Pat Fielder

Last updated
Pat Fielder
Born
Patricia Marie Penny

April 16, 1929
Pasadena, California, USA
DiedNovember 8, 2018 (aged 89)
California, USA
Education UCLA
Occupation(s)Screenwriter, TV writer, producer
SpouseLawrence Fielder (div.)

Pat Fielder (born Patricia Penny) was an American screenwriter known for penning cult B monster movies like The Return of Dracula in the 1950s. [1] For TV, she worked on everything from Baretta to The Rifleman to Starsky & Hutch . [2]

Contents

Biography

Pat was born in Pasadena, California, to Patrick Penny and Mary Lloyd. She attended John Marshall High and later UCLA, where she studied theatre arts; after graduation, she worked as a teacher before landing a job at Gramercy Pictures. [3] After initially serving as a production assistant, she was eventually given the chance to write scripts, starting with The Vampire and The Monster that Challenged the World . [3] [2]

Selected filmography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lon Chaney Jr.</span> American actor (1906–1974)

Creighton Tull Chaney, known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film The Wolf Man (1941) and its various crossovers, Count Alucard in Son of Dracula, Frankenstein's monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), the Mummy in three pictures, and various other roles in many Universal horror films, including six films in their 1940s Inner Sanctum series, making him a horror icon. He also portrayed Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men (1939) and played supporting parts in dozens of mainstream movies, including High Noon (1952), The Defiant Ones (1958), and numerous Westerns, musicals, comedies and dramas.

Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British film production company based in London. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic horror and fantasy films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Many of these involve classic horror characters such as Baron Victor Frankenstein, Count Dracula, and the Mummy, which Hammer reintroduced to audiences by filming them in vivid colour for the first time. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies, as well as, in later years, television series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tor Johnson</span> Swedish professional wrestler and actor (1903–1971)

Karl Erik Tore Johansson, better known by the stage name Tor Johnson, was a Swedish professional wrestler and actor. As an actor, Johnson appeared in many B-movies, including some famously directed by Ed Wood. In professional wrestling, Johnson was billed as Thor Johnson and Super Swedish Angel.

<i>Draculas Daughter</i> 1936 film by Lambert Hillyer

Dracula's Daughter is a 1936 American vampire horror film produced by Universal Pictures as a sequel to the 1931 film Dracula. Directed by Lambert Hillyer from a screenplay by Garrett Fort, the film stars Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden in the title role, and Marguerite Churchill, and features, as the only cast member to return from the original, Edward Van Sloan – although his character's name was altered from "Van Helsing" to "Von Helsing".

James Michael Bernard was a British film composer, particularly associated with horror films produced by Hammer Film Productions. Beginning with The Quatermass Xperiment, he scored such films as The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula. He also occasionally scored non-Hammer films including Windom's Way (1957) and Torture Garden (1967).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Gwynne</span> American actress (1918–2003)

Anne Gwynne was an American actress who was known as one of the first scream queens because of her numerous appearances in horror films. Gwynne was also one of the most popular pin-ups of World War II. She is the maternal grandmother of actor Chris Pine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Count Dracula in popular culture</span>

The character of Count Dracula from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, has remained popular over the years, and many forms of media have adopted the character in various forms. In their book Dracula in Visual Media, authors John Edgar Browning and Caroline Joan S. Picart declared that no other horror character or vampire has been emulated more times than Count Dracula. Most variations of Dracula across film, comics, television and documentaries predominantly explore the character of Dracula as he was first portrayed in film, with only a few adapting Stoker's original narrative more closely. These including borrowing the look of Count Dracula in both the Universal's series of Dracula and Hammer's series of Dracula, including the character's clothing, mannerisms, physical features, hair style and his motivations such as wanting to be in a home away from Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Jayne</span> English actress (1931–2006)

Jennifer Jayne was an English film and television actress born in Yorkshire to theatrical parents. Born Jennifer Jayne Jones, she adopted her stage name of Jennifer Jayne to avoid confusion with the Hollywood actress Jennifer Jones.

Shock Theater is a package of 52 pre-1948 classic horror films from Universal Studios released for television syndication in October 1957 by Screen Gems, the television subsidiary of Columbia Pictures. The Shock Theater package included Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man as well as a few non-horror spy and mystery films. A second package, Son of Shock, was released for television by Screen Gems in 1958, with 20 horror films from both Universal and Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Megowan</span> American actor (1922–1981)

Don Megowan was an American actor. He played the Gill-man on land in The Creature Walks Among Us, the final part of the Creature from the Black Lagoon trilogy.

<i>The Vampire</i> (1957 film) American film directed by Paul Landres

The Vampire is a 1957 American horror film produced by Arthur Gardner and Jules V. Levy, directed by Paul Landres, and starring John Beal and Coleen Gray. Its plot follows a San Francisco physician who inadvertently ingests pills laced with the blood of vampire bats, leading him to take on vampiric qualities. Like 1956's The Werewolf, it offered a science fiction take on a traditionally supernatural creature, although the films were produced by different production companies.

<i>The Devils Wedding Night</i> 1973 Italian film

The Devil's Wedding Night is a 1973 Italian horror film.

Dracula is a film series of horror films from Universal Pictures based on the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker and its 1927 play adaptation. Film historians had various interpretations of what constitutes being in the film series, with academics and historians finding narrative continuation between Dracula (1931) and Dracula's Daughter (1936) with varying opinions on if Son of Dracula (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945) were part of the series. Author and academic Gary Don Rhodes stated the all the mentioned films would require an audience to be familiar with Count Dracula portrayed by Bela Lugosi and the various character traits the actor established in the original 1931 film.

The World of Hammer is a British television documentary series created and written by Robert Sidaway and Ashley Sidaway, and produced by Robert Sidaway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of horror films</span>

The history of horror films was described by author Siegbert Solomon Prawer as difficult to read as a linear historical path, with the genre changing throughout the decades, based on the state of cinema, audience tastes and contemporary world events.

<i>Dick Powells Zane Grey Theatre</i> 1956 American TV series or program

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre is an American Western anthology television series broadcast on CBS from October 5, 1956 until May 18, 1961.

Tina Gloriani was an Italian actress who appeared in Italian classic and peplum cinema.

References

  1. Craig, Rob (2013-09-19). It Came from 1957: A Critical Guide to the Year's Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. McFarland. ISBN   978-0-7864-7777-7.
  2. 1 2 Weaver, Tom (2009-12-11). I Talked with a Zombie: Interviews with 23 Veterans of Horror and Sci-Fi Films and Television. McFarland. ISBN   978-0-7864-5268-2.
  3. 1 2 Norman, Ann (21 Jun 1957). "Brainy Beauty Satisfies Yearning to Be a Writer". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2020-01-18.