Herschell Gordon Lewis obit

Herschell Gordon Lewis, a Pioneer of Gore Cinema, Dies at 90

 

He was not on the list.

Herschell Gordon Lewis transformed two industries Herschell Gordon Lewis passed away. He was 90 years old. Mr. Lewis, along with his partner David Friedman, invented the splatter movie genre, inspiring a generation of movie-makers to show violence on screen that was far more graphic than had been considered acceptable before his signature titles, Blood Feast and 2000 Maniacs appeared in theaters in the 1960s. Known to movie fans as the “Godfather of Gore,” Mr. Lewis never took his movie making seriously. He viewed it as a business, not as art, and was an irreverent commentator about his contributions. Interviewed on Chicago radio he was asked what sort of audience his movies attracted. “We don’t really know,” he answered. “Nobody has figured out a way to survey IQs that low.” Mr. Lewis was also well-known in the field of direct marketing, where he published more than thirty books and hundreds of articles on writing persuasive copy, or, as he preferred to call it, “force communication.” His signature was his insistence on testing – on relying on data rather than personal opinion to decide what works and what doesn’t. As a sign of the esteem in which he is held in this industry, in 2004 he was inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. Less well known was his love of traveling. From photo safaris in Africa and India to visiting lemurs in Madagascar to admiring the ruins of Persepolis in Iran to scuba diving in the Red Sea, Mr. Lewis and his wife, Margo lived for the next adventure ¿ and even more, for the joy of story-telling about it afterward. Mr. Lewis is survived by his beloved wife, Margo, his son, Robert (Sharon Link), grandchildren (Kimberly and Erin Lewis), five children to whom he was second father – Carol Nelson (Patrick McEwan), Peggy Nelson, Paula Nelson, Sandy Nelson (Roland Keller), and John Easton, along with tens of thousands of loyal copywriters and splatter movie fans from around the world. The funeral will be private and limited to his immediate family.

 Herschell Gordon Lewis was born in 1926 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Geraldine (Waldman) and Emmanuel. His father died when Lewis was six years old; his mother never remarried. Lewis's family then moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he spent the majority of his adolescence. After graduating from high school, Lewis received bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism at Northwestern University in nearby Evanston, Illinois. A few years later, he briefly taught communications at Mississippi State University. He was lured from his academic career to become the manager of WRAC Radio (WRJN) in Racine, Wisconsin, and later to become a studio director at WKY-TV (KFOR-TV) studio in Oklahoma City.

In 1953, Lewis began working for a friend's advertising agency in Chicago while teaching graduate advertising courses at night at Roosevelt University. In the meantime, he began directing TV commercial advertisements for a small production company called Alexander and Associates. Lewis later bought out half of the company with business associate Martin Schmidhofer and renamed it Lewis and Martin Films.

Lewis directed a short promotional film entitled Carving Magic, sponsored by Swift & Company, in 1959. Along with Swift & Company's “home economist” Martha Logan, the short starred William Kerwin and Harvey Korman, who would go on to star in other Lewis projects.

Filmography

Herschell Gordon Lewis filmography

Year     Film     Role     Other notes

1961    The Adventures of Lucky Pierre                     credited as Lewis H. Gordon

Living Venus              

1962    Daughter of the Sun                credited as Lewis H. Gordon

1963    Bell, Bare and Beautiful                      credited as Lewis H. Gordon

Boin-n-g!                     credited as Lewis H. Gordon

Blood Feast     The Radio Announcer

Goldilocks and the Three Bares                      credited as Lewis H. Gordon

Scum of the Earth!      The Narrator    credited as Lewis H. Gordon

1964    Two Thousand Maniacs!                     sings the title song

Moonshine Mountain             

1965    Sin, Suffer and Repent                        documentary/informercial; lost film

Monster a Go-Go        The Radio Announcer uncredited as director

Color Me Blood Red             

1966    Jimmy, the Boy Wonder         The Narrator   

1967    The Magic Land of Mother Goose                 filmed stage play

A Taste of Blood         The Limey Seaman    

The Gruesome Twosome        The Radio Announcer

Something Weird        The Narrator   

The Girl, the Body, and the Pill                     

Blast-Off Girls                       

An Eye for an Eye                  never completed

1968    She-Devils on Wheels            

The Alley Tramp         Gene Stallion, Radio Reporter            credited as Armand Parys

Just for the Hell of It              

How to Make a Doll              

Suburban Roulette                  

1969    The Ecstasies of Women                     credited as Mark Hansen

Linda and Abilene                   credited as Mark Hansen

1970    Miss Nymphet's Zap-In                      credited as Sheldon Seymour

The Wizard of Gore               

1971    This Stuff'll Kill Ya!               

1972    Black Love                  pornographic adult film; credited as R.L. Smith

Year of the Yahoo!                 

The Gore Gore Girls              

2002    Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat            

2008    Smash Cut       Fred Sandy     

2009    The Uh-Oh! Show      Uncle Herschell / The Narrator          

2015    B-Documentary           Himself           

2017    Herschell Gordon Lewis' BloodMania