About Curtis Harrington
Gene Curtis Harrington (September 17, 1926 – May 6, 2007) was an American film and television director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor. He emerged in the experimental film scene of the 1940s and ‘50s, notably as a collaborator of Kenneth Anger, before becoming a director of mainstream horror films and television series. The Harvard Film Archive referred to Harrington as “among the most wholly original directors to work in the Hollywood studio system,” and Screen Slate called him "a cinematic jack of all trades." He is also considered one of the forerunners to New Queer Cinema. == Early life and education == Harrington was born on September 17, 1926, in Los Angeles, the son of Isabel (Dorum) and Raymond Stephen Harrington, and grew up in Beaumont, California. His first cinematic endeavors were amateur films he made while still a teenager. At age 16, in 1942, he directed and co-starred in a short version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. Harrington attended Occidental College and the University of Southern California, then graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a degree in film studies. == Career == === Experimental filmmaker === He began his career as a film critic, writing a book on Josef von Sternberg in 1948. An early protege of Maya Deren, he directed several avant-garde short films in the 1940s and 1950s, including Fragment of Seeking, Picnic, and The Wormwood Star (a film study of the artwork of Marjorie Cameron which was filmed at the home of multi-millionaire art collector Edward James). Cameron also co-starred in his subsequent film Night Tide (1961) with Dennis Hopper.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.