Stuart Gordon, the director of such films as Re-Animator and From Beyond, has passed away at age 72.
Gordon grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and majored in theatre at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he founded his first theatre troupe, The Screw Theater. With his wife, Carolyn, Gordon would found the Organic Theater Company in 1969, producing and directing 37 plays with the company in total. One of which, The Warp Trilogy, saw brief success on Broadway, and another, E/R Emergency Room, would be adapted into the TV sitcom E/R, which featured George Clooney (not to be confused with the TV drama ER…which also starred George Clooney).
Gordon was the one of the co-creators of the Disney cult classic Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, and produced, co-wrote, and directed the sci-fi comedy Space Truckers. But the area where Gordon truly shone was horror. His film Re-Animator (1985), an adaptation of a H.P. Lovecraft tale, won awards at three separate film festivals. In 1986, Gordon’s From Beyond won the Prize of the Catalan Screenwriter’s Critic and Writer’s Association at the Sitges Film Festival. His last film, Stuck (2007), which Gordon created, directed, and produced, won the Staff Prize for Narrative Feature at San Francisco Indiefest and a Silver Raven at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.
Toward the end of his career, Gordon returned to his theatre roots. He passed away on March 24, 2020, in Los Angeles of multiple organ failure at the age of 72. On Twitter, horror aficionados and fellow filmmakers alike are in mourning. “He made some of my favorite horror movies, and I am very grateful that I got to meet him a few times,” Scott Weinberg said. “Stuart Gordon was not only brilliant filmmaker but an incredibly gracious human,” replied Simon Barrett.
Gordon is survived by his wife Carolyn, his three daughters, four grandchildren, and his brother David George Gordon.
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