RIP Wes Craven 1939-2015

By now, I'm guessing most of you have heard the sad news that Wes Craven, an amazingly talented writer and film-maker, has passed away. He is another victim of the insidious disease that took my brother- brain cancer. It's so sad that such malignancy would  grow in such brilliant grey matter.

Mr. Craven created the horridly-burned dream invader, Freddy Krueger- and came up with the horror-referential world of the "Scream" franchise. He helped put stars like Johnny Depp, Sharon Stone, and Bruce Willis on their upward career paths, and, of course, gave our friend Robert Englund the character that he truly owned.(Robert has many,many stories about working with Wes, of course.) On our local show, we had shown a few of his films, including his first"Elm Street" film , "Swamp Thing", "A Stranger in Our House",and "People Under the Stairs". Though we no longer have rights to those, and our upcoming weeks are already recorded, we are hoping to add a  very brief mention of Mr. Craven's passing during this weekend's show.

His talent went far beyond just horror, having directed Meryl Streep in an inspirational drama, and he even directed romantic comedy. His writing talents ranged from screenplays to a novel and a monthly column -about birds- in  Martha's Vineyard magazine.

Little known facts about Wes Craven- at one time,he taught humanities and English at colleges, and even was a deejay on a college radio station during that time. He was a bird lover ( hence the column in the Martha's Vineyard magazine) and conservationist.

He had still been working fairly recently, in spite of his illness. I read a wonderful quote from him in a Hollywood reporter article, regarding if he might end up limited to  only directing horror films- coming from a blue collar background, Mr. Craven just wanted to work- but added-“I can see that I give my audience something. I can see it in their eyes, and they say thank you a lot. You realize you are doing something that means something to people. So shut up and get back to work.”

It's sad to think that work has now  been quieted for good.