John Stanley

For 33 years John Stanley was an entertainment writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, covering the leading movie and TV personalities from the 1960s through the early 1990s. During that time he was also host of "Creature Features," an extremely popular Saturday night series in the Bay Area that ran for 14 years. (His predecessor, Bob Wilkins, hosted from 1971-1978.) Stanley's book I WAS A TV HORROR HOST (2007) reflects the large number of personalities of fantasy-world personalities he interviewed on the air, including Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, Ray Harryhausen, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, William Castle and countless film directors and sci-fi/fantasy authors. Stanley (born 1940) has written 18 books during his lifetime, including six editions in the long-running "Creature Features Movie Guide" series (1981-2000), of which the fourth edition is still available. His latest book was THE GANG THAT SHOT UP HOLLYWOOD (2011) with profiles of Clint Eastwood, Robert Mitchum, Samuel Fuller, Karl Malden, James Stewart, Ida Lupino, Barbara Stanwyck, Carroll Baker, and many others. His novel WORLD WAR III (aka NAPALM SUNDAY) was a hit Avon paperback in 1976 and his 1980 Dell Press novel BOGART '48 was recently reissued, with 42 photographs, by Ramble House, a mystery publisher. The latter book is also available in e-book format. He has produced many DVDS featuring material from his "Creature Features" shows as well as a documentary about film noir expert Eddie Muller.