H.M.A. – At what age did you become interested in monsters and horror in general?

Bill Malone: I think the first time I really was hit by horror films full-force was in 1954. My mom took me to see “Creature from the Black Lagoon” in 3D at the Lucan Theater (now called the Campus Theater, I believe) in East Lansing Michigan. It was pouring rain and we stood in a long line waiting to get in. (Why she took me to see that, I haven’t a clue). In any case, it scared the living daylights out of me. It seemed so mysterious and cool, the world created in that theater. I just wanted more. Then I remember seeing a magazine on the newstand called World Famous Creatures (A Famous Monsters knock-off) It had a spread on the “Creature”. Then I got Famous Monsters and I was off and running, I would go see every monster movie that came out. Then I just started collecting more and more things on horror films.

H.M.A. – When did you begin making your own monster makeups and masks?

Bill Malone: It was really about the same time. I wanted to play with toys of these monsters, but at that time there just weren’t any. Today you can get everything. Back then, the only cool toys out were the tin Robby the Robots from Japan. Instead of baseballs or football helmets for my birthday or Christmas, I’d always ask my parents for modeling clay. I would spend hours making a Frankenstein lab or flying saucer from “Earth Vs the Flying Saucers” out of clay. I remember building a very detailed model of “The Fly” lab (1958 version). Then I would dress up willing neighborhood kids as the Mummy or such. But that just wasn’t enough so I read an article by Paul Blaisdell in “Fantastic Monsters of the Films” (a great monster mag of the era). He would tell all the “secrets” of how he made his monsters. He made it sound like anybody could do it. I wrote a letter to him and “WOW” he wrote me back. He was very encouraging. Eventually, he ran an article on a mask that I made. It was pretty heady stuff for a 13 year old from Lansing, Michigan. I still cherish those letters. Paul used to get slagged alot but I think people are beginning to appreciate his contributions to the genre. He was a great artist and a very kind man.

I eventually learned how to cast foam rubber monster masks by the time I was 14. I ordered a kit from Don Post Studios in California. Don, Sr. included a little note of tips on moldmaking . He was another guy who would just tell you everything. The foam kit had instructions on how to whip it up using your mom’s eggbeater. My mom wasn’t too happy. My art teachers in junior high didn’t know what to make of me. I don’t think they appreciated my efforts. I spent a lot of time terrorizing the neighborhood in various costumes that I’d made.

H.M.A. – All fans of the H.M.A. know that you had a long stint at the famous Don Post Studios when you were younger. How did you go about getting your job at D.P.?

Bill Malone: I actually came out to L.A. when I was 19 to become a rock star (like that worked). About the time, I was becoming disillusioned with the music business, I was asked by a friend of mine to help him make a Halloween costume. He wanted to go to a party as Pickman’s Model from Night Gallery. Stupidly, I agreed. I wound up buying the foam once again from Don Post. I went over to his place in Burbank and spoke to Don. He remembered me from my letters and was very helpful. I wound up making a full cast foam rubber suit just like the studio used. Don asked to see it, so I brought it in, along with the Robby the Robot replica head I was building at the time. He saw what I was doing and offered me a job. I was dead broke so… I remember starting in the paint department, painting Frankenstein’s (300 series). Incidently, sitting next to me was Robert Short (of Beetlejuice FX fame). It was his first day too. Don later offered to let me do a resculpt of one of the characters. The Creature was looking pretty blobby and wasn’t selling well. The original master mold had worn out and they couldn’t get the original (from the film) from Universal. So, I resculpted it and it suddenly started selling really well. Then Don asked me to do some others. I think I did the Mutant (This Island Earth”) next. Again the sales took off, so (Don and his son Don Jr). asked me to head up the lab. (At that time, I don’t really think they had a lab). I thought it would be great so I became the “head designer” (no pun intended) and later Vice President of Don Posts Studios.

H.M.A. – I bet you have more than a few great stories from the Golden days at D.P.. Would you mind sharing any of those with us?

Bill Malone: It was a great time. DPS had no competition and we were making all the masks right there in Burbank and later at 811 Milford in Glendale. In any case, any hair-brained idea that Bob (Robert Short) or I would come up with we’d just make it and put it out. One of our hair-brained ideas was getting the first merchandising license on Star Wars (we weren’t always so bright.). Bob had become the #2 guy in the lab and was responsible for some of the sculpting and laying out the catalogs. I was in charge of sculpting, which characters were produced and the photography for the catalog. Don Post Jr. ran the day to day operation (no small job for a company that was nearly doubling in sales every year). Sorry about that lengthy uncalled for explanation.

It was a tremendous learning experience. Everybody came in there John Chambers, Dick Smith, Bob Dawn who worked on “Black Lagoon” even Edgar Bergan. I was always trying to get him to hook me up with Candace. He wasn’t going for it. One of the stranger people who came in was a woman who called herself Medi Magnifico. She came in to get a life-mask made because she believed she was going to be famous. She wore a full military General’s uniform. I noticed that her pant legs were stapled to her boots. She was probably in her late fifties and wore so much make-up that when she had any facial expressions, chunks of it would fall off. She was handing out flyers that she was secretly married to J. Edgar Hoover and SECRETLY running for President of the United States (I love that concept). To this day Robert Short and I still laugh about that.

H.M.A. – How many years did you work at D.P., and what would you say was your favorite mask creation while you were there?

Bill Malone: I’ll try for a shorter answer this time. I started in late 1973 and left in mid 1980. I think my favorites
were The Old Vampire and Frankenstein 2000 (later renamed 2001) I also like the Death Cyborg. You know when we did a new character that was original, we tried to create a story for it (in our heads at least), We also tried to make the picture of it in the catalog covey a little of that story. I came up with the Death Cyborg in 1975 (I don’t think it actually came out ’til 76 or 77. In any case I had concocted a story for it being a futuristic robot assasin that just wouldn’t stop ’til you were dead. (Hummm sounds familiar somehow).

H.M.A. – Ok, here it comes, the inevitable string of Captain Kirk mask questions. You sculpted the Captain Kirk mask for Don Post Studios back in 1975. In your wildest dreams, would you have ever thought that your simple William Shatner mask sculpture would go down in horror history?

Bill Malone: I had no idea!!!! (LOL) Who could guess? At the time we were just trying to get as many licenses as we could because we thought Universal was going to pull our license on the classic monsters. I really thought making a Captain Kirk mask was stretching it. It never sold well. I do think they (the filmmakers) missed a bet. They should have had the Shape pull the mask off in the end of the film and actually have be Bill Shatner. That would have been great.

H.M.A. – Was this a difficult sculpt for you at the time? How long did it take you to complete the sculpture and what references did you use?

Bill Malone: I actually remember that as being one of my easier sculpts. We got a life cast from Paramount of Shatner, I made a mold, then did a clay press. I used that as the basis and then just enlarged it so it would fit. You can’t use a head casting straight up because it would shrink when it is made of rubber and it would be too small to wear. The trick is enlarging it and still keeping it recognizable as the person.

H.M.A. – Was the Kirk a popular mask for D.P., and do you recall how many years it was produced, as well as how many?

Bill Malone: As I said, it really wasn’t a big seller. I think we produced maybe 350 a year, for a couple of years. Then it dwindled off ’til we discontinued it.

H.M.A. – So in 1977, a young film director named John Carpenter decided to use your Captain Kirk mask for the baby sitter killer Michael Myers in his first horror movie Halloween. There are so many stories revolving around how the famous Myers mask came to be. The most popular story is that the film’s production designer Tommy Wallace, purchased a Kirk mask at a Hollywood costume shop, widened the eyes, stripped the side burns, messed up the hair, and painted it white. Thus, Michael Myers was born! So, with that story fans are led to believe that only one mask was used in the filming of Halloween, and Don Post didn’t have much involvement with it. How do you recall the events surrounding the Captain Kirk mask used in Halloween? Did you or anyone else at D.P. have any direct involvement with the mask?

Bill Malone: I can’t really say if Tommy Wallace bought one in Hollywood or not. However, I do remember very vividly that John Carpenter did come in with a girl and another guy and ask us to make a very different Captain Kirk mask. What he actually asked for, was us to paint one white (with Rubber Cement paint) and spray paint the hair black. If you look at the first film (in the early scenes you’ll see this is actually how it is. Later, during filming, it gets quite thrashed looking and more of the brown hair shows through. At the time, I knew who Jon Carpenter was from Dark Star and I thought whatever he’s up to I want one for my own collection. I had the paint department make two. One for the film and one for myself. I had the sister mask for years until Don Jr. asked to borrow it. It apparently disappeared after that. I never got it back.

H.M.A. – Even though your very busy these days with writing and directing in Hollywood, is there anything inside of you that would make you ever get your hands back in the clay to create any more Malone monsters? Would you ever consider recreating your classic Captain Kirk piece?

Bill Malone: Actually, I do still sculpt. Now it’s just for my film projects. I sculpted the Sherri Rose character in the “Tales from the Crypt” episode ONLY SKIN DEEP. I also sculpted the face for the ghost in FeAr DoT COm. I would like to sculpt more but my film projects consume most of my time these days. As far as recreating Captain Kirk: When I used to work at DPS, Bob Short and I would often have the conversation that the guys who made the originals of masks or props, were usually terrible at recreating them. I think we were thinking of Marcel Delgado, who did the original Kong and the guy who sculpted the Metropolis robot. The recreations they did later never looked anything like the original. When you make something for the first time there is no “wrong”. There’s nothing to compare it to. See, I bet I could do a much better recreation of Robby the Robot than the guys who made it originally. Likewise, a good sculptor who’s really into “Halloween” could probably do a much better Michael Myers than me.

H.M.A. – Now that we’ve mentioned Hollywood, we can dive into your film career. You’ve directed and written many horror flicks that our fans will be familiar with, including Scared to Death, episodes of Freddy’s Nightmares and Tales From the Crypt, as well as big budget Hollywood flicks like ’99s House on Haunted Hill and Fear Dot Com. At what point in your life did you decide you wanted to be a film director and writer? How did you get your start in the business?

Bill Malone: I was always playing with filmmaking even as a kid. I made an 8mm version of Dr.Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. It was really when I was working DPS that I started to consider being a director as a profession. Working there, a lot of movie directors would come in and invariably they would want us to make something really stupid for their films. It became clear to me that, at that time, the directors who were making horror and Sci-Fi films didn’t know anything about them or probably didn’t like them. I thought “Hey, I can do a better job than that guy” (famous last words). Carpenter and Hooper, and a couple others were about the only ones taking the genre seriously.

In any case, I was beginning to feel that I needed to move on from DPS. It was starting to become a big business and “experts” were being brought in to make decisions that Bob and I had done, so it was time to leave. So late in 1979, I wrote a script for the “Amberdine Experiment” which would be later be retitled Scared to Death. From the dealings I had in the film business, I knew no one was going to give me a break. I had no connections, hadn’t been to film school (yet). I thought I just have to buy my way in by making my first feature. I gave notice at DPS, sold the cat and dog and mortgaged the house and set about to make my film. I remember telling my friends that I was going to make a movie for $74,000.00. (all the money I was able to raise). My friends all laughed at me. They were probably right. Anyway, I made Scared to Death. It was a silly movie but made number 16 on the national charts. I made my money back and it eventually lead to making Creature in 1984.

H.M.A. – Is Hollywood as rough and tumble as the rest of us are led to believe?

Bill Malone: Tougher!!! It’s very hard to get films made and even harder to get them distributed. Even when you do, there are people waiting to slag you for even trying. When you do TV you seldom get reviews but when you make features people come out of the woodwork to try to bash you. It’s just difficult all the way around. All I would say is if you like someone like Tobe Hooper, or Mick Garris, or Guillerimo Del Toro or Eli Roth or any of these guys… Let them know. They are lovely, kind people just trying to make movies that you’ll like. Sorry about the soap box… you can kick it out from under me anytime now.

H.M.A. – What would you say has been your best achievement in film, as well as what you perceive to be your not so best?

Bill Malone: Actually, that’s pretty easy. I think the best thing I’ve done is “Only Skin Deep” for Tales from the Crypt. I had the perfect cast, a good script, enough time to make it and I was left alone to do my job. The stars came together on that one.

The worst was W.E.I.R.D. WORLD which was a pilot for a TV series. The script was a mess, the story was dull as can be. And I messed up as well.
The only good things about it were the cast and the film stock. I hope the negative gets lost.

H.M.A. – How do you feel about the current state of the horror genre in film?

Bill Malone: I think this is a great time for Horror. The best in decades. Halloween was a great film but inadvertently did a lot of damage to the genre (oddly, I had a hand in that). The studios back in the 70s, thought that that was all the horror was, and so you had have a guy in a ski mask to be a horror film. Now I think a horror pictures can be anything, as long as it’s scary. It’s terrific time to be making films.

H.M.A. – Are you currently working on any new scripts? They wouldn’t happen to be horror related would they?

Bill Malone: I’m currently finishing three scripts. One is all out HORROR, one is a Film Noir horror and then there’s big budget sweeping SCi-Fi picture.

H.M.A. – Any tips for budding writers and directors out there?

Bill Malone: Yeah, don’t listen to anyone tell you that you can’t do something. You can!!! If you want to do it bad enough, you will. And when you get your chance, be prepared. Know your caca. Know everyone’s job on the crew. Learn by doing. If you’re a writer, learn by, not only watching old movies, but reading great books. If you’re idea of film history begins with Star Wars give up now. Learn from everyone from Del Toro to F.W. Murnau. Also watch bad movies – strangely, you can learn more by learning what NOT to do. Good films seem effortless and are harder to learn from.

H.M.A. – Do you collect any masks for yourself, and would you consider yourself a mask collector?

Bill Malone: I have a collection of stuff mostly from the 1950’s, Ricou Browning’s and Ben Chapman’s Gillman heads, the Mutant (This Island Earth) from the original mold. Also, I wound up with the actual “It Came from Outer Space” prototype head which showed up in the Colliers Magazine article (1955). That and and an original Mole People hand are my oldest rubber pieces. I have a number of casting from the original Outer Limits. The bulk of my collection is on Forbidden Planet including the original Robby the Robot and his car, plus a lot of the Krell lab.

I think masks are hard to collect because they rot after about 20 years. I usually make molds of important pieces so I guess I’m really a mold collector. Hummm that sounded funny. It’s odd, I don’t have anything from the DPS days except a very rare Micky Mouse mask (only 30 made) and a couple of the really early Star Wars masks I sculpted (Vader and Stormtrooper).

H.M.A. – Is there any mask or piece which you would love own?

Bill Malone: Yeah, the original Metropolis robot. I never realized how beautiful it was ’til I made the replica for Forry Ackerman.

H.M.A. – Are you a fan of The H.M.A. site, and would you consider yourself a board lurker?

Bill Malone: I LOVE your site. I think it’s great. I love to hear what fans think of the old stuff and the new.

H.M.A. – Anything you’d like to leave with our readers?

Bill Malone: Just thanks to all of you who have supported me in one fashion or another. You RULE!