Dan Curtis

Dan Curtis (born Daniel Mayer Cherkoss; August 12, 1927 – March 27, 2006) was an American director, writer, and producer of television and film, known among fans of horror films for his afternoon TV series Dark Shadows (1966–1971) and its 1991 remake, and TV films such as The Night Stalker (1972), The Night Strangler (1973), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1974) and Trilogy of Terror (1975). He also directed three feature films – the Dark Shadows spinoffs House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971), and the supernatural horror Burnt Offerings (1976). For general audiences, Curtis is also known as the director and producer of the highly-rated miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and its sequel War and Remembrance (1988), based on two novels by Herman Wouk, which follow the lives of two American families through World War II. Career Curtis's series of macabre films includes House of Dark Shadows, Night of Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker (for many years holding the record ratings of the most-watched TV movie—and inspired the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker), Intruders, The Night Strangler, Burnt Offerings, Trilogy of Terror and its belated sequel Trilogy of Terror II, The Norliss Tapes (a 1973 pilot for an unproduced series starring Roy Thinnes), Curse of the Black Widow, Dead of Night, and Scream of the Wolf. He worked frequently with sci-fi/horror writers Richard Matheson and William F. Nolan. Curtis was producer and/or director of a number of television adaptations of classic horror texts including The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968), Frankenstein (1973), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1973), Dracula (1974), and The Turn of the Screw (1974). In 1978, Curtis made a departure from his usual macabre offerings, when he wrote, produced, and directed the sentimental NBC television film When Every Day Was the Fourth of July. Although fictionalized, the film was semi-autobiographical, based on his childhood growing up in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the 1930s. The film was originally intended to be a pilot for a potential series, but when the series was not picked up by the NBC network, Curtis produced and directed the 1980 television movie sequel The Long Days of Summer, this time airing on the ABC network.