Gordon Hessler

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Gordon Hessler (born December 30, 1930 in Berlin , † January 19, 2014 in London ) was a British director , screenwriter and film producer .

Life

Hessler was born in 1930 to a Danish mother and an English father. He received his education in England and then moved to the USA . His first work took place there on documentaries . At the age of 31 he got a contract with the renowned Universal Studios and shot an episode for the series Alfred Hitchcock Presents . From 1962 to 1965 he produced a total of 64 episodes of the series. He made his feature film debut in 1965 with Catacombs . In addition to other works for television, the feature film The Last Shot You Hear followed in 1969 . When director Michael Reeves dies in 1969 while preparing for the filming of In Death Grip of the Red Mask , Hessler took over the film. The production company American International Pictures is marketing the film as part of their successful Edgar Allan Poe series and is very pleased with the deal, so Hessler receives a contract for three more horror films from them. Two more films are made with AIP star Vincent Price : the science fiction film The Living Corpses of Dr. Mabuse (1969) and The Witches' Death Cry (1970), as well as another film in the Poe series: Murder on Rue Morgue (1971).

In addition to several TV productions, he continued to shoot a few movies in the following years, including the adventure film Sindbad's dangerous adventures and the trash film Kiss - Chased by phantoms with the hard rock band Kiss . Hessler remained active until the early 1990s, but was unable to build on the success of his early years. In the 1980s he turned mainly B-films like The 1000 Eyes of the Ninja with Shō Kosugi and war films like The Gallows Birds , as well as other series episodes. His last directorial work is the US-Japanese film Shogun Mayeda with Christopher Lee .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hessler, Gordon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British director, screenwriter and film producer
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 19th January 2014
Place of death London