaster gave Ed. I said to him, "Take this with you for luck." From what I understand, he fell off the back of a transport truck in Japan and ended up in the hospital -- never did get to Vietnam! Bill was always a little bit jealous of Eddie, and I think his wife was the same way. They were jealous of his success.

And that's it. Bill is never mentioned in the book again. I must confess, I've read Nightmare dozens of times, and I didn't even remember the anecdote about the Buddha statue. Why a newscaster would give such a thing to Eddie is beyond my comprehension. The thread that connects Lillian's story to Kathy's story is Bill's jealousy of Ed. Certainly, Eddie's showbiz ventures attracted lots of press attention over the years. Apparently, Bill and Ed became estranged, and Bill spent his remaining years forging a life that was as far away from Ed's as possible.