TOBE HOOPER

(29 January 1943 - 26 August 2017)

The American writer, producer, director and sometime actor and composer Tobe Hooper, who has died of natural causes at the age of 74, will be mainly remembered for one influential film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, his second feature from 1974. Born to parents who ran a cinema in Austin, Texas, Hooper began his career as a college professor and documentary film cameraman but graduated to features from 1969. Chain Saw was based on the real-life serial killer Ed Gein, was cheaply made, looked hideous but made a fortune and subsequently led to work for Hooper in Hollywood. However, he never ever reached the giddy heights (or depths) of Chain Saw in his other films. Often writing his own screenplays, he stayed on the same track with Death Trap, The Funhouse, Lifeforce and Invaders from Mars. Although he directed the Spielberg production Poltergeist, it was less personal than his other work. On TV he made Salem’s Lot, from the Stephen King novel, but after The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, he mainly worked in television. Later films included Night Terrors, The Mangler, Toolbox Murders, Mortuary and Djinn, his last film in 2013. Tobe Hooper married twice and had two sons.

MICHAEL DARVELL