Sam Irvin

Sam Irvin (born June 14, 1956) is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter, actor, author and film teacher.

Irvin's directing credits include Guilty as Charged, Oblivion, Elvira's Haunted Hills, and all the episodes of two television series: Dante's Cove and From Here on OUT.

His other credits include co-executive producer of Bill Condon's Academy Award-winner Gods and Monsters; associate producer of Brian De Palma's Home Movies; and historical consultant on the Tony Award-winner Liza's at the Palace.

Irvin authored the acclaimed biography Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise (Simon & Schuster), the children's book parody Sam's Toilet Paper Caper! (Knuckle Samwitch Books), and the novel ORBGASM: An Erotic Pulp Sci-Fi Satyricon (Knuckle Samwitch Books).

Irvin has won two Rondo Awards for Best Article of the Year ("The Epic Saga Behind Frankenstein: The True Story" published in Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine #38) and Best Interview of the Year ("Elvira Exposed!" published in Screem magazine #36).

Between projects, Irvin taught graduate courses on directing at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

Samuel Lowe Irvin, Jr. was born June 14, 1956, in Asheville, North Carolina.

His grandfather, Warren Irvin, was the district manager for Wilby-Kincey Theaters, a chain of cinemas throughout the southeastern United States.

His father, Sam Irvin Sr., co-owned Irvin-Fuller Theaters, a competing chain with cinemas in both North and South Carolina.

Irvin worked in these theaters in his youth.

Later, during his college years, he worked for Irvin-Fuller Theaters as its Advertising and Publicity Manager.

As a teenager, Irvin edited and published two issues of the fanzine Pit (69-70), and four annual issues of Bizarre (1972–1975), a fanzine on fantasy, horror and science fiction films, for which he twice traveled to England to conduct in-person interviews, including Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Jane Seymour, Joan Collins, Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis, Sir James Carreras, Michael Carreras, etc.

During his summer break in 1977, Irvin interned at the Chicago shooting location for Brian De Palma’s The Fury.

In 1978, Irvin graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts.

While attending the university, he was the film critic for The Gamecock, the campus newspaper, and won a student film award for his thesis short film.

He was also chairman of the University of South Carolina Film Committee that ran a year-round cinema program at the campus theater.

He worked on the feature as a production assistant, an extra, and also wrote a journal on the making of the movie that was published in Cinefantastique magazine, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1978.

Irvin also conducted an exclusive interview with Amy Irving in which, for the first time anywhere, she discussed her relationship with Steven Spielberg; it was published in Cinefantastique, Vol 6, No. 4 / Vol. 7, No. 1, 1978.

After graduating from the University of South Carolina in May 1978, Irvin worked as the Associate Producer and Production Manager on Brian De Palma's Home Movies.

Then, Irvin worked as De Palma's assistant on Dressed to Kill starring Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon.

He also worked with De Palma on several projects in development, including Blow Out.

During the 1980s, Irvin served as Vice President of Marketing for three film distributors: United Artists Classics, Spectrafilm, and Vestron.

During this period, Irvin won The Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards for designing the movie posters for François Truffaut’s Confidentially Yours and Paul Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man.

He also helped spearhead the record-breaking year-long run of Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva in New York City.

Irvin's first directorial effort, which he also wrote and produced, was the 1985 dark comedy short Double Negative, which starred Bill Randolph, Justin Henry, Wayne Knight, Dori Legg, and William Finley.

It premiered as an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival and subsequently played theatrically in New York and Los Angeles as a warm-up for various feature films.

It was nominated for a Gold Hugo Award for Best Short Film at the 1985 Chicago International Film Festival.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that it was "an exceptionally promising first effort."

In 2013, Irvin was extensively interviewed on camera by filmmaker Robert Fischer about his experiences on the set of The Fury for The Fury: A Location Journal, a 50-minute bonus feature that is included on the 2013 Blu-ray DVD release of The Fury distributed by Arrow Films in the U.K. and Ireland and by Carlotta Films in France.

In its October 26, 2013 issue, Telegraph Magazine (the weekly supplement to London's popular daily newspaper The Telegraph) ran a full-page story and photo of Irvin reminiscing about his time on the set of The Fury.

Double Negative is included as an extra bonus feature on the 2013 Blu-ray DVD release of Brian DePalma's The Fury distributed by Arrow Films in the U.K. and Ireland and by Carlotta Films in France.

Irvin went on to direct many feature films, including:

From his own original screenplay, Irvin directed the Showtime Original Movie Kiss of a Stranger starring Mariel Hemingway, Dyan Cannon, Corbin Bernsen and David Carradine.

Irvin directed the cult sci-fi westerns Oblivion and its sequel Backlash: Oblivion 2 starring Julie Newmar, George Takei, Isaac Hayes, Meg Foster and Maxwell Caulfield.

(Oblivion won the Gold Award for Best Fantasy / Science Fiction Feature at Houston Worldfest.)

He also directed the Disney Channel time-travel pirate fantasy Magic Island starring Zachery Ty Bryan and French Stewart.

Irvin wrote a comprehensive, 13,000-word chronicle on the making of Dressed to Kill for Boobs and Blood magazine, issue number 4, published in December 2020.

The entire issue was devoted to Irvin's article.

Irvin gave up his position as De Palma's assistant to produce The First Time, a coming-of-age comedy co-written by William Finley, for which De Palma served as a credited Creative Consultant.

Released by New Line Cinema, the film starred Tim Choate, Wendie Jo Sperber, Wallace Shawn, Cathryn Damon and Jane Badler.