Nationality United States Plays Black Picture Show Books Rhinestone sharecropping | Role Playwright Name Bill Gunn | |
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Occupation writer, director, actor Awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada Movies Ganja & Hess, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, The Landlord, The Angel Levine, Losing Ground Similar People Marlene Clark, Duane Jones, Kristin Hunter, Lee Grant, Spike Lee | ||
Bill Gunn (born William Harrison Gunn; July 15, 1934 – April 5, 1989) was an American playwright, novelist, actor and film director. His 1973 cult classic horror film Ganja and Hess was chosen as one of ten best American films of the decade at the Cannes Film Festival, 1973. In the New Yorker, film critic Richard Brody described him as being "a visionary filmmaker left on the sidelines of the most ostensibly liberated period of American filmmaking." His drama Johnnas won an Emmy award in 1972.
Career
A native of Philadelphia, Gunn wrote more than 29 plays during his lifetime. He also authored two novels and wrote several produced screenplays. He died from encephalitis at a Nyack, New York hospital the day before his play, The Forbidden City opened at the Public Theater in New York City.