by Ted Sherman

Created on: October 11, 2008

When a young film school student's project wins an Academy Award, that's a sure sign of future success. While at the University of Southern California, John Carpenter made, "The Resurrection of Bronco Billy", and it earned him a 1971 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

Earlier, as a high school student in the 1960s, he was inspired by the Frankenstein and Dracula films of the 1930s. Armed with an 8mm camera, he was already writing and filming original horror and monster movies in his Kentucky backyard. At the same time, he was composing and performing his own music for his films, as he would do in the future, thanks to growing up in a household headed by his music professor dad.

His first post-college film, co-written by fellow student Danny O'Bannon, was an outer space comedy, "Dark Star". The cheaply-made feature had very limited B-movie distribution, but received some favorable critical notices. He then made another bare-budget film, a police-shoot-'em-up called, "Assault on Precinct 13", which actually made money in the U.S., and after it was shown at the 1974 London Film Festival, it became very popular in the United Kingdom.

Carpenter next wrote the scripts for two moderately popular hits, "Eyes of Laura Mars" and "Zuma Beach". With his stature growing in Hollywood, he got financing for what was to become his break-out into the big time, the horror classic, "Halloween". The 1978 project cost less than $350 thousand in its first release and in the years since, and it has so far brought in more than $18 million. Halloween's seven slasher sequels (so far) since have made Carpenter a millionaire many times over.

While his Halloween project was proceeding, Carpenter directed a TV biography, "Elvis", and the creepy theater movie, "The Fog". The leading actress in "The Fog" was Adrienne Barbeau, who had previously starred in the TV sit-com, "Maude". They celebrated the debut of the movie by their wedding. After a tumultuous five-year marriage, and one son, Cody, they were divorced. Barbeau later married actor and playwright Billy Van Zandt, and at the age of 52 in 1997, gave birth to twin boys, Walker and Billy. In 1990, Carpenter married Los Angeles socialite and film director and scriptwriter Sandy King.

In 1980, and flush with success for his slasher movies, Carpenter made the first sequel of many to follow, and equally-successful money-maker, "Halloween II" The next year, he took on a more ambitious film, the futuristic disaster movie, "Escape From New York".

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