Douglas McKeown

Last updated

Douglas McKeown (January 14, 1947 - September 9, 2022) was an American filmmaker, actor, and writer, best known as the screenwriter and director of the sci-fi horror film, The Deadly Spawn (1983). He died in New York City on September 9, 2022. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

McKeown was born in New York City and raised in Metuchen, New Jersey. As a child he taught himself the art of horror makeup, gaining notoriety by terrorizing local neighborhoods. He graduated from Emerson College in 1968 with high honors, having studied cinematography and theater in addition to English literature.

Career Choices

After a brief stint as an Editorial Coordinator at ABC-TV in New York City, he spent six years as a high school teacher, numbering among his students the future writer and movie director Richard Wenk, stage director Lonnie Price, magician-illusionist David Copperfield, and animation producer Tom Ruegger. During this period he directed a series of musicals and straight plays for school, community theatre, and summer stock.

In 1976, McKeown left teaching to join the Jean Cocteau Repertory in New York as an actor. He quickly moved on to other challenges, creating designs for many plays there, including sets and costumes for the Cocteau’s world premiere of Tennessee WilliamsSomething Cloudy, Something Clear, and staging a number of productions, notably poet Robert Lowell’s adaptation of The Oresteia of Aeschylus.

Following the release of "The Deadly Spawn" in 1983, McKeown shot a number of short video documentaries in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York. One of these, a promotional video for New York’s LGBT Center, ultimately led him to his ongoing role as facilitator of the storytelling workshop, Queer Stories. He compiled and edited Queer Stories for Boys (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004), an anthology of writings by members of the workshop.

Beginning in 2004, he returned to the stage as an actor after a hiatus of twenty-four years, joining the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble for their productions of Kafka’s The Trial and Anouilh’s Antigone.

Publications and Films

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Beckley</span> Australian actor

Michael Beckley is an Australian actor. He has worked with major theatre companies in both Australia and the United Kingdom, appearing on London's West End in A Few Good Men(starring Rob Lowe) and Cabaret He is best known for playing Rhys Sutherland in Australian television series Home and Away from 2000 to 2004.

<i>Dandelion Wine</i> 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury

Dandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury set in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois, based upon Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois, and serving as the first novel in his Green Town Trilogy. The novel developed from the short story "Dandelion Wine", which appeared in the June 1953 issue of Gourmet magazine.

David Kennedy is a British actor, known for his role as Dirk Savage in the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oz Perkins</span> American director, writer and actor

Osgood Robert "Oz" Perkins II is an American director, screenwriter, and actor.

<i>Deadly Eyes</i> 1982 Canadian film

Deadly Eyes is a 1982 Canadian horror film directed by Robert Clouse, very loosely based on the 1974 horror novel The Rats by James Herbert. The story revolves around giant black rats who begin eating the residents of Toronto after ingesting contaminated grain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Turner Schofield</span> American actor, writer and producer

Scott Turner Schofield is an American actor, writer, producer, and speaker. He is a transgender activist, and uses he/him and they/them pronouns. He was the first out transgender actor in Daytime television, and the first out trans man to earn an Emmy nomination for acting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John P. Ryan</span> American actor (1936–2007)

John Patrick Ryan was an American actor. A prolific character actor known for playing "slimy villains, tough cops, and military officers," he worked with notable directors like Bob Rafelson, Francis Ford Coppola, Andrei Konchalovsky, Arthur Penn, Philip Kaufman, and The Wachowskis, and often appeared in films starring his real-life friend Jack Nicholson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott McGregor (television presenter)</span>

Scott McGregor is an Australian actor and television presenter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Pousson</span> American novelist, poet, and professor (born 1966)

Martin Pousson is an American novelist, poet, and professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Mathias</span> British actor

Sean Gerard Mathias is a Welsh actor, director, and writer. He is known for directing the film Bent and for directing highly acclaimed theatre productions in London, New York City, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Sydney.

<i>The Deadly Spawn</i> 1983 science fiction horror film

The Deadly Spawn is a 1983 American science fiction horror film written and directed by Douglas McKeown, and produced by Ted A. Bohus. The film's plot centers on an meteor that lands on Earth, which unleashes a carnivorous alien that finds refuge in the basement of a house. As it grows larger, a young monster movie fan named Charles and group of others try to survive against the creature and its offspring.

Ted A. Bohus is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for his work in low-budget independent films, most often in the horror genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Sullivan (director)</span> American film director, producer (born 1964)

Timothy Michael Sullivan is an American film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter.

Charles "Chuck" McKibben is an American voice actor, broadcast producer/director, voice-over coach, audiobook narrator and author. McKibben uses the proper name of "Charles" for his more serious readings.

Charles Atlas is a video artist and film director who also does lighting and set design.

Blaxploitation horror films are a genre of horror films involving mostly black actors. In 1972, William Crain directed what is considered to be the first blaxploitation horror film, Blacula.

The Hangar Theatre is a non-profit, regional theatre located at 801 Taughannock Boulevard in Ithaca, NY. Its mainstage season and children's shows occur during the summer, but the Hangar, and other organizations, utilize the space year-round for special events. The tenets of the Hangar's mission statement are to enrich, enlighten, educate and entertain.

Rathna Shekar Reddy is an Indian actor. He is the co-founder of the prominent Hyderabad-based theatre group Samahaara, along with writer-director Anjali Parvati Koda. He starred in the National Award-winning Telugu film, Na Bangaaru Talli.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mario Cerrito</span> American filmmaker

Mario Cerrito is an American filmmaker, writer and producer most closely associated with the horror genre. He is best known for his film trilogy, Human Hibachi, Human Hibachi 2: Feast in The Forest and Human Hibachi: The Beginning. Each film won a Best Film award at the New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival in Atlantic City and were released by Troma Entertainment.

References

  1. "Douglas McKeown". MyNJCentral.com. NJCentral. Retrieved 23 February 2023.