In 1982, Fangoria ran a heartfelt tribute to the departed Swedish wrestler.
Now that we have books about Bela Lugosi, Vampira, and Criswell, Tor Johnson (1903-1971) is arguably the most famous person in Ed Wood's acting stable not to have a biography on the market. Perhaps someday that will change. The Swedish-born wrestler, born Karl Erik Tore Johansson in Stockholm at the beginning of the previous century, is best-known to cult movie fans for his roles in three of Ed's most-seen movies: Bride of the Monster (1955), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), and Night of the Ghouls (1959). But this was neither the beginning nor quite the end of the Swede's lengthy career.
Bob Hope (left) with Tor.
For the sake of the story, Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) pretends that Eddie himself discovered Tor at a wrestling match in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s and cast the large, baldheaded man in his first-ever movie role. But, in truth, Johnson started getting film work in the 1930s shortly after he moved to America. His movie and (eventually) television career continued to the 1960s. We may associate Tor with low-budget sci-fi and horror movies—and he did several of those—but his filmography is surprisingly diverse, ranging from comedies to crime thrillers. He worked alongside such legends as Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Tony Curtis, Eddie Cantor, William Powell, Abbott & Costello and more!
With his shaved head, imposing physique, and heavy Swedish accent, Tor was an unmistakable presence onscreen. But his outsized, boisterous personality made him just as memorable offscreen. Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992) includes numerous, colorful anecdotes about the wrestler-turned-actor—the massive meals he ate, the toilet seats he broke, etc. He seems like a jovial, fun-loving guy. But there are some potentially upsetting details about Tor in the book as well, including a quote from actor Tony Cardoza who says that the wrestler hired the services of an underaged prostitute while touring India. In some interviews that Grey left on the cutting room floor, Plan 9 actress Mona McKinnon remembers Tor becoming intoxicated at a party and carrying her away against her will.
So who was this man? Until someone pens Super Swedish Angel: The Tor Johnson Story, what we have are various newspaper and magazine articles about Tor that have appeared over the years. A very intriguing example is "I Remember Tor," originally published in issue #22 of Fangoria from October 1982. In it, the late wrestling manager, musician, and film producer Johnny Legend (1948-2026) shares his memories of Tor, who had been deceased for over a decade but whose films were just then coming back into vogue thanks to The Golden Turkey Awards (1980).
A semi-obscure 1991 comic book combines two great celebrities of the 1950s.
I feel sorry for the comedians of tomorrow,especially the ones who do celebrity impressions. That job is getting more and more difficult all the time. Eventually, it'll be damned near impossible.
Thanks to advances in technology and an overall shift in the way we consume media, pop culture is becoming homogeneous. And so, too, do our celebrities become homogeneous. And I think that makes them more difficult to caricature. When actors and pop singers become more or less interchangeable, all basically looking and sounding alike, how do you effectively parody them? "Weirdness" is now one of the great sins an artist can commit. Audiences demand predictability, familiarity, and consistency. That's good for algorithms but bad for comedy.
Peter Lorre in Hollywood Steps Out.
It was not always thus. Have you ever seen one of those old Looney Tunes cartoons with cameos by Hollywood celebrities of the 1930s and '40s? MGM, Disney, and even the smaller, independent animation studios did cartoons like these, too, but I remember the Warner Bros. ones best. Examples include Hollywood Steps Out (1941), Malibu Beach Party (1940), and The CooCoo Nut Grove (1936). They show you how distinctive entertainers used to be in the old days. There was no mistaking Mae West, Peter Lorre, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, or Humphrey Bogart for anyone else.
How did we lose this? I think the rise of television in the 1950s was the beginning of it. Now that entertainers were performing every night in a little box in people's living rooms, rather than on a stage or on the silver screen, they had to tone down their personalities somewhat so as not to be too overwhelming. And so, little by little, pop culture became more even-keeled. Sure, there were reactions against this—think of Tiny Tim on Laugh-In in the late 1960s or the colorful pop stars like Cyndi Lauper and Billy Idol who dominated MTV in the early 1980s—but the overall homogenization process could not be stopped.
The 1990s was the last golden age of quirkiness before the Great Evenness took hold for good. Perhaps dreading where pop culture was headed, hipsters of the era began to dig through the archives in search of oddball celebrities from the past. In an increasingly same-y world, we yearned for something different. (Or something weird, you might say. Hint, hint.) Eccentric filmmakers, musicians, and other wacky celebrities of the past suddenly became beautifully imperfect role models. I don't think it's a coincidence that this was when writer-director Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1924-1978) experienced his second wave of posthumous popularity. This was the era of Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992), Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), and numerous Wood documentaries and VHS rereleases. Eddie represented an era of Old Weird Showbiz that was fading away.
I think this piece captures something essential about Tor Johnson.
In August 2021, I did what I had hoped never to do again: I returned to full-time office work. It seemed like my only option, since my freelance writing career was truly dead by then. I couldn't sell very many articles to editors, at least not enough to cover my monthly expenses, and Dad Made Dirty Movies: The Erotic World of Stephen C. Apostolof (2020), the book I'd authored with Jordan Todorov, wasn't exactly opening a lot of doors. Meanwhile, I needed medical insurance and a reliable source of rent money. It was time to go back to the only life I'd ever known.
Turns out, cubicle jobs like the ones I'd had in the '90s and '00s weren't as common in the 2020s—especially after the pandemic—but I found a reliable (if low-paying) position at a mortgage company and have stayed there for over three years. Since then, free time has become my most precious commodity, maybe the only thing I really treasure anymore. Every second away from that office is golden, even if I'm spending it in traffic or waiting in a checkout line.
Since time is my most/only valuable asset, I have to decide how to spend it wisely. Maintaining this blog is one of my main hobbies, but it's not the only one. Believe it or not, I have a life beyond Ed Wood. Since 2018, for instance, I have cohosted a podcast called These Days Are Ours that requires many hours of research and editing. I'm also a member of the Glenview Concert Band, an ensemble that rehearses and performs regularly. So I have at least three sirens calling out to me. But there is a fourth that outranks the others: the urge to do nothing at all. Often, when I drag myself home from work, all I want to do is stare blankly at the TV for a couple of hours and then crawl into bed without accomplishing a single thing.
I feel guilty about all this, because earnest, well-meaning people continue to email me with questions, comments, and suggestions—pretty much all of it related to Ed Wood. To be honest, I've barely skimmed most of this material. In many cases, these fine folks are working on books and documentaries of their own, and they want my input or participation. If I respond at all, it's usually something like, "Sounds interesting!" or "Keep me posted!" Some help I am, huh?
One of the people emailing me lately is a talented writer and artist named Shenandoah See. Even though I have been shamefully lax in responding to his emails, he graciously said I could share some of his work however I see fit. This is how I see fit. Here is a little gallery of Shenandoah's work. I genuinely hope you enjoy it.
The story: "Ed Wood Hollywood Deadwood" by David Michael Taylor
Synopsis: Struggling filmmaker Ed Wood drowns his sorrows in vodka at a Hollywood dive bar called Gold Diggers. Eddie is especially upset that his TV pilot, Final Curtain (1957), has failed to sell. His friend, actor/wrestler Tor Johnson, shows up and tries to comfort him. Eddie looks at their reflections in a mirror and imagines Tor as Inspector Clay from Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) and himself as a little boy dressed in girl's clothes. He leaves the bar, dejected.
One of L.A.'s great cocktail bars.
Ed migrates over to another bar, Boardner's, where he commiserates with Maila "Vampira" Nurmi. She says the future is in television, but Ed laments that he can't get his pilot in front of the right people. The director's epic bar crawl then leads him to the Frolic Room on Hollywood Blvd., where he meets up with psychic Criswell, resplendent in a sparkly Nudie suit. Eddie asks Criswell about the future, and Cris says, "Perhaps on your way home, someone will pass you in the dark, and you may never know it, but they will reveal your future."
Stumbling home to his shabby apartment on Yucca, Ed Wood indeed passes a young man and woman he does not recognize. Could they be the key to his future? He calls out to them. Many decades later, these young people are standing in front of the building at 6383 Yucca Street in Los Angeles. The young man's mother has texted him that Ed Wood once lived here, but neither the young man nor the young woman knows who Ed is.
Excerpt:
She strips the top from the shaker and replaces it with a strainer as I feel myself straining in anticipation. Setting a fresh martini glass on the section of the bar I've clamed as my own for the evening, she tips the shaker, causing the cloudy cocktail to pour through the strainer and into my glass without spilling a drop. A lime wheel appears as if from nowhere and, with a deft hand, she closes its pulp around the lip of the glass.
Another stop on the tour.
Reflections: Some of you Beatle fans may remember the 1995 music video for "Free as a Bird," the "new" song that was created by taking an unfinished John Lennon demo and overdubbing new parts by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr onto it. A combination of computer-generated animation and live-action footage, including many vintage clips of The Beatles themselves, the video follows the path of a bird as it flies to crucial locations in Beatle history, including the Cavern Club, Penny Lane, the Strawberry Fields orphanage, and Abbey Road studios. Along the way, we spy brief visual references to Beatle songs, including "Birthday," "Helter Skelter," "Paperback Writer," and more. The more you know about the Fab Four, the more references you'll catch.
David Michael Taylor's "Ed Wood Hollywood Deadwood" is like "Free as a Bird" for Ed Wood fans. Instead of following the path of a bird as it soars majestically through Beatle history, it follows the path of Ed Wood as he stumbles drunkenly from one Los Angeles bar to another. But it, too, is an Easter egg hunt for diehard fans. The story visits a few key Woodian locations, including Gold Diggers, Pla-Boy Liquor, and the notorious Yucca Flats apartment building, and it's peppered with references to Ed's life and career. Much of the dialogue comes directly from the script of Plan 9, for instance, and the bartender has the same name as Ed's mother: Lillian. We also get multiple references to the obscure Final Curtain pilot, a nod to Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), and a reiteration of the old story that Ed's mother dressed him as a girl when he was a child.
There's a sighing, elegiac quality to both "Free as a Bird" and "Ed Wood Hollywood Deadwood," though the latter is far less reverential. They're both wistful reminders of a vanished world and the vanished people who inhabited it. The ending of Taylor's story seems to consign Ed Wood to the rubbish bin of history, the victim of youthful indifference, but the truth is that this story could only have been written by someone with a deep, abiding love for Eddie's work. Who else but a fan would bother to write something like this?
P.S. This story is almost fetishistic in its detailed descriptions of alcoholic beverages and cocktail bars. I'm not sure if these things are a major part of the author's life, but they were certainly a major part of Ed Wood's life, so I appreciate the extra effort displayed here. These descriptive passages really bring you into Eddie's dank, boozy world.
The story: "Octodeathopus: The Legend of Lobo" by J. "Doc Dread" Murray
Synopsis: In 1904, presumably somewhere in Eastern Europe, twin brothers Otto and Joseph Javorsky (aged four) are wrestling in front of their family's cottage when Otto is suddenly scooped up by a caravan of passing gypsies. Otto becomes part of the gypsies' traveling show and eventually takes the place of a wrestling bear named Lobo when that animal passes away. He even assumes Lobo's name as his own. By 1927, however, they decide to trade Lobo to a group of Tibetans in exchange for supplies. The Tibetans use Lobo as a beast of burden.
Lobo's brother. See the resemblance?
In 1945, the now-grown Joseph Javorsky works on the top-secret Atomic Super Man project with fellow scientists Dr. Eric Vornoff and Professor Strowski. But the project is suddenly canceled by the government in 1946, and Vornoff is forced to flea. His goal is to make it to the United States to continue his work, but he first heads to Tibet. There, he is amazed to find a man he initially thinks is Joseph Javorsky but is actually Joseph's twin brother, Otto aka Lobo. Vornoff soon makes Lobo his obedient servant. They travel together and pick up an octopus at a market in Shanghai.
In 1947, with the octopus in tow and growing larger all the time, Vornoff and Lobo head for America aboard a rusted-out freighter. Along the way, they kill the ship's captain and loot the strongbox. By October 1948, they have settled in Lake Marsh, California, and Vornoff resumes his work. Lobo and Vornoff haven't been living in the area long when they fatally run over an old widower in their car. The incident is investigated by a local cop, Officer Kelton. Vornoff is somewhat distressed by this, but he is excited that he's found a house, the Old Willows Place, that is perfect for his experiments. It even has a pond for his octopus.
The octopus has grown since we've boarded this old, rusted freighter. It seems there is an endless supply of rats aboard this vessel. The octopus leaves its tank and hunts our quarters at night. The captain is a drunk and has found a shipping container of fine vodka. In a drunken stupor he told me where the ship's strong box is and the treasures it contains. No one will be surprised should he fall overboard.
Reflections: "Octodeathopus" is yet another story in Warm Angora Wishes that draws heavily upon Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster (1955) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) and attempts to weave these films into a larger narrative, along with several other sci-fi and horror films of the era. For me, the real stroke of genius here is the revelation that Lobo, Tor Johnson's character from Bride, is the twin brother of Dr. Joseph Javorsky, the doomed Soviet scientist that Tor played in Coleman Francis' The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961). Apparently, Lobo's real name was Otto, and he and Joseph grew up together until Otto was plucked up by some passing gypsies at the age of four. Come to think of it, those guys do look a lot alike.
I was also highly amused to learn that it was Lobo who actually ran over Bela Lugosi's unfortunate Ghoul Man character from Plan 9. It seems that Dr. Eric Vornoff unwisely allowed his hulking manservant to drive that day. Whoops! Later in the story, author J. "Doc Dread" Murray includes a clever reference to It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955). The giant octopus from that film, we learn, is actually Vornoff's beloved pet. It lost a couple of tentacles in the explosion at the end of Bride, which is why it only has six arms in Beneath the Sea. The timing on this could not have been better, since MeTV's Svengoolie just showed It Came from Beneath the Sea a few weeks ago, meaning that film was still fairly fresh in my mind.
With a title like "Octodeathopus," you can tell that this story is not taking itself seriously at all. It's just a fun little bit of speculative fan fiction that will probably be incomprehensible to anyone outside the Ed Wood fan community. But if you're an active part of that community and have seen Eddie's 1950s films dozens of times, to the point where the characters have taken up permanent residence in your brain, J. "Doc Dread" Murray's strange tale should be quite a pleasant little diversion.
The story: "Spyang Ki Chung 'Little Wolf'" by Adkov Telmig
A monastery in Western Tibet.
Synopsis: Exiled Russian scientist Dr. Eric Vornoff scavenges in the desolate Western Plateau of Tibet. He is fully aware that agents from his home country are after him, and he nearly succumbs from the harsh weather and the heavy equipment he is lugging around. Luckily, he is rescued by a caravan of nomads and taken to a small mining town. In a largely deserted monastery, Vornoff meets and (after a fashion) befriends a three-foot-tall monk known as Little Wolf. Vornoff and Little Wolf visit a local market to buy food. There, Vornoff sees a man with some of the valuable uranium he desperately needs for his experiments. The man agrees to bring Vornoff plenty of uranium in exchange for a large sum of money.
With Little Wolf's help, Vornoff is granted permission from an aged monk to set up his equipment and perform his experiments within the monastery. He says he will use atomic power to create a race of supermen. When the man from the marketplace shows up with the promised uranium, Vornoff casually shoots and kills him. When Little Wolf asks him why he did this, Vornoff replies that he has no money but needed the uranium to continue his work. What else was he supposed to do? Little Wolf then asks to be part of Vornoff's experiment. Vornoff tells his companion that it will be painful but that he will emerge from the experience more powerful than he has ever been.
Two enemy agents, identified only as the Cold Men, show up at the monastery in their relentless hunt for the exiled scientist. Vornoff does not seem terribly concerned by their arrival because he now has a powerful bodyguard: Little Wolf, now supersized and mute. The formerly-diminutive monk makes quick work of the Cold Men, literally tearing their bodies apart. Vornoff decides that Little Wolf's name no longer suits him. From now on, he shall be called Lobo.
Excerpt:
A small detachment of Tibetan soldiers kept wary watch on the scrofulous lot. They stood in tight groups, warming their hands over fires in metal barrels. They stood out in their uniforms and furred hats. All of them seemed to smoke thin stick-like, oily-looking black cigarettes. They eyed Vornoff suspiciously, but none of them had questioned him or asked him for papers. It wasn’t the kind of town where questions were common. This was a good thing for Dr. Vornoff who had by now crossed four or five borders without the benefit of any official passports or permits.
Sardu and Ralphus: best friends.
Reflections: When I first downloaded my copy of Warm Angora Wishes from Amazon, I skimmed through it a little, just to get the lay of the land. I casually noticed that one story was about how Dr. Eric Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) and his mute henchman Lobo (Tor Johnson) from Bride of the Monster (1955) originally met in "the wilderness of Tibet." Someone had taken that throwaway line from the movie and made a whole prequel out of it. But I didn't want to spoil the story for myself, so I merely glanced at a few sentences and moved on. I suppose I was anticipating something like the story of how the Lone Ranger met Tonto. My curiosity level was at roughly six out of ten; prequels have a tendency to overexplain things that were better left unknown.
I could not have predicted anything like "Spyang Ki Chung," which is easily one of the strangest and most intriguing stories I've read so far in this collection. Obviously, the story has an outrageous central gimmick, i.e. that the huge, lumbering Lobo was once a dwarf in a monastery and that it was Vornoff who made him a giant. It's exactly the kind of imaginative leap you'd hope to find in an Ed Wood-inspired anthology. But what really makes the story memorable are its descriptive passages about Tibet. This is a land about which I know virtually nothing, so I was fascinated by the author's evocative yet unsentimental prose about the land and its people. "Spyang Ki Chung" is the first story in this collection to remind me of Cormac McCarthy. I wager it'll be the last, too.
This story also got me thinking about villains with dwarf sidekicks. That seems to be a semi-common trope in fiction, but I'm hard-pressed to think of good examples. Let's see. There's Sardu and Ralphus in Bloodsucking Freaks (1976), Dr. Evil and Mini-Me in The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), and Livia and the Imp in The Undead (1957). Didn't Hordak also have an imp on She-Ra (1985-1987)? Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island (1977-1984) was more mysterious than evil, so he doesn't count. Do Jabba the Hutt and Salacious Crumb from Return of the Jedi (1983) count? Maybe Salacious isn't a dwarf among his own kind, but he's dwarfed by Jabba.
Come to think of it, this might not be that common a trope.
Ed Wood follows me everywhere. It's true. Eddie's career has become the prism through which I see the rest of the world. Whether I'm watching a movie, reading a book, or just scrolling through internet videos, I'm always looking for connections to the weird, wacky world of Wood. That's what you get when you do a series called Ed Wood Wednesdays for more than a decade.
Just this week, for instance, I saw a clip from The Joe Rogan Experience in which British scientist Matthew Walker describes the effects of alcoholism on sleeping and dreaming. According to Walker, alcohol blocks the dream sleep (or REM sleep) that the brain craves and demands. Eventually, chronic alcoholics will begin to dream while they're awake. "It's this collision of two states of consciousness," Walker says. I've often described Ed Wood's writing as dreamlike, and I naturally wondered if this were a result of his severe alcoholism. Certainly something to think about.
Lee Kolima as Bobo on Get Smart.
But there are less serious examples, too. Yesterday, I was watching a September 1965 episode of Get Smart called "Diplomat's Daughter" when I saw something that amazed me. The episode's villain, The Claw (Leonard Strong), had a bald, hulking henchman named Bobo who was nearly identical to the character of Lobo played by Tor Johnson in Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster (1955) and Night of the Ghouls (1959), plus The Unearthly (1957), directed by Wood associate Boris Petroff.
The names Lobo and Bobo were too close to each other to be a coincidence. However, I knew that Tor Johnson had never guested on Get Smart and had basically retired from show business after his starring role in Coleman Francis' The Beast from Yucca Flats (1961). So who was this extremely Tor-like guy playing Bobo opposite Don Adams? (In fact, Bobo appeared twice on Get Smart; he was brought back later in the first season for "The Amazing Harry Hoo.")
The answer is Lee Kolima (1920-1995), a Hawaiian-born actor who worked in film and television for nearly twenty years and appeared alongside some very famous people in the process. Like Tor Johnson, Lee was a wrestler, having used such names as Great Toto, Kubla Khan, and Royal Hawaiian during his career. His real name, though, was Charles Howard Zalopany, and he was born on November 20, 1920 in Honolulu, meaning that he was already well into his 40s when he started acting. Young Charles grew up in a rather large family; historical records show he had at least five siblings.
His late start as an actor didn't hamper him. Hollywood is always going to need big, tough-looking dudes to act as thugs, guards, and assorted bad guys. Some might attribute Lee Kolima's career to the James Bond spy craze that captured all of popular culture in the 1960s. Too bad Tor Johnson's career was already over by the time the fad started; he could have made some serious meatball money in the 1960s. As it was, the younger Lee Kolima scooped up roles on such action shows as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, I Spy, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Garrison's Gorillas, and The Wild Wild West, plus the movies 7 Women (1965), Dimension 5 (1966), and The King's Pirate (1967).
For such a colorful and unusual actor, Lee Kolima's career is shockingly under-documented. In fact, I could find no articles about the man whatsoever—no interviews, no career retrospectives, nothing. His wrestling career is even more obscure than his movie career. I found only a few fleeting references to his matches in newspaper articles from the early 1950s, nearly all from California. An online archive says he had 145 bouts, stood 6'3", and weighed 280 pounds. That makes him the same height as Tor Johnson but 120 pounds lighter. Indeed, he looks more svelte than Tor and moves more easily onscreen. But directors didn't trust either man with much dialogue.
If Lee's famous for anything in particular, it's for his association with that loveable prefabricated pop group, The Monkees. For a while there, Lee was practically the fifth Monkee. He guested twice on their self-titled TV show, appearing as Yakimoto in "The Spy Who Came in from the Cool" in Season 1 and as Attila the Hun (!) in "The Devil and Peter Tork" in Season 2. Lee even turned up as a guard in The Monkees' trippy feature film Head (1968). I've seen rumors on the internet suggesting this is Tor Johnson, but the evidence indicates it was Lee.
The Monkees wasn't Lee's only foray into comedy, by the way. In the late '60s and early '70s, he also appeared on The Red Skelton Show and The Jonathan Winters Show, plus the sitcom That's My Mama. Miraculously, his application to join AFTRA has survived from this era in his career. Notice that this document includes both his stage name and his real name. We can also see that he was living at 16246 Virginia Ave. in Paramount, CA. There's still a charming two-bedroom home with Spanish tiles on the roof at this location.
Lee gets into the union.
The wrestler's career naturally slowed down in the 1970s and '80s as he began to age. As an actor, Lee last turned up onscreen in the notorious Burt Reynolds vehicleCannonball Run II (1984). But his most lasting contribution to pop culture during the Reagan years was modeling for the cover of Tom Waits' classic album Swordfishtrombones (1983), where he appeared alongside Waits himself and dwarf actor Angelo Rossitto, whom we have discussed previously. All three men look like circus performers here, reminding me of the cover of Strange Days by The Doors (1967). Notice how both albums include a strongman and a dwarf, while Waits' own heavy makeup resembles that of the mime on the Strange Days cover. Just a theory.
Lee Kolima (left) with Angelo Rossitto and Tom Waits on the cover of Swordfishtrombones.
Lee Kolima died at the age of 75 in November 1995, just a year after George "The Animal" Steele portrayed Tor Johnson in Ed Wood (1994). Lee's death generated no publicity. I cannot even find an obituary for the man, nor any record of how or where he was buried. But the TV shows and movies in which Lee appeared will likely be in circulation for decades to come, and I probably won't be the last to spot him somewhere and think, "Hey, isn't that Tor Johnson?"
Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson is thought of as one of Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s stock players, thanks to his memorable roles in Bride of the Monster (1955), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), and Night of the Ghouls (1959). There's even a (completely fictional) scene in Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) suggesting that Eddie discovered Tor at a wrestling match in Los Angeles and recruited him to be in movies for the first time. However, the truth is that this gargantuan grappler worked in TV and film for decades, both before and after his professional association with Eddie.
Today, I'm going to spotlight a role that Tor played not long after filming Night of the Ghouls: an episode of the NBC detective show Peter Gunn called "See No Evil." It originally aired on February 1, 1960, and made such a strong impression on critic Danny Peary that he mentioned it in his 1981 review of Plan 9 from Outer Space. For the uninitiated, Peter Gunn ran for three seasons (1958-1961) and is largely remembered today for bringing producer/creator Blake Edwards together with composer Henry Mancini. The series' jazzy theme song is still a standard and has been covered by dozens of artists. When Edwards switched to making feature films, he continued to collaborate with Mancini on classics like Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), and The Pink Panther (1963).
Craig Stevens as Peter Gunn.
For the most part, Peter Gunn is what you'd expect from a crime show of this vintage. The title character, as played by handsome but rather bland Craig Stevens, is a macho, cynical private eye in Eisenhower era Los Angeles. His contact on the police force is world-weary Lt. Jacoby (played by sourpuss Herschel Bernardi, looking like a man in need of a nap). Most fictional sleuths are defined by their quirks, but apart from his phallic name and his penchant for vaguely Bogart-esque quips, Gunn doesn't seem to have any. He's a straight arrow. In other episodes, Gunn hangs out at a jazz club and even dates a singer named Edie (played by Lola Albright), but none of this is in evidence during "See No Evil."
Peter Gunn may not have the most engaging protagonist in the world, but producer Blake Edwards compensates by making the series exceptionally stylish and atmospheric. We are firmly within the realm of film noir here. "See No Evil" has plenty of cockeyed camera angles, dramatic lighting effects, and swift, brutal acts of violence. Hell, two cops are matter-of-factly gunned down before we even get to the opening credits! And all through it, there is the unmistakable "cool" jazz of Henry Mancini in the background.
Look, I'll be honest and admit that I can never follow the plots of most detective and mystery shows. Even after the crime is "explained" to me at the end, I'm always a little confused as to who did what to whom and why. What I can tell you about "See No Evil" is that the plot is set in motion when a sleazy, mustachioed gangster named Brenners (Lou Krugman) shoots his way out of a courthouse after being sentenced to 60 years in the slammer for racketeering. Soon after, a blind news dealer named Cliffie (Walter Burke) hires Peter for protection. He testified against Brenners years ago and figures the crook will want to kill him in revenge. He's right. A few scenes in, Peter finds Cliffie dead—not just dead but mangled. Who or what could've done this? (Ed Wood fans may have some idea.)
As in just about every detective story, our hero goes to various places and interviews various people in search of the truth. I couldn't always tell what these folks had to do with the story. A sizable part of the episode, for example, is given over to some unhelpful switchboard operators who won't give Gunn or Jacoby the information they want about a payphone call that so-and-so placed to whatshisname. There's even a car chase at one point, though I wasn't sure why or where it was happening. Eventually, in the last 10 minutes, we get to the good part: Peter's investigations lead him to a creepy place called Sunview Sanitarium. No points for guessing that this joint is neither sunny nor sanitary.
Peter enters this Arkham-esque facility and is promptly thrown into a padded room by the gangsters. Our hero starts devising an escape when Brenners himself, flanked by lieutenants, enters the room. They share this supremely hard-boiled dialogue, neither one betraying much emotion:
GUNN: Hello, Brenners.
BRENNERS: Better make that goodbye.
GUNN: Oh, I don't know. A lot of people are looking for you.
BRENNERS: You made the mistake of finding me.
GUNN: And you made the mistake of killing Cliffie Thomas.
BRENNERS: That right?
GUNN: Police found him pretty well mangled. What did you use on him?
BRENNERS: You're gonna find out.
Brenners flashes a sly smirk, then coolly exits Peter's cell and walks over to another one down the hall somewhere. He opens an ominous-looking iron door and out steps a monster: some huge barefoot creature wearing only baggy, striped pajamas. This behemoth lumbers down the hall, with director Alan Crosland, Jr. being careful only to show him from the knees down at first. Once this unknown threat reaches Peter Gunn's cell, the camera tilts up to reveal that it's Tor Johnson, who lunges toward our hero in attack mode. (Tor's character is identified as "Bruno" in the end credits, but this name is never said aloud during the episode.) What ensues is essentially a steel-cage wrestling match, and now we can understand the beauty of having this scene take place in a padded cell. Tor can toss Craig Stevens around without the actor sustaining any serious damage. Just when all seems lost, Lt. Jacoby shows up and shoots Tor dead, though it takes five shots (by my count) to bring the big boy down. Gunn and Jacoby exchange some more terse, cynical dialogue and stagger out of the padded room. The end.
I can easily imagine why "See No Evil" would have imprinted itself on the memories of viewers for decades. For the first two-thirds, it's your typical TV detective show, perhaps a bit more stylized than most. Then it suddenly becomes Chiller Theatre. Shifting the action to Sunview Sanitarium is a rather outrageous conceit on the part of the writers (the story itself is credited to Blake Edwards), and then the addition of Tor Johnson takes the episode into the world of pure fantasy. I was reminded of the Rancor scene from Return of the Jedi (1983), though viewers in 1960 probably thought of Daniel in the lions' den.
To be fair, the bonkers plot twist in "See No Evil" is somewhat telegraphed. In the early, more cheerful stages of the episode, Gunn's investigations take him to a dingy-looking gym where a funny little man named Igor (the ubiquitous Benny Rubin) is impatiently choreographing a female wrestling match. This scene exists purely for comic relief, however, and does not hint that Gunn himself will soon end up wrestling for his life.
This episode of Peter Gunn is something that all Ed Wood fans will want to see, if they haven't already. It's always a pleasure to watch Tor in anything, and it's especially nice to see him in a classy, respectable network TV show rather than a grade-Z programmer for a change. I'm sure Eddie watched "See No Evil" (if his TV weren't in hock that week) and just as sure that he loved it. In his films, short stories, and novels, Eddie favored square-jawed, ultra-manly heroes like Peter, and he made more than one attempt at film noir, complete with that rat-a-tat dialogue. I wouldn't say that he ever mastered the genre, but he made a couple of noble efforts. I think the finale of "See No Evil" would have blown his mind.
Baron Von Brenenr wrote abut Ed Wood in a 1973 issue of Psychic Review.
NOTE: Among Ed Wood's many eccentric acquaintances was Wendell John Brenner (1916-1975), aka Baron Von Brenner, a self-professed psychic and TV horror host who introduced Eddie to actor John Agar. Brenner also wrote a profile of Eddie for the July-August 1973 edition of Psychic Review. I am including the full text of that article below, trying to keep the spelling, grammar, and punctuation intact. Also included are the pictures that ran with the article, complete with the original photo captions. Brenner's article is a strange mixture of fact and fantasy, sometimes distorting the truth to a ridiculous extent. I hope you will enjoy it. - J.B.
Portrait of Director Ed D. Wood, Jr.
This particular photo of Mr. Wood was designed
by — and a favorite of — the late Bela Lugosi
A Saturday and Sunday matinee movie buff, just barely able to reach the ticket window with his dime, Edward D. Wood, Jr. knew at that early age in Poughkeepsie, New York that he was destined to be a part of the Hollywood scene. That he would some day be instrumental in bringing some of the most outstanding, well-loved and remembered personalities to the silver screen. Throughout his "growing up" years, his military service in the United States Marines during World War II, this desire grew until he finally arrived in Hollywood in 1948. "Buck Jones was always my favorite of all Western Stars, but he died four years earlier and I never got to meet him," he sadly related, but there were many stars that he wanted to know and work with and the opportunity came before he knew it.
"The first big time actor I met was the famous comic, Franklin Pangborn, in a segment of the "MYRT AND MARGE SHOW" being filmed at the old Hal Roach studio. The series never got off the ground, but I later used Phyllis Coates, whom I met at the same time in "THE SUN WAS SETTING" with Angela Stevens and Tom Keene."
Angela Stevens, Tom Keene, Edw. Wood, Jr. and cameraman - Ray Flin on the set of "THE SUN WAS SETTING" written and directed by Edw. D. Wood, Jr.
Having both written and directed that film, Mr. Wood, Jr. went on to team Tom Keene with Tom Tyler in the color feature "CROSSROAD AVENGER" which also had the ever famous Lyle Talbot, Kenne Duncan, Bud Osborne, Don Nagel and Harvey B. Dunn. "Only Don and Lyle are left of this group, Kenne having passed on just last year," he added. With the blossoming of his amazing talent and creative genius, Eddie began to realize his boyhood dream come true. Collaborating with Producer George Weiss for a film entitled, "I LED TWO LIVES", (later changed to "I CHANGED MY SEX"), he met the late Bela Lugosi. "From then on we went strictly into the horror field and worked on five more films together, only to be concluded by the hand of Death that reached out and took Bela from us."
Cesar Romero and guests with Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Bill Thompson,cameraman, Director
Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Criswell on the
set of "PLAN #9 FROM OUTER SPACE".
During this same period, Eddie met and became a very close friend of Tor Johnson and his family, and direct him in all of his films, which included the never-to-be-forgotten "BLACK SHEEP" with Tor and John Carradine, "REVENGE OF THE DEAD" which co-starred that famed Western villain, Kenne Duncan, and "PLAN #9 FROM OUTER SPACE" which also featured the world-famous and renowned predictor - Criswell.
"BRIDE OF THE MONSTER" was the film that first brought Tor Johnson to the screen as "Lobo". The makeup created for that character was done by the famous makeup man, Harry Thomas. It was used again in "REVENGE OF THE DEAD", which was the last feature film that Tor appeared in before his untimely death in 1971. "Tor is missed very much but his horror films are frequently seen on television, and will always keep him with us", said Eddie. "What's more, we are going late production on a new feature in the fall of this year... "THE THREE STAGES OF MAN" which will include Tor's son Karl Johnson, as well as featuring Criswell along with veteran actor Alan Baxter who made so many gangster films over the years. Also in a feature role will be John Carpenter, who now runs a free ride ranch for Handicapped Children." Karl Johnson is not a newcomer to the screen, as he worked with his father, Tor Johnson, in several of his films. He resembles his Dad in stature and is also a very powerful person, having also been a professional wrestler. We hope that this will be the beginning of a new revival of Horror films, as we feel that they are an important part of the movie industry, and also have a place in our culture. And although I know he won't agree with me, Karl is sure to take over where his father left off on the screen. Abounding with energy, at only 49, Edward D. Wood, Jr. has probably had one of the most rewarding and successful careers in Hollywood. I don't want to give the impression that it has come to an end. Quite the contrary. It seems to be just beginning. Having recently completed writing original stories and screenplays for such films as "ORGY OF THE DEAD", "CLASS REUNION", "THE SNOW BUNNIES", "DROP OUT WIFE", "THE COCKTAIL HOSTESSES", and most recently... "CONVICT GIRLS" which goes before the cameras at the end of the summer... all for the extremely talented producer, director, A.C. Stevens, Eddie has been busy.
John Agar, recently selected for starring role in
"CONVICT GIRLS", written by Edw. D. Wood, Jr., and
produced and directed by A.C. Stevens, will be-
gin filming sometime in the late summer months.
Watch for more pictures and information in future
issues of the PSYCHIC REVIEW.
Most recently, Eddie tells me, (another Scoop for the Psychic Review), they have selected the extremely handsome, talented John Agar to play the Male Lead in "Convict Girl". Mr. Agar has set a record for the number of science-fiction films he's stared in and has appeared with such great personalities as John Wayne, Wendell Corey, Henry Fonda and many others, in films as well as on television.
A brilliant, well-respected actor, John has thrilled millions of movie-goers around the world with his performances. By casting professionals like Mr. Agar, Mr. Stevens and Eddie are sure to have a box-office success. In my opinion, the movie-going public is tired of the nudity that seems to have taken over the industry.... it's time to bring back the kind of films that are entertaining, enlightening and that the entire family can go to see together. This seems to be the direction that Eddie and Mr. Stevens are aiming toward and we would like to commend them for it. Hopefully, other film producers and directors will follow their fine example. "THE CLASS REUNION" the original story and screen-play written by Eddie, is now under consideration for achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and he's beside himself with joy. But he has not stopped with simply making films. He has more than 1,0000 short stories and articles published and has just finished his 101st novel. Somewhere in his superhuman busy schedule he finds time for his lovely wife, Kathy, and their three "children" a Tibetan Spaniel, Casey and two Corgies, Wheelie and Bumper-Sticker, (the later being named by Gov. Ronald Reagan of Calif. when Eddie was active in the campaign to elect Sam Yorty Mayor of Los Angeles in 1965). He said of himself, "If I hadn't been as determined to making movies I probably would have been a Zookeeper. I love animals so"... and they love him too. They sense when someone is sincere, and has a gentle nature.... and Eddie is all of that. Our hats are off to Edward D. Wood, Jr., and we wish him continued success and good fortune in all that he desires... there's an Oscar there with his name on it somewhere, for he has shared his greatest gift with Mankind... himself.
The Premiere Stars at the San Fernando Theater for the film "REVENGE OF THE DEAD" (from left to right) Dudley Manlove of N.B.C., Allan Nixon,
Vampira, Tor Johnson, Stepin Fetchit, Bela Lugsosi, Jr., Paul Marco, and Dolores Fuller.
POSTSCRIPT
Wendell John Brenner
Much of what you just read could be generously described as hogwash. Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi did not make five films together. They barely made three. Ed certainly did not direct The Black Sheep (1956) with Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi, Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney, Jr., and John Carradine. That was Austrian filmmaker Reginald Le Borg, who helmed dozens of low budget pictures in multiple genres from the mid-1930s to the late 1950s, when he switched to television. Revenge of the Dead (1959) was not Tor Johnson's last film appearance. If Convict Girl is another name for Fugitive Girls (1974), there was no male lead for John Agar to play. The Class Reunion (1972) would never have been an Oscar contender. Ed Wood and Steve Apostolof (A.C. Stephen) were certainly not making old-fashioned, family-friendly films. Their films relied very much on nudity.
Some of the article is either Brenner's opinion or is otherwise unverifiable, i.e. Eddie having "one of the most rewarding and successful careers in Hollywood." Who can say, meanwhile, whether or not Ronald Reagan named one of Ed's dogs Bumper-Sticker? Eddie certainly did work with Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty, so it's possible he met or even knew Reagan. It's not impossible. Wood and Brenner were friends, so it's the latter's opinion that Eddie was "sincere and had a gentle nature." The sincerity I don't doubt, but alcoholism bought out some very un-gentle behavior from Ed Wood.
Several of Eddie's real-life projects are described (more or less) accurately, including The Sun Was Setting, Crossroad Avenger, Bride of the Monster, Revenge of the Dead, and I Changed My Sex. We also get a glimpse of one of Eddie's many unrealized projects, this time a film called The Three Stages of Man, with a projected cast of Karl Johnson, Alan Baxter, and Johnny Carpenter. The unmade film doesn't even get a mention in Rudoph Grey's book Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992). Unfortunately, Karl never did take over his father's place in the movie industry.
In a private Facebook forum devoted to Ed Wood, fans Angel Scott and Will Sloan speculated that The Three Stages of Man was the proposed 1973 anthology film based on Eddie's short stories. Ed got as far as writing a script and doing some preliminary casting for that project, so it came pretty close to getting made. What's more, the stories that would have been included in the film correspond neatly to three different stages of life. There's a story about youth ("Mice on a Cold Cellar Floor"), one about middle age ("To Kill a Saturday Night"), and one about old age ("Epitaph for the Village Drunk").
I'd never heard the story of Ed Wood meeting fey, fussy character actor Franklin Pangborn. Eddie claims that Pangborn was filming a "segment" of Myrt and Marge at Hal Roach's studio in Culver City. Myrt and Marge was a radio soap opera that ran from 1931 to 1946. From the context of Eddie's story, it seems like there was a failed attempt to turn it into a TV series during those very early days of the medium. There was a 1933 Myrt and Marge film adaptation, though it's best known for featuring Ted Healy and the Three Stooges. Incidentally, the radio show starred Mytle Vail (aka Myrtle Damerel), best known today for her "daffy old lady" roles in The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and A Bucket of Blood (1959), both written by her grandson, Charles B. Griffin.
Overall, what I like about this article by Baron Von Brenner is its can-do optimism and its naivete. This is the Eddie we know from the 1994 biopic Ed Wood, the guy who's convinced the rain is just about to stop and that his next picture is going to be a smash hit. By and large, this article isn't particularly accurate, but I wish it were. In a way, by winning two Academy Awards, Ed Wood did make one of Brenner's wilder predictions come true. It turns out that there were Oscars with Eddie's name written on them.
P.S. I've found a clearer, more detailed picture of the Revenge of the Dead premiere with Stepin Fetchit in attendance. In this picture, though, the gentlemen on the left are cropped out.
Allan Nixon, Vampira, Tor Johnson, Stepin Fetchit, Bela Lugosi, Jr., Paul Marco, and Dolores Fuller.
Don't say we never got you anything. We got you this.
As the holidays approachand we gather with loved ones to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, let's whet our appetites with some vintage newspaper clippings related to Edward D. Wood, Jr. and his incredible cast of repertory players. These are just some interesting tidbits I've uncovered while doing research for upcoming articles.
Let's dig in, shall we?
I. Valda Hansen and her pollen pills
Valda's ad from 1984.
Although she appeared in only one of Ed Wood's films, playing the fraudulent White Ghost in 1959's Night of the Ghouls, flaxen-haired starlet Valda Hansen is still remembered fondly as one of Eddie's inner circle of performers. She's a memorable interview subject in Rudolph Gray's Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992) as well as the documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion (1992). Valda's disctinctive but sporadic appearances in exploitation films like Wam Bam Thank You Spaceman (1975) sputtered out by the mid-'70s, so I was suitably surprised when I stumbled upon her in a 1984 print ad for Pollitabs. This mysterious product, still available today, was a pollen-based (get it?) nutritional supplement endorsed by none other than Valda herself and superstar gymnast Mary Lou Retton, then America's sweetheart after her gold medal performance at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Julianne McNamara, another gold medal gymnast from the '84 games, is also cited in the ad copy.
The supplement ad is a fascinating little artifact of its era. Note, for instance, the North Hollywood address for ordering Pollitabs. This appears to be the same environs in which Valda resided throughout her adult life to the end, as well as the very same geography in which Ed Wood lived and an epicenter of the porn industry as it came into existence and flourished there in the 1970s.
Valda began modelling professionally right out of high school, perhaps even sooner, and appears to have continued doing so, at least locally, for decades. In the Pollitabs ad, which ran in the December 5, 1984 edition of the Indianapolis Jewish Post, she certainly appears to possess the "energy" and "vitality" that the copy promises. Less than a decade later, however, still in her early 50s, Valda succumbed to cancer all too soon.
II. Tor Johnson's tour of London
Tor Johnson in London, 1947.
Featured in three of Ed Wood's best-known films, including the aforementioned Night of the Ghouls, the bald, hulking professional-wrestler-cum-actor Tor Johnson remains one of the most beloved members of Ed's eccentric stock troupe. A Swedish immigrant, Tor began his wrestling career as a heavy, ironically dubbed "The Swedish Angel." In those early days, the wrestler did indeed possess hair, but it was long gone by the late 1940s.
An odd little item from the June 28, 1947 edition of the Perth Mirror in Western Australia, depicts Tor wearing a comical beanie cap, plus a baggy suit, knee-length overcoat, and ludicrously undersized necktie. He towers over the gentleman standing next to him.
Headlined "Giant Goes To London," the clipping in question is a wire-service photo of the wrestler's visit to the British capital. The caption explains what he's doing there:
TOR JOHNSON, 30-stone [420-pound] "Man Mountain," who played the part of the great ape in the film "King Kong" 15 years ago, in playful mood on his arrival in London to take part in an International "catch-as-catch-can" wrestling contest at Harringay [sporting arena] next month. Johnson claims to be the strongest man in the world.
The caption writer has taken some liberty with the facts. According to the IMDb, Tor's known acting appearances date back only to 1934, the year after Kong Kong was released. Alas, though he may well have been "the strongest man in the world," Tor Johnson did not play the doomed ape in the RKO classic. The creature was instead bought to life through stop-motion animation.
Happily, Tor's 1947 appearance at Harringay was captured for posterity by newsreel cameras. The plummy Pathe narrator again refers to Tor as "King Kong" and repeats the wrestler's weight as 30-stone. The newsreel's claim that Tor was seven feet tall was an exaggeration of about nine inches. "The promoters [of the wrestling contest] evidently wanted to put over this farce as a serious sport," the narrator quips. "So far as we're concerned, it was one long series of laughs."
Tor did make an early, uncredited appearance in a 1936 Ronald Colman film called Under Two Flags, set amidst the French Foreign Legion. Glen or Glenda actor Captain DeZita, who was mostly going by the name Baron De Orgler at the time, would claim involvement in this same film as a consultant. DeZita frequently alleged—likely bullshit—to have been in the French Foreign Legion himself.
Tor Johnson died at the age 67 in 1971 and is buried in the San Fernando Valley, hub of the 1980s porn industry.
III. Dolores Fuller plays it safe
Ed Wood's live-in girlfriend as well as the co-star of his 1953 masterpiece Glen or Glenda, Dolores Fuller would break up with the idiosyncratic writer-director by the middle of the decade. Dolores' acting career, including occasional appearances in episodic television and films, had seemingly dried up by 1959. But she kept finding work as a print model, as in this ad sponsored by the National Safety Council. This picture ran in the Valentine's Day 1959 edition of the Boston Daily Record.
Dolores Fuller: "A cute Valentine herself."
"Valentine, I love you true—sure hope no one runs over you." True poetry. Appropriately, then, Dolores shifted careers shortly after this ad and became a professional songwriter herself. Within a few years, she was busy writing lyrics for hit songs by Elvis Presley. A frequent interviewee in documentaries and articles about Ed Wood, Dolores lived to be 88. She was buriedin Las Vegas.
Happy Holidays, and don't choke on that Golden Turkey!
