- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWilliam Brent Girdler
- Nicknames
- Billy
- Bill
- Height5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
- Born on October 22, 1947 in Jefferson County, Kentucky, William Brent Girdler launched his filmmaking career with the release of the horror film "Asylum of Satan" (1972). He made a total of nine films in six years and provided the music for Pat Patterson's quickie horror film "Dr. Gore". Girdler died in a helicopter accident at the age of 30 in the Philippines that happened when the helicopter hit electrical power lines and crashed after he had completed his final film, "The Manitou" (1978).
Girdler wore many hats in respect to his filmmaking, writing six of his nine films and composing the music for three of those six films. He also produced two of his own films. His early works were filmed in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky with the assistance of many friends and local investors. Girdler's first two films, two low budget horror films named "Asylum of Satan" and "Three on a Meathook", made only a slight impact on the drive-in movie scene, but they did get his foot in the door with Sam Arkoff and American International Pictures. Girdler then made three blaxploitation films for the studio: "The Zebra Killer", "Abby" and "Sheba Baby". After his time at AIP ended, Girdler directed the political thriller film "Project Kill" starring Leslie Nielsen. Eager to return to horror, Girdler sought financing from Edward L. Montoro and thus brought the two horror films "Grizzly" (1976) and "Day of the Animals" (1977) into the world. He then hoped to strike gold again when he bought the rights to Graham Masterton's best-selling horror novel "The Manitou" (1976) for $50,000 and to everyone's surprise, he did just that. Within three months of securing the rights to the novel, Girdler began shooting the film with Tony Curtis and Susan Strasberg in the starring roles.
William Girdler's most successful film of all was "Grizzly", an imitation of the film "Jaws" (1975) featuring a man-eating grizzly bear instead of a man-eating great white shark. Made on a fairly tight budget, "Grizzly" ranked among the most successful films of 1976. "Abby" (1974), a blaxploitation rip-off of "The Exorcist" which prompted a lawsuit from Warner Brothers that Warner ultimately lost, was also a box office hit and made more money via domestic rentals than the earlier blaxploitaion horror film "Blacula" (1972) did. Legal problems prevented Girdler from seeing profits for both films. Other box office hits that Girdler made include the blaxploitation film "Sheba Baby", starring Pam Grier, and "The Manitou" (a posthumous hit).
- IMDb mini biography by: www.williamgirdler.com
- SpouseAvis Smith(July 1977 - January 21, 1978) (his death)
- Frequently uses (odd and low) music by Ragland, Robert O. and Schifrin, Lalo
- Died when a helicopter in which he was a passenger hit electrical power lines and crashed. He was 30 years old.
- Sued Film Ventures Internatonal head Edward L. Montoro for profits from the film Grizzly (1976).
- His next film after The Manitou (1978), "The Overlords", was planned but never even started production because of his death.
- A big fan of Alfred Hitchcock.
- [from an interview in "Starlog" #13 (1978)] The Manitou (1978) was something that was never done before. So I did it. It's a cross between The Exorcist (1973) and Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). It has a lot of shock in it as well. I'm a director who believes a lot in the instant shock theory as well as build up shock. Under the [Alfred Hitchcock] theory, it's better to build an audience up, then get them to relax, then hit them over the head with everything you got. It keeps them constantly tense.
- I know what my other pictures were. I know what was bad about them. I also know that they were pretty good when you consider how inexpensively they were made. Anybody should be able to make a good movie if they spend $20 million the way they did on The Exorcist (1973). Comparatively speaking, for what we spent on it, Abby (1974) was probably a better picture than The Exorcist (1973)
- Other people learned how to make movies in film schools. I learned by doing it. Nobody saw [William Friedkin's] or Steven Spielberg's mistakes, but all my mistakes were right up there on the screen for everybody to see.
- I love making movies so much that hard work doesn't bother me. I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Some days, I'm so excited about what we're doing I can't wait to get out of bed the next morning and start again. If I were an attorney or running a factory, I would probably die or spend all my time on a golf course. I would have been miserable and ended up an alcoholic by the time I was 30.
- I'm constantly called an egomaniac, but you have to have an ego to survive. I don't pretend to be anything I'm not. I don't think I'll ever be a D.W. Griffith.
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