“LAWRENCE, KS – The University of Kansas will host the Midwest Premiere of a documentary about the late, legendary science fiction writer Charles Beaumont. The showing will be co-sponsored by Prof. James Gunn, The Center for the Study of Science Fiction and the Film and Television department.
Charles Beaumont: The Twilight Zone’s Magic Man will be shown Tuesday, Nov. 9, at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union. The Intruder, a cult film that Beaumont wrote and performed in for Roger Corman (along with friends OCee Ritch, William F. Nolan, William Shatner and George Clayton Johnson), also will be shown. Events begin at 6 p.m.
Beaumont was a prolific author of science fiction and horror (most notably as a top writer for the magazines Playboy and Rogue [then edited by Frank M. Robinson and Harlan Ellison]). He wrote several classic Twilight Zone episodes, including “The Howling Man,” “Miniature” and “Printer’s Devil.” He also penned screenplays for several films, including 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, The Masque of the Red Death, and Night of the Eagle. He died in 1967 at age 38 from an unusual early-onset dementia/aging disease, now thought to be a form of heavy-metal poisoning known as Bromism.
The documentary’s director, Jason V Brock (The Bleeding Edge), and a good friend of Beaumont’s, William F. Nolan (Logan’s Run), will attend the film screenings at KU and answer questions from the audience. Nolan is a Kansas City native and noted science fiction author in his own right.
There will be an autograph session with Brock and Nolan after the screenings. DVD copies of the documentary will be available for purchase at Jayhawk Ink in the Kansas Union, as well as copies of the award-winning and critically-acclaimed anthology that they edited together earlier this year called The Bleeding Edge: Dark Barriers, Dark Frontiers.”
