History
Born in Houston, Texas, Neal, after high school, studied at Lon Morris college in Jacksonville, Texas, before moving on to acting and directing studies at the University of Texas at Austin. While there, Neal auditioned for the role of the Hitchhiker in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and got it. He has said that when auditioning he acted as an eccentric relative of his. The movie went on to become a cult classic and Neal's career was launched and made him one of today's biggest horror icons.
Neal still continues to act. His most notable roles since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre were playing the Mercer interrogator in Oliver Stone's JFK, and Big Chuck's Henchman in the 1993 movie My Boyfriend's Back. He has also done some voice work, for films, computer games and cartoons. Neal also annually tours worldwide making many public appearances as "The Hitchhiker" at horror conventions and related gatherings.
Neal was inducted into the "Hollywood Horror Hall of Fame" in 1993 along side with Vincent Price, and owns one of the world's largest movie poster collections, from 1900 to the present day. He received a Bronze Star for Valor during his service in Vietnam in 1969.
Neal currently lives in Austin, Texas and has six children: Kirsche Dickson, David Valenzuela, Heidi James, Morna Neal, Preston Neal, Marlee Neal and two step children: Angelina Hitchcock and Andrea Ramos.
Edwin Neal made appearances for a charity benefit with a professional wrestling company in Fort Worth, IHW Entertainment to help raise money for the Fort Worth Community Center that provides youth a place to go and join activities. Neal appeared on the promotion's 1 Night Only event that took place on Oct 4th 2008 as a guest announcer & actually knocked out wrestler Sean Quinlan, Neal also performed at the Promotion's Halloween event on Oct 30th 2010 "Tales from the Ringside" Neal as Co-Master of Ceremonies for the night.
Read more about this topic: Edwin Neal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When the history of guilt is written, parents who refuse their children money will be right up there in the Top Ten.”
—Erma Brombeck (20th century)