Sam Irvin - Career

Career

Sam Irvin was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. In 1964, when he was eight years old, Irvin went on a family trip to California where he was able to tour various movie studios. At Warner Brothers, he watched an elaborate sequence being filmed for Blake Edwards's The Great Race starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Natalie Wood. In a giant water tank on a sound stage, Irvin watched with wide eyes as a nighttime storm scene unfolded, featuring antique cars floating across the Bering Strait on icebergs. From that moment on, he decided he wanted to direct movies. Commandeering his father's Super 8mm home movie camera, Irvin directed numerous horror movie shorts, including one starring his younger brother, Tim, as Dracula wearing a black beach towel for a cape, plastic fangs, and lots of ketchup.

Like the young boy in Cinema Paradiso, Irvin spent much of his youth in movie theaters. His grandfather, Warren Irvin, was the district manager for Wilby-Kincey Theaters, a chain of cinemas throughout the Southeast. And his father, Sam Irvin Sr., co-owned Irvin-Fuller Theaters, a competing chain with cinemas in North and South Carolina. During his youth, Irvin worked in these theaters in every capacity, from popping popcorn to tearing tickets to organizing horror movie kiddie matinees (with an emphasis on Vincent Price, Roger Corman, and Hammer Films). Later, during his college years, he worked for Irvin-Fuller Theaters as its Advertising and Publicity Manager, spearheading a record-breaking year-long run of Silver Streak starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor at the Gamecock Cinema in Columbia, South Carolina.

As a teenager, he edited and published four annual issues of Bizarre (1972–75), a fanzine on fantasy, horror and science fiction films, for which he twice traveled to England to conduct in-person interviews with the likes of Vincent Price, Christopher Lee (on the set of the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun), Peter Cushing, Diana Rigg, Ingrid Pitt, Jane Seymour, Joan Collins, Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis, and Sir James Carreras and his son, Michael Carreras (of Hammer Film Productions), among many others. (See retrospective 13-page spread on the history of Bizarre in Richard Klemensen's Little Shoppe of Horrors, issue number 27, October 2011.)

In 1978, Irvin graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts. While attending the university, he was the film critic for The Gamecock, the campus newspaper, and won a student film award for his thesis short film. He was also chairman of the University of South Carolina Film Committee that ran a year-round cinema program at the campus theater.

During his summer break in 1977, Irvin interned on the Chicago location shooting for Brian De Palma’s The Fury starring Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Amy Irving and Charles Durning. He worked on the feature as a production assistant and extra, and also wrote a journal on the making of the movie that was published in Cinefantastique magazine, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1978. Irvin also conducted an exclusive interview with Amy Irving in which, for the first time anywhere, she discussed her relationship with Steven Spielberg; it was published in Cinefantastique, Vol 6, No. 4 / Vol. 7, No. 1, a special double Star Wars issue, 1978.

After graduating from the University of South Carolina in May 1978, Irvin worked as the Associate Producer and Production Manager on Brian De Palma's Home Movies starring Kirk Douglas, Nancy Allen, and Keith Gordon. Then, Irvin worked as De Palma's assistant on Dressed to Kill starring Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon.

He also worked closely with De Palma on several projects in development, including Blow Out (which eventually De Palma directed, starring John Travolta and Nancy Allen), and Prince of the City (which was originally going to star Robert De Niro from a script by David Rabe, but was ultimately directed by Sidney Lumet starring Treat Williams).

Irvin gave up his position as De Palma's assistant to produce The First Time, a coming-of-age comedy for which De Palma served as a credited Creative Consultant. Released by New Line Cinema, the film starred Tim Choate, Wendie Jo Sperber, Wallace Shawn, Cathryn Damon and Jane Badler.

During the 1980s, Irvin served as Vice President of Marketing for three film distributors: United Artists Classics, Spectrafilm, and Vestron. During this period, Irvin won Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards for designing the movie posters for Francois Truffaut’s Confidentially Yours and Paul Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man. He also helped spearhead the record-breaking year-long run of Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva in New York City.

Irvin's first directorial effort, which he also wrote and produced, was the 1985 dark comedy short Double Negative, which starred Bill Randolph, Justin Henry, Wayne Knight, and William Finley. It premiered as an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival and subsequently played theatrically in New York and Los Angeles. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that it was "an exceptionally promising first effort."

Irvin went on to direct more than a dozen feature films, including:

Guilty as Charged starring Rod Steiger, Lauren Hutton, Heather Graham, and Isaac Hayes. (The film won the Gold Special Jury Award for Best Independent Feature at Houston Worldfest.)

Out There a Showtime Original Movie starring Billy Campbell, Billy Bob Thornton, Rod Steiger, Jill St. John, Paul Dooley, Robert Picardo, David Rasche, Bill Cobbs, and Julie Brown.

Acting on Impulse a Showtime Original Movie starring C. Thomas Howell, Linda Fiorentino, Nancy Allen, Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Isaac Hayes, and Cassandra Peterson.

Fat Rose and Squeaky a Showtime Original Movie starring Louise Fletcher, Cicely Tyson and Julie Brown.

A Very Cool Christmas starring George Hamilton and Donna Mills.

Deadly Skies starring Antonio Sabato Jr., Rae Dawn Chong and Michael Moriarty.

Elvira's Haunted Hills starring Cassandra Peterson as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and Richard O'Brien. (The film won the Audience Award at the 2002 Provincetown International Film Festival.)

From his own original screenplay, Irvin directed the Showtime Original Movie Kiss of a Stranger starring Mariel Hemingway, Dyan Cannon, Corbin Bernsen and David Carradine.

Irvin directed the cult sci-fi westerns Oblivion and its sequel Oblivion 2: Backlash, starring Julie Newmar, George Takei, Isaac Hayes, Meg Foster and Maxwell Caulfield. (Oblivion won the Gold Award for Best Fantasy / Science Fiction Feature at Houston Worldfest.)

He also directed the Disney Channel time-travel pirate fantasy Magic Island starring Zachery Ty Bryan and French Stewart.

For television, Irvin directed several episodes of Comedy Central's Strip Mall starring Julie Brown, Cindy Williams and Stella Stevens.

Irvin directed three full seasons of Dante's Cove starring Tracy Scoggins, Charlie David, Jenny Shimizu, Thea Gill, Stephen Amell, Booboo Stewart, and Reichen Lehmkuhl. (Irvin also co-wrote the series' international hit theme song, "Dying to Be with You").

Also for television, Irvin directed the opening of The 100th Anniversary of the World Series (October 18, 2003), for the Fox Network (a "through the ages" montage featuring the music of and starring Sheila E).

Irvin directed several segments for the Fox Network's 2004 Super Bowl XXXVIII including several comedy sketches starring Eugene Levy as a nutty gadget inventor trying to improve the entertainment value of football. Other vignettes included Will Smith, Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon. Irvin also directed the surrealistic opening battle between ninja warriors and football players.

And, for the Fox Network opening of the 2007 Allstate Sugar Bowl, Irvin directed "Dueling Musicians," shot on the streets of New Orleans (broadcast January 3, 2007).

After directing several American-financed films in Romania, Irvin was invited by Romanian-based Mediapro Studios to direct Garcea si oltenii, a spin-off of Romania's most popular television show, starring a Monty Python-like sketch comedy group known as Vacante Mare. It became the highest grossing motion picture in Romanian history up to that time, beating the previous record-holder, James Cameron's Titanic.

Also in Romania, Irvin directed Am să mă întorc bărbat (I Will Return A Man), a rock opera performed by the Romanian rock group Vama Veche, broadcast live on television from the National Theater in Bucharest. It was an anti-war musical in the same genre as Pink Floyd's The Wall.

His credits as a producer include:

Associate producing Brian De Palma's Home Movies starring Kirk Douglas, Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon. (Irvin also served as Production Manager.)

Co-executive producing Bill Condon's Academy Award-winning film Gods and Monsters starring Sir Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave. (Irvin also co-directed the "Making of" documentary for the DVD, entitled The World of Gods and Monsters: A Journey with James Whale.)

Co-producing Greg Berlanti's The Broken Hearts Club starring Timothy Olyphant, Dean Cain, Zach Braff, John Mahoney, Nia Long and Justin Theroux.

Co-executive producing Bob Clark's I'll Remember April starring Haley Joel Osment, Pat Morita, Mark Harmon, Pam Dawber and Paul Dooley. (Irvin also was the second-unit director.)

Co-executive producing Big Monster on Campus (aka Boltneck: Teen Frankenstein) starring Ryan Reynolds, Shelley Duvall, Matthew Lawrence and Judge Reinhold.

Associate producing The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human starring Mackenzie Astin, David Hyde Pierce, Carmen Electra and Lucy Liu.

Co-producing Error in Judgement starring Joanna Pacula, Joe Montegna, Kate Jackson and Paul Dooley.

Co-producing When Time Expires starring Richard Greico, Mark Hamill and Chad Everett.

Associate producing Sticky Fingers starring Helen Slater, Melanie Mayron, Eileen Brennan, Carol Kane, Christopher Guest, Danitra Vance, and Loretta Devine.

Producing The First Time starring Tim Choate, Wendie Jo Sperber, Wallace Shawn, Cathryn Damon and Jane Badler. Creative Consultant: Brian De Palma.

Irvin's first book, Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise, was published by Simon & Schuster (November 2010) and was honored by Kirkus Reviews and The Theatre Library Association Awards as one of the "Best Biographies of 2010." Acclaimed by columnist Liz Smith as "a smashing work" and by entertainer Michael Feinstein as "one of the best showbiz bios I've ever read," this comprehensive biography covers the life and career of the legendary singer-actress-composer-arranger-author-fashionista Kay Thompson. She was the mentor/best friend of Judy Garland, the vocal guru to Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne, the mentor and longtime lover of Andy Williams, and the godmother/Svengali to Liza Minnelli (who recreated Thompson's nightclub act in the 2009 Tony Award-winning event Liza's at the Palace).

In connection with his research on the life of Thompson, Irvin served as a historical consultant on the Tony Award-winning Broadway event Liza's at the Palace; he produced and annotated the 2009 3-CD box set compilation Think Pink! A Kay Thompson Party (Sepia Records); and he appeared in and consulted on Paramount Home Entertainment's documentary Kay Thompson: Think Pink! (an extra included in Paramount's Centennial Collection DVD edition of Stanley Donen's Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, and Kay Thompson).

As a journalist, Irvin has recently written articles for Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine, including an interview he conducted with Richard O'Brien of Rocky Horror Show fame.

Movie project in development: Irvin has recently collaborated with Cassandra Peterson on the original screenplay Elvira Vs. the Vampire Vixens, a horror spoof for which he is attached as director and co-producer (with Peterson, who will also star once again as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark).

Between projects, Irvin is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts where he teaches graduate courses on directing.

He resides in Los Angeles with Gary Bowers, his partner since 1982.