Craig Wasson | |
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![]() Wasson in 1980 | |
Born | |
Alma mater | University of Oregon |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1975–2011 |
Craig Wasson (born March 15, 1954) is an American actor. He made his film debut in Rollercoaster (1977). He is best known for his roles as Jake Scully in Brian DePalma's Body Double (1984), and Neil Gordon in Chuck Russell's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). For his role as Danilo Prozor in Arthur Penn's Four Friends (1981), he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Wasson was born March 15, 1954, in Ontario, Oregon. [1] [2]
Wasson made some early TV appearances starting in 1975 in small roles in episodes of The Bob Newhart Show , The Secrets of Isis , and The Streets of San Francisco . In 1977, he was cast in the TV series Phyllis (midway through the show's second season) as the title character's new son-in-law Mark. Mark was a hippie-ish singer/songwriter; Wasson's singing and guitar playing was heard occasionally in the four episodes in which he appeared. The series was cancelled shortly after the character's arrival.
Wasson's first feature film was the 1977 suspense thriller Rollercoaster . In 1978, he appeared in two films about the Vietnam war: first as a private in The Boys in Company C and then as a corporal in Go Tell the Spartans . He also wrote and sang the haunting folk song "Here I Am (In Vietnam)", which served as the theme song for The Boys in Company C.
Craig starred in the short-lived 1980 TV series Skag . In 1981, he played Don Wanderley, a junior English professor in the film Ghost Story , in which his character has a torrid sexual relationship with a mysterious woman he later realizes is a ghost seeking vengeance. In 1982, he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor for his performance in Four Friends . He later starred as Jake Scully in the 1984 Brian De Palma suspense movie Body Double . His other big role was as Dr. Neil Gordon in the hit 1987 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors . He starred alongside Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Patricia Arquette, and Laurence Fishburne. In 1989, Wasson starred as James Madison in A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation. His most recent movie roles are in Akeelah and the Bee and Sasquatch Mountain , both released in 2006.
Wasson was featured as Doug Ebert in the soap opera One Life to Live in 1991. He has made guest appearances in a number of series, including For Jenny with Love, Murder, She Wrote , M*A*S*H (TV series) , Hart to Hart , Walker, Texas Ranger , Profiler , The Practice , Seven Days , and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .
Wasson is also a prolific narrator for audio books, having narrated Stephen King's 2011 novel 11/22/63 , and other books by Stephen King, as well as books by James Ellroy and John Grisham.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American supernatural slasher media franchise consisting of nine films, a television series, novels, comic books, and various other media. The franchise began with the film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), written and directed by Wes Craven. The overall plot of the franchise centers around the fictional character Fred "Freddy" Krueger, the apparition of a former child killer who was burned alive by the vengeful parents of his victims, who returns from the grave to terrorize and kill the teenage residents of the fictional Springwood, Ohio in their dreams. Craven returned to the franchise to co-script the second sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and to write/direct Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). The films collectively grossed $472 million at the box office worldwide.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a 1994 American meta supernatural horror film film written and directed by Wes Craven, creator of 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street. A standalone film and the seventh installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, it is not part of the same continuity as previous films, instead portraying Freddy Krueger as a fictional movie villain who invades the real world and haunts the cast and crew involved in the making of the films about him. In the film, Freddy is depicted as closer to what Craven originally intended, being much more menacing and less comical, with an updated attire and appearance.
Daniel Francis Haggerty was an American actor who was best known for playing the title role in the film and television series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.
Robert Barton Englund is an American actor and director, best known for playing the supernatural serial killer Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. Classically trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Englund began his career as a stage actor in regional theatre, and made his film debut in Buster and Billie in 1974. After supporting roles in films in the 1970s such as Stay Hungry, A Star Is Born, and Big Wednesday, Englund had his breakthrough as the resistance fighter Willie in the miniseries V in 1983. Following his performance in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, he became closely associated with the horror film genre, and is widely-regarded as one of its iconic actors.
Body Double is a 1984 American neo-noir erotic thriller film directed, co-written, and produced by Brian De Palma. It stars Craig Wasson, Gregg Henry, Melanie Griffith and Deborah Shelton. The film is a direct homage to the 1950s films of Alfred Hitchcock, specifically Rear Window, Vertigo and Dial M for Murder, taking plot lines and themes from the first two.
Rollercoaster is a 1977 American disaster-suspense film directed by James Goldstone and starring George Segal, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda and Timothy Bottoms. It was one of the few films to be shown in Sensurround, which used extended-range bass frequencies to give a sense of vibration to the viewers during the coaster rides.
Tom Atkins is an American actor. He is known for his work in the horror and thriller film genres, having worked with writers and directors such as Shane Black, William Peter Blatty, John Carpenter, Fred Dekker, Richard Donner, Stephen King, and George A. Romero. He is also a familiar face to mainstream viewers, often playing police officers and tough authority figures and is perhaps best known for his role as Lt. Alex Diel in The Rockford Files (1974–1977).
Brooke Bundy is an American film and television actress.
Ghost Story is a 1981 American supernatural horror film directed by John Irvin and starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, and Alice Krige. Based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Peter Straub, it follows a group of elderly businessmen in New England who gather to recount their involvement in a woman's death decades prior when one of them suspects her ghost has been haunting him.
Bradley Gregg is an American actor.
Jennifer Collene Rubin is an American actress. A competitive swimmer during her youth, Rubin was discovered by the Ford Modeling Agency and went on to model for Calvin Klein and became Ford International Model of the Year in 1984. She made her film debut as Taryn White in the 1987 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and has since starred in a variety of films including Andrew Fleming's Bad Dreams (1988), Marisa Silver's Permanent Record (1988), Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991), Alan Shapiro's The Crush (1993), Louis Venosta's The Coriolis Effect (1994), Christian Duguay's Screamers (1995), and the 2001 Dogme 95 inspired film Reunion. Outside of film, Rubin has guest starred on a variety of television series such as The Twilight Zone (1987) and Tales from the Crypt (1992). In 2010, Rubin appeared as herself in the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy and has since been also working as a writer, producer & director on her original screenplays.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is a 1987 American fantasy slasher film directed by Chuck Russell in his feature directorial debut. The story was developed by Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner and is the third installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and stars Heather Langenkamp, Patricia Arquette, Larry Fishburne, Priscilla Pointer, Craig Wasson, and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. Nancy Thompson, now a psychiatrist, and Kristen, a patient who can bring others into her own dreams, team up with other kids to launch a daring rescue into the dreamland and save a child from Freddy Krueger.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a 1988 American fantasy slasher film and the fourth installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film was directed by Renny Harlin and stars Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, and Danny Hassel. Following the death of Nancy Thompson, Krueger reappears in the dreams of Kristen Parker, Joey Crusel, and Roland Kincaid. After completing his revenge against the families who killed him, Krueger uses Kristen's best friend, Alice Johnson, to gain access to new victims in order to satiate his murderous needs. The film is a sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). The Dream Master is often popularly referred to as "the MTV Nightmare" of the franchise.
Nancy Thompson is a fictional character in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. She first appears in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as a teenager hunted in her dreams by enigmatic serial killer Freddy Krueger. In this film, she was portrayed by Heather Langenkamp—who reprises the role in the sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). Langenkamp later portrayed a fictional version of herself who embodies the role of Nancy in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). A reimagined version of the character, Nancy Holbrook, is portrayed by Rooney Mara in the 2010 remake.
Kristen Parker is a character from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. She is a co-protagonist and final girl of the third film of the series A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the false protagonist in the following film A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, and has appeared in various merchandise as well. She is played by actress Patricia Arquette in Dream Warriors and Tuesday Knight in The Dream Master. She is the central member of the titular Dream Warriors, seven teens who have to learn to fight as a group in order to survive their spectral tormentor, enigmatic murderer Freddy Krueger, and has the ability to bring others into her dreams as well as being an Olympic-level acrobat in her dreams.
Four Friends is a 1981 American comedy-drama film directed by Arthur Penn. The semi-autobiographical screenplay by Steve Tesich follows the path of the title characters from high school to college during the often turbulent 1960s and beyond. The cast features Craig Wasson, Jodi Thelen, Jim Metzler and Glenne Headly.
Jacques Adam Haitkin was an American cinematographer. He was best known as the cinematographer for Wes Craven's slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street.
1428 Elm Street, also known as [the] Elm Street House, is a fictional residential house and street address in Springwood, Ohio, and is an important location in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, where it has been the home of Nancy Thompson and her mother, later Jesse Walsh and his family, and finally Lori Campbell and her father, throughout the film series. It has also been implied to have been Freddy Krueger's home at some point before the events that take place in the films. It appears in some form in nearly all the films, as well as literature, comic books, toys, and music videos. The house, like Freddy Krueger, Nancy Thompson, Tina Gray, and Kristen Parker, were all conceived by Wes Craven.
Nightmares on Elm Street is a six-issue comic book limited series set within the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, set chronologically between A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991). It was written by comic book writer Andy Mangels and published bimonthly throughout 1991 and 1992 by Innovation Publishing. The first two issues revolves mainly around Nancy Thompson's fate following her murder by Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, while issue three through six deals primarily with the return of Alice Johnson and her son Jacob to Springwood. The comics are considered to be canonical to the franchise.