Jim O'Rear - Biography

Biography

O’Rear began his professional career in the entertainment industry on tour as “The Youngest Professional Magician,” working on stage with the talents of David Copperfield, Harry Blackstone, Jr., and The Great Tomsoni and opening for musical acts such as Cheap Trick and John Anderson. O'Rear became very well respected as a magician and was one of the youngest people to ever be accepted into the Society of American Magicians when he was only 12 years old. Audiences seemed to be fascinated with the way O'Rear could manipulate objects with his small hands in the same manner as the adult magicians of his time.

O'Rear’s background in stage magic led him to other theatrical interests. He developed a love for stage acting and went to New York where he was trained at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts . After some very successful theatrical runs in dramas, comedies, and musicals, O'Rear was offered roles in films and television where he has worked steadily as an actor, stuntman, and special make-up effects artist on such projects as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, ABC's Nashville, FX's Outlaw Country, The Vampyre Wars, Lethal Weapon 3, Creature Feature, Stephen King's The Boogeyman, Hayride Slaughter, Cop and a Half, Psycho Beach Party, Evita, Little Shop of Horrors, No Retreat No Surrender 3, Mortal Kombat: Conquest.

O'Rear had always been interested in writing and wanted to see some of his own ideas hit the silver screen, so he successfully moved into the area of screenwriting where he wrote and sold a number of horror-related screenplays, including The House Of Pain, Hayride Slaughter, Hayride Slaughter 2, The Deadly Obligation, Vampyre Tales, Wolfsbayne, Scream Farm, and The Deepening (featuring Gunnar Hansen and Scream Queen Debbie Rochon) . O'Rear has also won various awards for screenwriting in national competitions

In addition to screenplay writing, O'Rear has also contributed many articles to national publications, such as Scary Monsters Magazine, Haunted Attraction Magazine, Comics Interview, and Underground Entertainment, and has been recognized in Fangoria, Alternative Cinema, Fright Times, and Femme Fatale Magazine. O'Rear was also “immortalized” as a comic book character opposite Thor in issue #14 of Marvel Comics What The--?! and appears as himself (along with Ken Foree, Brinke Stevens, Tom Savini, Debbie Rochon, and James Gunn) in the new fictional horror novel, Bad Moon Rising the third installment of Jonathan Maberry’s Ghost Road Blues Pine Deep Trilogy and Zombie: C.S.U. and appears as himself, again, in Shane Moore's zombie novel The Apocalypse of Enoch, alongside Peter (Chewbacca) Mayhew.

O'Rear also has four of his own books in stores with a fifth currently in the works. Currently available is the horror novel Mortuary Of Madness (co-written with R Thomas Riley) and from Schiffer Publishing are two paranormal books, titled Hollywood Paranormal Films and Tennessee Ghosts, covering the history behind many actual hauntings in the state of Tennessee, and a travel book titled Traveling In Tennessee.

Because of his close association with the horror genre, O'Rear was one of several actors selected to appear in a set of horror movie trading cards with Debbie Rochon, Ben Chapman, Gunnar Hansen, and more.. Jim also was turned into an action figure in 2010 as his character from the zombie film Beverly Lane.

In 2009 Jim beat out genre great Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead) to win the Golden Cob Award for "Best Horror Actor" and won again in 2010 beating genre great Bill Moseley (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). In 2012 O'Rear won a Haunted Entertainment Award for "Best Horror Actor," beating out Kane Hodder (Friday The 13th).