Conrad Brooks
Actor known for appearing in scores of low-quality films
CONRAD BROOKS, who has died aged 86, was once described in The New York Times as “the John Gielgud of B-movies,” and probably appeared in more bad films than anyone in history – he claimed 200 over five decades as an actor.
He was mainly known as a member of the director Ed Wood’s 1950s-era troupe of eccentrics, including a down-on-his-luck Bela Lugosi, who appeared in films which feature regularly in “worst ever” lists. These included Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958), which was judged the “Worst Film of All Time”in the 1980 book, The Golden Turkey Awards.
Wood, an alcoholic and a transvestite, made films notable for their cheapness and malapropism-laden dialogue. “Ed Wood shot on a zero budget borrowing off friends,” Brooks recalled. “There was no scope for a second take. Often without any specific script … you’d just make it up as you went along. Filming occurred wherever Wood pitched his camera.”
For Plan 9 from Outer Space the “special effects” consisted of flying saucers made of hub caps suspended from bits of string and tombstones made from cardboard boxes glued together. Brooks appeared in a few scenes as a patrolman searching for a zombie in a graveyard and admitting that “It’s hard to find something, when you don’t know what it is you’re looking for.”
The film was notable for featuring the last screen performance by Bela Lugosi as a ghoul resurrected by aliens to take on scientists bent on destroying the world. When Lugosi died early in the filming Wood simply used footage of him from a different project and replaced him, when needed, with his girlfriend’s chiropractor, who kept his face covered with a cape.
By the 1990s the sheer awfulness of Wood’s films had earned them a cult following, and in 1994 Brooks had a cameo role as a barman in Ed Wood, Tim Burton’s homage to the director.
One of seven children, Brooks was born Conrad Biedrzycki on January 3 1931 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Polish immigrant parents.
Aged 17, determined to meet his hero John Wayne, Brooks and his older brothers, Henry and Ted, hitchhiked to Hollywood where they bumped into Ed Wood arguing over a bill in a doughnut shop. Although he was almost broke himself, Conrad stepped in to hand over the few cents required. That evening the brothers repaired to Wood’s apartment above a theatre, where Wood suddenly went off to the bathroom and re-emerged in drag. “It didn’t bother us,” Brooks recalled. “Maybe he thought we were casting directors. A lot of strange things happened in Hollywood that didn’t happen in Baltimore.”
Conrad and his brother Henry had silent parts in Wood’s first feature, Glen or Glenda (1953), starring Wood himself as a crossdressing man obsessed with angora sweaters, trying to get into his fiancee’s wardrobe. “My brother said, ‘It’s a five-day picture dealing with guys that want to be broads. Who would want that?’” Brooks said. “But we were hoping, for Ed’s sake. And Paramount did buy it – 35 years later.”
Brooks went on to appear in other Wood films, including The Sinister Urge (1960), about an assistant to a pornographic film director who starts murdering their leading ladies. He appeared in similar productions by other directors, his credits including A Polish Vampire in Burbank (1985), F. A. R. T: The Movie (1991) and Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 (1994).
In later life Brooks also turned to writing and directing and founded Conrad Brooks Productions, issuing a series of “Gypsy Vampire” films, described on one website as “films you should die before you see”.
Brooks was a frequent guest at bad-movie symposiums and participated in documentaries such as Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora.
Conrad Brooks, born January 3 1931, died December 6 2017