From Horror Actor To Horror Writer

Hollywood is a fickle employer and when even a good actor has dipped his toes once too often into the B-movie waters, jobs can be hard to find. But if you're Bradford Dillman, you simply turn...

FROM HORROR ACTOR TO HORROR WRITER

By HARVEY F. CHARTRAND

Bradford Dillman was once the busiest actor in Hollywood, chalking up 500 credits in a 43-year career--including many horror features. Now retired from acting, Dillman keeps busy writing books. He has just completed a horror novel entitled That Air Forever Dark, set in Papua, New Guinea.

Dillman promises that his new novel of the macabre will be "a terrifying account of the Jet Age meeting the Stone Age; Deliverance in a jungle setting." Fithian Press will publish That Air Forever Dark this fall. The book is already making the rounds of film and TV production houses, and may soon be optioned as a movie-of-the-week.

Lobby card from "Escape From The Planet Of The Apes"...

"The idea came from a trip a friend took with his wife, a world tour of exotic locations. One of the locales was New Guinea. There was a split venue. Those who chose could take a canoe trip up the Sepik River and watch natives imitate their headhunter ancestors in a singsing, while the rest could take the "Islands in the Sky" trip to Tari and visit the Huli wigmen. In my plot, a Twin Otter plane with 10 people, a pilot, a trip leader and eight passengers, is skyjacked by a political terrorist and taken over the border into Irian Jaya. Eventually, it ends up in the Asmat Swamp, where Michael Rockefeller was last seen in 1961."

The book's title is a quotation from Dante's Inferno, descriptive of a descent into Hell.

Poster artwork for "Piranha",,,

There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, as sand eddies in a whirlwind. (The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto 1.22)

Long before embarking on his new career as a professional writer, Dillman was a noted actor, who had worked with many of the biggest names in Hollywood--from James Dean in the Fifties to Raquel Welch in the Eighties. Dillman achieved Broadway success in the first-ever production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night and international fame in Compulsion (1959), for which he shared the Best Actor Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with co-stars Orson Welles and Dean Stockwell. In this taut retelling of the infamous Leopold-Loeb ‘thrill-kill’ case of the 1920s, Dillman was unforgettable as Artie Straus, a wealthy law-school student on trial for murder.

Plot synopsis of That Air Forever Dark:

Odyssey Explorations offers satiated travelers a month's luxury flight to exotic locales around the world. During a stopover in Papua, New Guinea, a locally leased aircraft carrying 10 people is skyjacked by a terrorist seeking to cause an international incident.

The plane is flown over the border into Irian Jaya and landed in a swamp so impassable there can be no possibility of rescue. But the terrorist--and the accomplices awaiting him--are surprised and killed by a tribe of headhunters who never before have seen "creatures of the lime stick," nor heard the roaring of a "giant bird."

"That Air Forever Dark" book cover...

The Jet Age has descended into the Stone Age, and the passengers into living hell. At first, their lives are spared because the chief senses this is the Great Spirit's wish, but their survival is again at risk once the chief is tortured to death by his own warriors.

The six men and four women hazard an escape by water, their canoe buffeted by treacherous tides, rocks and rapids, until at great cost they reach the sea. Of their original number, four survive to be airlifted off the beach.

The book introduces the reader to an assortment of colorful characters: Warren Prescott is a retired venture capitalist and recent widower. The pilot, Bill Quillan, is haunted by the memory of his wife's infidelity and suicide. Young trip leader Nigel Haynie is fortunately an expert in the cultures of Oceania. The tickets of minister C.L. Olsen and his wife, Anne, have been paid for by grateful Lutheran parishioners. "Brick" Connors is a decorated U.S. army general; his wife, Barbara, a recovering alcoholic. Charles Sterling is a bank president unaware his wife, Suzanne, was formerly a prostitute. Julie Feldman, the widow of a film producer, once enjoyed a career as a torch singer. And the Odyssey liaison officer in charge of effecting their deliverance, jolly Jason Kugler, is frustrated by imprisoning red tape, both Indonesian and American.

Adventurous and chilling, That Air Forever Dark is a testament to the invincibility of the human spirit.

After several starring roles, Dillman made an important career decision in the early sixties--he wouldn’t wait around for the right parts anymore. He had a growing family to support and would take any work that came his way.

By the early 1970s, Dillman was making increasing forays into the horror genre. One of his best roles was as the doomed Bill Delancey in the satanic thriller The Mephisto Waltz (1971), with Jacqueline Bisset.

Dillman then appeared in "Pickman’s Model," a Night Gallery episode based on the famous horror story by H.P. Lovecraft. "That was first-rate," Dillman says of this tale of a reclusive Boston artist, whose nightmare paintings are "drawn from life."

"Chosen Survivors" poster...

Dillman played a werewolf in the 1972 TV-movie Moon Of The Wolf. "My wolfman movie was intensely uncomfortable, as I was sweating through the glue used to paste hair all over my body," Dillman recalls. "In retrospect, I’m amazed how athletic I was in those days, leaping in a single bound from the floor to a tabletop."

Dillman fought bloodsucking vampire bats in Chosen Survivors (1974), a creepy and claustrophobic tale of people under siege while hiding out in an underground shelter after a nuclear war.

Dillman was marvelous as a mad scientist in Bug (1975), which was schlockmeister William Castle’s last film. "Bug is considered laughable by some because Bill Castle produced it for $4.50, but it was made at a time when special effects were primitive, and I believe it’s genuinely scary," the actor observes. "Those were real cockroaches crawling over my bare chest!"

"Bug" poster...

Dillman next battled killer fish in Piranha (1978). For the final scene, where the piranha attack him while he tries to rescue civilization, Dillman (then 48) spent a full, exhausting day diving into the deep end of the University of Southern California swimming pool to have puppet fish poked in his face.

In 1978, Dillman appeared in another ‘insect threat’ movie, Irwin Allen’s The Swarm, which boasted a big-name cast. "The Swarm was populated by a swarm of stars prostituting themselves," Dillman reflects. "But how could I point a finger at any of them when I was the busiest hooker in the game?"

Poster for "The Swarm"...

The quality of film and TV roles being offered to Dillman declined even further through the 1980's. By the end of that decade, this fine actor was appearing in Mexican exploitation flicks (Guyana: Cult Of The Damned) and in Roger Corman programmers (Lords Of The Deep). Acting jobs seldom came along. Eventually, they ceased altogether.

Dillman is now 71. He hasn't made a film since the 1992 straight-to-cable thriller Heart Of Justice. Dillman didn’t retire. As he puts it, "the profession retired me." Perhaps the overexposure--his willingness to appear in anything that paid the bills--killed his career.

Despite his premature retirement from acting, Dillman says he’s not bitter. "I’ve had a wonderful life," he sums up. "I married the most beautiful woman in the world (former supermodel Suzy Parker). Together, we raised six remarkable children. I was rewarded with modest success in my profession. I keep busy and I’m happy. And there are a few good films out there that I might be remembered for."

Thanks, Harvey, for spotlighting the career of an often overlooked actor. We can assure Mr. Dillman that, yes, a few of his roles in films will be remembered and wish him good luck as a writer.

Return To Archives