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John Carpenter

John Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York and raised in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father was a college music professor. Captivated by movies, especially westerns, at an early age, Carpenter attended Western Kentucky University then enrolled in the University of Southern California's School of Cinema.

After winning an Academy Award for his 1970 short subject, The Resurrection of Bronco Billy (completed while he was a film student at USC), Carpenter directed a series of low-budget, highly commercial and critically acclaimed movies including Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween.

Following Halloween, Carpenter cemented his reputation as a visionary horror film director with such hits as the original version of The Fog, They Live, Prince of Darkness, and Christine. He proved himself to be a formidable action director with such productions as Escape From New York, The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China.

Carpenter's motion picture credits also include the comedy-thriller Memoirs of an Invisible Man, the psychological horror film In the Mouth of Madness, the sci-fi love story Starman, which earned Jeff Bridges a Best Actor Oscar nomination and Village of the Damned, the terrifying remake of the classic 1950s horror story. For the small screen, Carpenter directed the thriller Someone's Watching Me, the acclaimed biographical mini-series Elvis starring Kurt Russell and the Showtime horror trilogy John Carpenter Presents Body Bags.

This master of terror, as one critic described him, shaped the imagination of filmgoers and generations of young filmmakers with such additional thrillers as Vampires, Escape from LA and Ghosts of Mars.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2005.
Read earlier biographies on this page.

John Carpenter Facts

Birth NameJohn Howard Carpenter
OccupationDirector, Screenwriter
BirthdayJanuary 16, 1948 (76)
SignCapricorn
BirthplaceCarthage, New York, USA
Height6' (1m83)  How tall is John Carpenter compared to you?

Selected Filmography

The Thing
They Live
Halloween: The Complete Collection
Halloween
John Carpenter's Vampires
Christine
Prince of Darkness
In the Mouth of Madness
Continue » Find more details on the John Carpenter Movies page