Ed Wood

Edward Davis Wood Jr. (October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978) was an American filmmaker, 
actor, and pulp novel author.
In the 1950s, Wood directed several low-budget science fiction, crime and horror films that later became cult classics, notably "Glen or Glenda" (1953), "Jail Bait" (1954), "Bride of the Monster" (1955), "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1957) and "Night of the Ghouls" (1959). In the 1960s and 1970s, he moved towards sexploitation and pornographic films such as "The Sinister Urge" (1960), "Orgy of the Dead" (1965) and "Necromania" (1971), and wrote over 80 lurid pulp crime and sex novels.
Notable for their campy aesthetics, technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, use of poorly-matched stock footage, eccentric casts, idiosyncratic stories and non sequitur dialogue, Wood's films remained largely obscure until he was posthumously awarded a Golden Turkey Award for Worst Director of All Time in 1980, renewing public interest in his life and work.
Following the publication of Rudolph Grey's 1992 oral biography "Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr.", a biopic of his life, "Ed Wood" (1994), was directed by Tim Burton. Starring Johnny Depp as Wood and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, the film received critical acclaim and various awards, including two Academy Awards.
Early years.
Wood's father, Edward Sr., worked for the United States Post Office Department as a custodian, and his family relocated numerous times around the United States. Eventually, they settled in Poughkeepsie, New York, where Ed Wood Jr. was born in 1924. According to Wood's second wife, Kathy O'Hara, Wood's mother Lillian would dress him in girl's clothing when he was a child because she had always wanted a daughter (Ed only had one brother, several years younger than himself). For the rest of his life, Wood crossdressed, infatuated with the feel of angora on his skin.
During his childhood, Wood was interested in the performing arts and pulp fiction. He collected comic books and pulp magazines, and adored movies, especially Westerns, serials, and the occult. Buck Jones and Bela Lugosi were two of his earliest childhood idols. He often skipped school in order to watch motion pictures at the local movie theater, where stills from last week's films would often be thrown into the trash by theater staff, allowing Wood to salvage the images, and to add to his extensive collection.
On his 12th birthday, in 1936, Wood received as a gift his first movie camera, a Kodak "Cine Special". One of his first pieces of footage, and one that imbued him with pride, showed the airship "Hindenburg" passing over the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, shortly before its disastrous crash at Lakehurst, New Jersey. One of Wood's first paid jobs was as a cinema usher, and he also sang and played drums in a band. Subsequently, he formed a quartet called "Eddie Wood's Little Splinters" in which he sang and played multiple stringed instruments.
Military service.
In 1942, Wood enlisted at age 17 in the United States Marine Corps, just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Assigned to the 2nd Defense Battalion, he reached the rank of corporal before he was discharged in 1946 at age 21. Although Wood reportedly claimed to have faced strenuous combat, including having his front teeth knocked out by a Japanese soldier, his military records reveal that to be false; apart from recovering bodies on Betio following the Battle of Tarawa, and experiencing minor Japanese bombing raids on Betio and the Ellice Islands, a recurring filariasis infection left him performing clerical work for the remainder of his enlistment. His dental extractions were carried out over several months by Navy dentists, unconnected to any combat. Wood had false teeth that he would slip out from his mouth when he wanted to make his wife Kathy laugh, showing her a big toothless grin. Wood later claimed that he feared being wounded in battle more than he feared being killed, mainly because he was afraid a combat medic would discover him wearing a pink bra and panties under his uniform during the Battle of Tarawa.
Career.
Directing and screenwriting.
In 1947, Wood moved to Hollywood, California, where he wrote scripts and directed television pilots, commercials and several forgotten micro-budget westerns, most of which failed to sell. In 1948, Wood wrote, produced, directed, and starred in "The Casual Company", a play derived from his own unpublished novel which was based on his service in the United States Marine Corps. It opened at the Village Playhouse to negative reviews on October 25. That same year, he wrote and directed a low-budget western called "Crossroads of Laredo" with the aid of a young producer he met named Crawford John Thomas. The film was shot silent and was not completed during Wood's lifetime.
In 1949, Wood and Thomas acted together in a play called "The Blackguard Returns" at the Gateway Theatre (Wood played the Sheriff and Thomas was the villain). Wood joined the Screen Actors Guild in 1951, and worked very briefly as a stuntman among other things. When writing, Wood used a number of different pen names, including Ann Gora (in reference to Angora, his favorite female textile) and Akdov Telmig (the backwards spelling of his favorite drink, the vodka gimlet).
In 1952, Wood was introduced to actor Bela Lugosi by friend and fellow writer-producer Alex Gordon (Wood's roommate at the time who was later involved in creating American International Pictures). Lugosi's son, Bela Lugosi Jr., has been among those who felt Wood exploited the senior Lugosi's stardom, taking advantage of the fading actor when he could not afford to refuse any work. However, most documents and interviews with other Wood associates in "Nightmare of Ecstasy" suggest that Wood and Lugosi were genuine friends and that Wood helped Lugosi through the worst days of his clinical depression and drug addiction. Lugosi had become dependent on morphine as a way of controlling his debilitating sciatica over the years, and was in a poor mental state caused by his recent divorce.
"Glen or Glenda".
In 1953, Wood wrote and directed the semi-documentary film "Glen or Glenda" (originally titled "I Changed My Sex!") with producer George Weiss. The film starred Wood (under the alias "Daniel Davis") as a transvestite, his girlfriend Dolores Fuller, Timothy Farrell, Lyle Talbot, Conrad Brooks and Bela Lugosi as the god-like narrator/scientist. Fuller was shocked when she learned soon afterward that Wood actually "was" a transvestite.
In 1953, Wood wrote and directed a stage show for Lugosi called "The Bela Lugosi Review" (a take-off on "Dracula") that was put on at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas. When Lugosi appeared on the TV show "You Asked For It" that same year, he announced that Ed Wood was producing a "Dr. Acula" TV show for him, but it never materialized. Wood acted as Lugosi's dialogue coach when he guest-starred on "The Red Skelton Show" in 1954, alongside Lon Chaney Jr. and Vampira (aka Maila Nurmi).
"Jail Bait".
Wood co-produced and directed a crime film, "Jail Bait" (1954, originally titled "The Hidden Face"), along with his co-writer/ roommate Alex Gordon, which starred Herbert Rawlinson (as the plastic surgeon), Lyle Talbot, Dolores Fuller, Timothy Farrell, Theodora Thurman and Steve Reeves (in one of his first acting jobs). Bela Lugosi was supposed to play the lead role of the plastic surgeon, but was busy with another project when filming started and had to bow out. His replacement, Herbert Rawlinson, died the day after he filmed his scenes. Distributor Ron Ormond changed the title from "The Hidden Face" to "Jail Bait" just before releasing it.
"Bride of the Monster".
Wood produced and directed the horror film "Bride of the Monster" (1955, originally titled "Bride of the Atom" or "The Monster of the Marshes"), based on an original story idea by Alex Gordon which he had originally called "The Atomic Monster". It starred Bela Lugosi as the mad scientist, Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson as mute manservant "Lobo", Paul Marco, Billy Benedict ("Whitey" of "The Bowery Boys"), Harvey B. Dunn and Loretta King. Soon after the film was completed, Bela Lugosi committed himself to the Norwalk State Hospital for three months, to be treated for drug addiction. The film premiered on May 11, 1955, at the Paramount theater in Hollywood while Lugosi was institutionalized, but a special screening was arranged for him upon his release, pleasing him greatly.
"The Violent Years".
In 1956, Wood wrote the screenplay (uncredited) for the film "The Violent Years" (originally titled "Teenage Girl Gang"), which was directed by William M. Morgan, starring "Playboy" model Jean Moorhead, Timothy Farrell, and serial star I. Stanford Jolley (as a judge).
Wood began filming a juvenile delinquency film called "Rock and Roll Hell" (a.k.a. "Hellborn") in 1956, but producer George Weiss pulled the plug on the project after only ten minutes of footage had been completed. Wood's friend Conrad Brooks purchased the footage from Weiss, and some scenes were later incorporated as stock footage into Wood's later "Night of the Ghouls" (1959). (The entire ten minutes of footage was later released complete on VHS in 1993, as "Hellborn".)
"Plan 9 from Outer Space".
In late 1956, Wood co-produced, wrote, and directed his science fiction opus "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (his screenplay was originally titled "Grave Robbers from Outer Space"), which featured Bela Lugosi in a small role. (Lugosi actually died in August 1956 before production even began but Wood inserted some footage into the film that he had previously shot of Lugosi in 1955–1956). The film also starred Tor Johnson, Vampira (Maila Nurmi), Tom Mason (who doubled for Lugosi in some scenes), and the Amazing Criswell as the film's narrator. "Plan 9" premiered on March 15, 1957, at the Carlton Theatre in Hollywood, and later went into general release in July 1959 (retitled "Plan Nine from Outer Space") in Texas and a number of other Southern states. It was finally sold to late night television in 1961, thereby finding its audience over the years. It became Wood's best-known film and received a cult following in 1980 when Michael Medved declared this film "the worst film ever made" in his book "The Golden Turkey Awards".
"Final Curtain".
In 1957 Wood wrote and directed a pilot for a suspense-horror TV series to be called "Portraits in Terror" that ultimately failed to sell. The pilot, entitled "Final Curtain", sees an old and world-weary actor wandering in an empty theatre, imagining ghosts and a living mannequin haunting the backstage area, until a la "The Twilight Zone", he realizes that he himself is dead. The episode has no dialogue, and Dudley Manlove narrates the thoughts of Duke Moore as the actor. Bela Lugosi would've starred in this short film had he lived. Parts of the unsold pilot were later recycled for use in Wood's "Night of the Ghouls" (1959). The episode was thought to be lost until a complete print was located circa 2010. It was remastered and given its first ever cinema showing in a theater in February 2012. Today it is widely available online and on DVD.
"Night of the Ghouls".
In 1958, Wood wrote, produced, and directed "Night of the Ghouls" (originally titled "Revenge of the Dead"), starring Kenne Duncan, Tor Johnson (reprising his role as "Lobo" from "Bride of the Monster"), Criswell, Duke Moore, and Valda Hansen. The film premiered at the Vista Theatre in Hollywood on a double bill with the Lana Turner movie "Imitation of Life" on March 17, 1959, and then promptly vanished from circulation. For many years, it was thought to be a lost film, but distribution of the film was held up for 25 years because Wood hadn't paid the lab bill. Video producer Wade Williams paid the bill and released the film on videocassette in 1984, copyrighting the film in his name.
In 1958, Wood also wrote the screenplay for "The Bride and the Beast" (1958), which was directed by Adrian Weiss. Wood's screenplay was based on Adrian Weiss' plot.
Wood also wrote the screenplay (as "Peter LaRoche") for a 1959 "nudie cutie" film called "Revenge of the Virgins", which was directed by Peter Perry Jr.
"The Sinister Urge".
Wood wrote and directed the exploitation film "The Sinister Urge" (1960), starring Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore, Dino Fantini, Harvey B. Dunn and Carl Anthony. Filmed in just five days, this is the last mainstream film Wood directed, although it has grindhouse elements. The film contains an "eerily prescient" scene, in which Carl Anthony's character states, "I look at this slush, and I try to remember, at one time, I made good movies". The scenes of the teenagers at the pizzeria had been previously shot in 1956 for Wood's unfinished juvenile delinquency film, "Rock and Roll Hell" (a.k.a. "Hellborn"), which Wood never completed.
Also in 1960, Wood wrote the screenplay for "The Peeper", which he intended as a direct sequel to his 1960 film "The Sinister Urge", but it was never produced.
Wood also contributed to the plot of Jane Mann's 1961 screenplay "Anatomy of a Psycho". The film was directed by Mann's husband Boris Petroff.
In 1963, Wood wrote the screenplay for "Shotgun Wedding" (an exploitation film directed by Boris Petroff about hillbillies marrying child brides in the Ozarks). Wood wrote the screenplay from a story idea by Jane Mann. Wood's friend, cameraman William C. Thompson, died around this time.
"Orgy of the Dead".
Wood's 1965 transitional film "Orgy of the Dead" (originally titled "Nudie Ghoulies") combined the horror and grindhouse skin-flick genres. Wood handled various production details while Stephen C. Apostolof directed under the pseudonym A. C. Stephen. The film begins with a recreation of the opening scene from "Night of the Ghouls". Criswell, wearing one of Lugosi's old capes, rises from his coffin to deliver an introduction taken almost word-for-word from the previous film. Set in a misty graveyard, the Lord of the Dead (Criswell) and his sexy consort, the Black Ghoul (a Vampira look-alike), preside over a series of macabre performances by topless dancers from beyond the grave (recruited by Wood from local strip clubs). The film also features a Wolf Man and a Mummy. Together, Wood and Apostolof went on to make a string of sexploitation films up to 1977. Wood co-wrote the screenplays with Apostolof and occasionally even acted in some of the films.
In 1969, Wood appeared in "The Photographer" (a.k.a. "Love Feast" or "Pretty Models All in a Row"), the first of two films produced by a Marine buddy, Joseph F. Robertson, with Wood portraying a photographer using his position to engage in sexual antics with his models.
Wood had a smaller role in Robertson's second film, "Mrs. Stone's Thing" (1970), as a transvestite who spends his time at a party trying on lingerie in a bedroom.
In 1969, Wood adapted his own novel "Mama's Diary" written under the pseudonym Dick Trent into "Operation Red Light" for Jacques Descent Production. Over half the footage was destroyed in a film-processing accident and the film is considered lost. 
"Venus Flytrap" (1970) aka "The Revenge of Dr. X", a US/Japanese co-production, was based on an unproduced Ed Wood screenplay from the 1950s. The film was produced and directed by Sci-Fi pulp writer Norman Earl Thomson. The film involves a mad scientist who uses lightning to transform plants into man-eating monsters. Wood did not participate in the actual making of the movie.
"Take It Out in Trade".
In 1970, Wood wrote and directed his own pornographic film, "Take It Out in Trade", starring Duke Moore and Nona Carver. Wood played a transvestite named Alecia in the film.
In 1970, Wood produced a 45 rpm record which featured Tor Johnson on one side, reading "The Day The Mummy Returned", and Criswell reading "The Final Curtain" on the other. It has never been determined whether or not the record was actually released, but many of them were definitely produced.
"Necromania".
In 1971, he produced, wrote and directed "Necromania" (subtitled "A Tale of Weird Love") under the pseudonym "Don Miller". The film was an early entry to the new subgenre of hardcore pornographic films. Thought lost for years, it resurfaced in edited form on Mike Vraney's Something Weird imprint in the late 1980s, and was re-released later on DVD by Fleshbot Films in 2005. In the Rudolph Grey biography "Nightmare of Ecstasy", Maila Nurmi ("Vampira") said she declined Wood's offer to do a nude scene sitting in a coffin for "Necromania", claiming she was recovering from a stroke at the time.
From 1971 to 1972, Wood directed an unknown number of short X-Rated films produced by the Swedish Erotica film company. These were short 12-minute loops that were silent films with subtitles. Ed was paid $100.00 for every ten loops he subtitled.
Wood's friends Kenne Duncan and Tor Johnson both passed away during this period. (Ed Wood was named executor of Kenne Duncan's estate, and following Duncan's death, Wood held a small memorial funeral for him with his wife and some friends in his backyard around the swimming pool where they eulogized the departed Western film star.) Wood's friend Duke Moore died in 1976.
Throughout the 1970s, Wood worked with his friend Stephen C. Apostolof, usually co-writing scripts with him, but also serving as an assistant director and an associate producer. (Together they had made Wood's "Orgy of the Dead" back in 1965.) Wood's last known on-screen appearance (a dual role) was in Apostolof's 1974 film "Fugitive Girls" (a.k.a. "Five Loose Women"), in which he played both a gas station attendant called "Pops" and a sheriff on the fugitive women's trail.
At the time of his death, Wood was working on a biographical screenplay based on the last years of actor Bela Lugosi to be called "Lugosi Post Mortem", which was supposed to star actor Peter Coe as Lugosi and Karl Johnson as his father Tor Johnson. The nearly completed script was left behind the last time Wood was evicted and is presumed to have been discarded in the trash. Wood was also working on a screenplay for a film called "Venus De Milo", a mystery that would explain the famous statue's missing arms.
Technically, Wood's last acting job was in the 1978 Stephen Apostolof film "Hot Ice". Ed Wood played a janitor in the film, but his scene was cut out at the last minute due to his drunkenness on the set. Wood died soon after this film was made in 1978, at age 54. (Ironically his demise coincided with the end of the soft-core porn industry circa 1978. Apostolof himself stopped making films as well at this time.)
Books and novels.
Beginning in 1963 up until his death, Wood wrote at least 80 lurid crime and sex novels in addition to hundreds of short stories and non-fiction pieces for magazines and daily newspapers.
His novels include "Black Lace Drag" (1963) (reissued in 1965 as "Killer in Drag"), "Orgy of the Dead" (1965), "Parisian Passions" (1966), "Watts the Difference" (1966), "Side-Show Siren" (1966), "Drag Trade" (1967), "Watts After" (1967), "Devil Girls" (1967), "It Takes One to Know One" (1967), "Death of a Transvestite" (1967), "Suburbia Confidential" (1967), "Night Time Lez" (1968), "The Perverts" (1968), "Bye Bye Broadie" (1968), "Raped in the Grass" (1968), "Sex, Shrouds and Caskets" (1968), "Love of the Dead" (1968), "The Sexecutives" (1968), "Young, Black and Gay" (1968), "Hell Chicks" (1968), "The Gay Underworld" (1968), "Carnival Piece" (1969), "Toni, Black Tigress" (1969), "Mama's Diary" (1969), "To Make a Homo" (1969), "Mary-Go-Round" (1969), "The Sexual Woman" (1971), "The Only House" (1972), "A Study of Fetishes and Fantasies" (1973), "Tales for a Sexy Night Part 1 and 2" (1973), "Sex Star" (1973), "Death of a Transvestite Hooker" (1974). "Forced Entry" (1974), and "TV Lust" (1977).
In 1965, Wood wrote the quasi-memoir "Hollywood Rat Race", which was only published years later in 1998. In it, Wood advises new writers to "just keep on writing. Even if your story gets worse, you'll get better", and also recounts tales of dubious authenticity, such as how he and Bela Lugosi entered the world of nightclub cabaret.
Thirty-two short stories known to be written by Wood (he sometimes wrote under pseudonyms such as "Ann Gora" and "Dr. T.K. Peters") are collected in an anthology "Blood Splatters Quickly", published by OR Books in 2014.
Unrealized projects.
Wood's list of unrealized film projects also included scripts called "Piranhas" (1957), "Trial by Terror" (1958), "The Peeper" (a proposed 1960 sequel to "The Sinister Urge"), "Silent Night" (1961), "Joaquin Murieta" (a 1965 biopic about the infamous bandit of the Old West), "Mice on a Cold Cellar Floor" (1973), "Epitaph for the Town Drunk" (1973), "To Kill a Saturday Night" (1973, which was set to star John Carradine), "The Teachers" (1973), "The Basketballers" (1973), "The Airline Hostesses" (1973), "I Awoke Early the Day I Died" (1974, a rewrite of Wood's 1961 "Silent Night"), "Heads, No Tails" (1974, a take-off on Sweeney Todd), and "Shoot Seven" (1977, Wood's proposed musical based on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre).
Personal life.
Relationships and marriages.
Wood was in a long term relationship with actress and songwriter Dolores Fuller, whom he met in late 1952. She was in the process of divorcing her first husband Donald Fuller, with whom she had had two sons. Wood and Fuller shared an apartment for three years, and Wood cast her in three of his films: "Glen or Glenda", "Jail Bait" and, in a very brief cameo, in "Bride of the Monster". Fuller later said she initially had no idea that Wood was a crossdresser and was mortified when she saw Wood dressed as a woman for the first time in "Glen or Glenda". The couple broke up in 1955 after Wood cast another actress for the lead role in "Bride of the Monster" (Wood originally wrote the part for Fuller but later reduced her part to a brief cameo appearance) and because of Wood's excessive drinking. Fuller relocated to New York City where she embarked on a successful songwriting career, writing for famous singers like Elvis Presley and Nat King Cole. Fuller died on May 9, 2011 at age 88.
In 1956, soon after his breakup with Fuller, Wood married actress Norma McCarty. McCarty appeared as Edie, the airplane stewardess, in "Plan 9 from Outer Space", and was recently divorced with two sons, Mike and John McCarty, from her earlier marriage. The marriage took Wood’s friends by surprise; one night Wood called everyone to the sound stage for what they thought was a cast party, but when everyone was present, Wood brought out a huge wedding cake and a preacher, and announced he was getting married. The marriage ended approximately one month later after McCarty discovered that Wood was a crossdresser, and while it has been reported that their marriage was annulled, according to film archivist Wade Williams, they neither annulled the marriage nor legally divorced. (McCarty died on June 27, 2014 at age 93.)
Wood moved in with Paul Marco for a short while after McCarty left him. Later in 1956, Wood met Kathy O'Hara in a bar one night where he was drinking with Bela Lugosi. O’Hara fell in love with Wood immediately; they were married in Las Vegas a short while later, and Wood always considered O’Hara his legal wife despite the fact that his first marriage had not been legally annulled. Wood and O'Hara remained together until Wood's death in December 1978. Kathy O’Hara never got along with his mother Lillian, calling her "a strict disciplinarian" who messed Wood up psychologically from early childhood. Wood occasionally sent money to his mom in the mail, without O’Hara’s knowledge.
Alleged daughter.
Ed Wood was shocked to learn he had fathered an illegitimate daughter after World War II with a young woman he had dated while he was in the Marines. According to Conrad Brooks, Wood and his wife Kathy only met the young woman (also named Kathy) in 1967 when she was already 21 years old. Born on May 23, 1946, the girl had been living in Lancaster, California and had managed to trace her father's whereabouts. Wood's mother Lillian said she had been contacted by the girl back in 1963 when she sent his mother a photo and introduced herself to Lillian as her granddaughter. Lillian said she sent the girl a watch for her graduation in 1964, but never heard back from her. 
There is a photo of the young woman in Rudolph Grey's biography on Ed Wood.
She visited the Woods and stayed over at their house for a couple of days, but apparently the two Kathys did not get along well. In fact, Wood's wife physically threw her out of the house on the second day when she found her sleeping on their sofa.
Wood's wife Kathy never believed that the girl was Wood's daughter, saying in an interview, "There was never any proof, only the woman's statement on a birth certificate." Wood told Kathy that the woman he had sex with in 1946 used to sleep around regularly "with 10 or 20 other Marines at the base", so he probably wasn't the girl's father. She said "She's "not" your daughter, that bitch lied to you! The father could have been anyone. There's only her accusation."
Actress Valda Hansen said "I met Ed's daughter at his house in the Valley. She looked just like him. Beautiful, delicate. Green eyes, dark chocolate brown hair. She was very sweet." Art director Bob Derteno, who worked with Wood on "Orgy of the Dead", said that Wood later travelled to attend his daughter's wedding in New York and was later told that he had become a grandfather.
Cross-dressing.
In Rudolph Grey's 1992 biography "Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr.", Wood's wife Kathy O’Hara recalls that Wood told her that his mother dressed him in girls' clothing as a child. O’Hara stated that Wood's transvestitism was not a sexual inclination, but rather a neomaternal comfort derived mainly from angora fabric (angora is featured in many of Wood's films). Even in his later years, Wood was not shy about going out in public dressed in drag as "Shirley", his female alter ego (a name that appeared in many of his screenplays and stories). In his partly autobiographical film "Glen or Glenda", the heterosexual Wood takes pains to emphasize that a male transvestite is not automatically also a homosexual. Wood directed many of his pornographic films in drag, but usually would not take the time to shave, which made for a bizarre sight, according to his friends. Wood always swore that he had never had a single homosexual relationship in his life, and was even considered quite a womanizer by many of his acquaintances. He said once that his greatest fantasy, though, was to be reincarnated as a gorgeous blonde.
Later years.
During the last fifteen years of his life, Wood depended almost entirely on writing pornography to earn a living, receiving about $1,000 per novel which he spent almost immediately on alcohol at the local liquor store. Friends have stated how, in his final years, he eventually stopped bathing, and that his apartment was so filthy he eventually would not allow friends to come over and visit any more because he knew they would be horrified to see how unkempt it had become. Paul Marco said Wood was constantly moaning, "My God, I've given everything away. I should be a millionaire. I should have a million bucks right now!" 
Actor John Agar, an alcoholic himself, was drinking at Wood's apartment one day in the late 1960s when the afternoon news program erroneously announced Agar's obituary. Wood called the studio and told them that Agar was not dead. He told them "He's alive...he's sitting right here with me now!". The story was corrected shortly thereafter.
Ed Wood and his wife were routinely evicted from apartments for non-payment of rent. Each time they moved, Wood would immediately establish credit with the liquor store nearest his new address. Their last apartment was in a high-crime ghetto area "at the corner of Yucca and Cahuenga" in Hollywood inhabited by drug addicts, gamblers and prostitutes. Wood, who regularly pawned his typewriters for cash, was mugged regularly when he would stumble down to the liquor store. Eventually he had his publisher send his checks directly to the various liquor store owners so that he wouldn't have to carry cash when he went there. 
The Woods’ apartment was always in danger of being burglarized. One night, a transvestite was beaten to death in the hallway just outside Wood's apartment door and the sound of gunshots outside the building was a nightly occurrence.
According to friends, Wood and his wife often became violent when they drank. Stories abound of the two beating each other, Wood sometimes knocking Kathy unconscious. Criswell commented once, "I always had the feeling that one would kill the other. And if you were there, the killer would say you did it!" Nonetheless, years after Wood's death, his wife always professed to love him dearly.
Bela Lugosi biographer Robert Cremer interviewed Wood once in his Yucca apartment for his 1976 book "Lugosi: The Man Behind the Cape" two years before Wood died. Cremer said Wood began the interview sober, but quickly became intoxicated as the interview proceeded. Cremer said, "He started getting really angry at me because he felt he was the person who should be writing (the book)...He went out in the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of Wild Turkey...He smashed the bottle on the kitchen counter and then came after me with it. He lunged at me but he was so drunk, I just pushed him against the wall and he collapsed. I just walked out the door and said "Okay Ed, I guess that was our last interview. I'll see you."
Death.
By 1978, Wood's depression had worsened, and he and his wife Kathy had both succumbed to alcoholism. They were evicted from their Hollywood apartment on Yucca Street on Thursday, December 7, 1978, in total poverty by two sheriff's deputies called by their landlord for failure to pay their overdue rent and had to leave behind all of his scrapbooks and unfinished screenplays, which the landlord allegedly threw into a garbage dumpster. The couple moved into the small North Hollywood apartment of their friend, actor Peter Coe, located at 5635 Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Wood spent the weekend drinking vodka and desperately calling old friends for money, but to no avail.
Around noon on Sunday, December 10, Wood felt ill and went to lie down in Coe's bedroom while Coe, O’Hara and a few friends were watching a football game on TV. From the bedroom, he asked O’Hara to bring him a drink, which she refused to do. A few minutes later he yelled out, "Kathy, I can't breathe!", a plea O’Hara ignored as she later said she was tired of Wood bossing her around. After hearing no movement in the bedroom for twenty minutes, O’Hara sent a female friend to check on Wood, who discovered him dead on the bed from a heart attack. O’Hara later said, "I still remember when I went into that room that afternoon and he was dead, his eyes and mouth were wide open. I'll never forget the look in his eyes. He clutched at the sheets. It looked like he'd seen Hell."
Wood was cremated at the Utter-McKinley mortuary, and his ashes were scattered at sea. Paul Marco, Kathy O'Hara, David DeMering and Criswell attended Wood's makeshift memorial service which was held at Peter Coe's apartment following the cremation. Marco recalled how devastated Kathy was at the time.
Legacy and homages.
At the time of his death, Wood's name and career had become so obscure that most local Los Angeles newspapers, including the entertainment magazine "Variety", didn't run an obituary about him. 
The 1982 film "It Came from Hollywood" featured a "Tribute to Ed Wood" segment.
In 1986 in an essay paying homage to Wood in "Incredibly Strange Films", Jim Morton wrote: "Eccentric and individualistic, Edward D. Wood Jr. was a man born to film. [...] Lesser men, if forced to make movies under the conditions Wood faced, would have thrown up their hands in defeat".
In 1994, director Tim Burton released the biopic "Ed Wood", starring Johnny Depp in the title role and Martin Landau, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi. It also won an Academy Award for Best Makeup for Rick Baker. Conrad Brooks appeared in the movie in a cameo role as "Barman", along with Gregory Walcott in the role of a potential backer. The film premiered on September 30, 1994, just ten days before what would have been Wood's 70th birthday. Despite receiving mass critical acclaim, the movie did poorly at the box office; however, it has since developed a cult following.
In 1996, Reverend Steve Galindo of Seminole, Oklahoma, created a legally recognized religion with Wood as its official savior. Founded as a joke, the Church of Ed Wood now boasts more than 3,500 baptized followers. Woodites, as Galindo's followers are called, celebrate "Woodmas" on October 10, which was Wood's birthday. Numerous parties and concerts are held worldwide to celebrate Woodmas. On October 4–5, 2003, horror host Mr. Lobo was canonized as the "Patron Saint of late night movie hosts and insomniacs" in the Church of Ed Wood.
In 1997 the University of Southern California began holding an annual "Ed Wood Film Festival", in which student teams are challenged to write, film, and edit an Ed Wood-inspired short film based on a preassigned theme. Past themes have included "Rebel Without a Bra" (2004), "What's That in Your Pocket?" (2005), and "Slippery When Wet" (2006).
Lost films.
Wood's 1972 film "The Undergraduate" was a lost film, as was his 1970 film "Take It Out in Trade", but they both eventually turned up years later. (Both films in their entirety are now available on DVD.)
An 80-minute print of "Take It Out in Trade" was discovered and publicly exhibited at Anthology Film Archives in New York City in September 2014. Silent outtakes from the film were released by Something Weird Video. 
Wood's 1971 film "Necromania" was also believed lost for years, until an edited version resurfaced at a yard sale in 1992, followed in 2001 by a complete, unedited print.
A complete print of Wood's lost 1972 pornographic film, "The Young Marrieds" was discovered in 2004. It was released by Alpha Blue Archives in July 2014 as a part of the four-DVD set "The Lost Sex Films of Ed Wood Jr.".
Wood is said to have filmed some scenes of Lon Chaney Jr. in a werewolf costume in Hollywood in 1964 that were said to have been later incorporated into Jerry Warren's film "Face of the Screaming Werewolf" (1965). Chaney biographer Don G. Smith however has stated that this story was never substantiated.