Curtis Harrington

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American screen director whose work included experimental films, horror films, and episodic television. He is considered one of the forerunners of New Queer Cinema. He began his career as a film critic, writing a book on Josef von Sternberg in 1948. He directed several avant-garde short films in the 1940s and '50s, including Fragment of Seeking, Picnic, and The Wormwood Star (a film study of the artwork of Marjorie Cameron). Cameron also co-starred in his subsequent film Night Tide (1961) with Dennis Hopper. Harrington worked with Kenneth Anger, serving as a cinematographer on Anger's Puce Moment and acting in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) (he played Cesare, the somnambulist). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Harrington directed episodes of such popular television series as Baretta, Dynasty, Wonder Woman, The Twilight Zone and Charlie's Angels. He died in Hollywood Hills, California on 6 May 2007 at age 80 of complications from a stroke he had suffered in 2005. Curtis Harrington's memoir Nice Guys Don't Work in Hollywood was published in 2013 by Drag City. Link to Wikipedia biography