Bill Gunn (writer)


William Harrison Gunn 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." Filmmaker Spike Lee had said that Gunn is “one of the most under-appreciated filmmakers of his time.”
Gunn's 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. In 1950, Gunn studied acting with Mira Rostova in New York's East Village. In 1954, he played a role in the Broadway production of The Immoralist with James Dean. Along with Dean, he joined a social circle that included Montgomery Clift, Eartha Kitt, and Marlon Brando. Gunn shared a house in Nyack, New York with Sam Waymon, brother of singer Nina Simone, who also wrote the musical score for Ganja and Hess. He was also an advocate and friend of filmmaker and writer Kathleen Collins, playing a role in her film Losing Ground. He died aged 54 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.

Plays

Filmography (as actor)