John Stanley | Horror Host

November 3, 2007

Interview with Halloween Horror Host John Stanley [14:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It was our pleasure this week to host John Stanley, everyone’s favorite television Horror Host. His new book is called “I Was a Television Horror Host” and is chock full of fascinating details about a side to Hollywood that we seldom discover in the mainstream media! Listen in to hear him talk about Ray Bradbury and other characters he ran into on his show in California.

From the author’s website:

Never before has a TV horror host described in print what it was like to be part of that cult movement of the 20th Century, in which packages of science-fiction, horror and fantasy movies were introduced by colorful characters who often emulated supernatural beings. These media entitities, garbed as vampires, werewolves, ghouls and other grotesqueries inspired by the cinema, espoused graveyard humor in a spoofery of the very movie material being presented. Generations grew up on these new-fanged beings, and thousands of young viewers were shaped and changed forever by the humor and tomfoolery of the hosts who came into their living rooms or bedrooms on Saturday night, often after the Witching Hour. In my case I never wore a costume or assumed the guise of a fictional being - rather, I was my ordinary self, often dressed mundanely in suit and tie, describing the movies from my perspective as a “human” and interviewing those who did choose to wear a costume, or who were part of the 20th Century world of genre entertainment.

For six years (1979-84) I hosted “Creature Features” at KTVU, Channel 2, in Oakland, CA, and it is those fascinating times I have tried to resurrect in I WAS A TV HORROR HOST. I was preceded by Bob Wilkins, one of the most popular TV personalities in the San Francisco-Bay Area from 1971-78, and his story is told along with mine.

But more importantly, I WAS A TV HORROR HOST offers my exclusive interviews with the best of the genre stars and those who rose up in the ranks to become icons: Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner and Gene Roddenberry of “Star Trek” fame. Read about the betrayal of Roddenberry behind the scenes, and how Nimoy almost walked out on me the day of a two-hour TV special that highlighted all the important aspects of his career. Christopher Lee, star of the “Dracula” films from Britain’s Hammer Studios. He also started to walk out on me but paused at the last moment and reconsidered, and lived not to regret it.

Vincent Price, the star of the Edgar Allan Poe series from American-International. He tried to deny his heritage of horror, but finally came around when spooning with his wife Coral Browne prevailed.

Roger Corman, the man who helped to raise the low-budget movie into cult status, and who helped to make Vincent Price a horror star, and who gave a boost to the career of Francis Ford Coppola. Always open and friendly to me.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, from a time early in his career when he vowed “I’ll be back,” prophesizing the coming of “Conan the Barbarian.” And read about the curvaceous cocktail waitress who couldn’t come to his hotel room, and why . . . and what Arnie suggested to solve the problem.

I also present profiles on four other TV horror hosts, all of whom I consider major contributors to the dark “art form.” Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, who brought sophisticated voluptuousness and a certain soft-fleshed and shapely intellectualism to the art form at a TV station in Los Angeles . . . Ghoulardi, the one-time horror king of Cleveland, Ohio, who went on to become network TV’s greatest voice, especially when it came to opening each episode of “The Love Boat” . . . Zacherley, one of the very first during the 1950s to shape and refine the very essence of what a good monstrous horror host consisted of . . . and Joe Bob Briggs, the Drive-In Movie Critic who has brought a new level of respect to the low-budget movies of the past with such deep-felt and well-written books as “Profoundly Disturbing.”

He also describes meetings with Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy), Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, William Castle, and more! It’s an intriguing read, and this was a fun interview!

Happy Halloween!

For more about John Stanley and all of his books and work, visit his website at: www.stanleybooks.net

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