(Note: Shortly after Herschell Gordon Lewis’s passing, AWAI asked me to write an article as a tribute to him. The following is what I originally wrote. The article that AWAI published was cut down (by me) by about 75% to fit into their required word count. I stumbled across this yesterday and thought the unabridged version might be of interest to some.) “Herschell Gordon Lewis, “The Godfather of Gore.” Dies at 87.” This was the headline of Variety’s September 26th, 2016 obituary. After a brief summary of his film career, they tacked on the following two lines…“In addition to being a filmmaker, Lewis taught college literature, worked in radio, and produced and directed TV commercials. He wrote several books on marketing and copywriting.” In a 2003 interview conducted by actor/producer Jennifer Rouse on the set of the movie Chainsaw Sally (which Lewis acted in), when asked how it made him feel about impacting so many filmmakers’ lives, Lewis said… “Originally it was embarrassing. It was embarrassing because I know how little we had put into these movies. But subsequently, when I see how the film industry has either evolved or devolved depending on how you want to interpret it, based on that, I’m delighted to be regarded in that respect. I don’t want it on my tombstone. I don’t want them to say here lies the guy who started the gore movies.” In a question-and-answer session for his book The Sleaze Merchants: Adventures in Exploitation Filmmaking, author John McCarty asked Lewis what he wanted his epitaph to be. Lewis said… “He seen somethin’ different. And he done it.” Today, I will look back on the movie and marketing careers of Herschell Gordon Lewis. Lewis was born on June 15th, 1926, in Pittsburgh. When he was six, his father died. A few years later, his mother moved the family to Chicago. In his twenties, he taught English and Humanities at Mississippi State. He left after determining that “if you have any ambition to change the course of human history, it’s a dead end.” After various jobs (radio DJ and ad sales; door-to-door encyclopedia sales; Racine, Wisconsin radio station assistant manager; producer/director at WKY-TY in Oklahoma City) a high school chum, who owned a small Chicago advertising agency, told Lewis he desperately needed a television director as he was about to land a huge account. This was around 1953. Lewis moved back to Chicago and took the job, but the account never landed. So, he bought a half interest in a small Chicago film studio, and he got a job writing copy for a small advertising agency “to put Kraft dinner on the table.” How he got into gore films is now part of movie...
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