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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 6th

ROBERT ENGLUND (actor, director) born in 1947

He has haunted your dreams for over 30 years as our favorite bastard-son-of-a-hundred-maniacs, dream killer Freddy Krueger, it's hard to believe that early in this classical trained actor's career, Robert Englund was once type cast as either the nerd (perhaps he has his portrayal as Willie in the V series to blame for that) or a backwoods redneck - his performance in Eaten Alive (1977) is as redneck as you can possibly get. But in 1984 when Englund accepted the role of the psychotic burn victim and child murderer in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, he would become the first new superstar of horror cinema since Sir Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

Born in Glendale, California, Englund begun studying acting at 12 at a children's theatre program at California State University. Attending UCLA for three years before dropping out to attend Oakland University, where Englund spent five successful years performing at Meadow Brook Theatre starring in plays by Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. At the time he also met and married his first wife Elizabeth Gardner, but would divorce in 1972.

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Returning to Los Angeles, Englund was briefly considered for the part of Han Solo in Star Wars and told his close friend who was sleeping on his couch, Mark Hamill, to go audition - and we all know that audition ended! Having acted in over 20 films between 1974 to 1981 (including an uncredited appearance in Barbra Streisand's A Star is Born), Englund accepted the role of Visitor technician and resistance fighter Willie in the 1983 miniseries V, as well as the follow up series (V: The Series) and miniseries (V: The Final Battle). In 2009 Englund stated he would have welcomed a guest appearance on the ABC revival of V, but the show was cancelled after it's second season.

And then along came Freddy!

Originally director Wes Craven had wanted David Warner for the part, and had even gone as far as make-up testing with the actor, when he unexpectedly dropped out due to a scheduling conflict. "I couldn’t find an actor to play Freddy Krueger with the sense of ferocity I was seeking," Craven recalled on the film's 30th anniversary. "Then Robert Englund auditioned. [He] wasn’t as tall I’d hoped, and he had baby fat on his face, but he impressed me with his willingness to go to the dark places in his mind. Robert understood Freddy."

While playing a pizza-faced child murderer was a far cry from the bumbling innocent Willie, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was the only film that Englund could fit in his schedule during the hiatus of shooting V. And while Englund relished playing the role, he reportedly couldn't stand the 3 hours of daily make-up. When shooting was done for the day he would immediately start ripping his latex off while walking to the make-up trailer - most of it already gone by the time he even got there! Costing $1.8 million dollars to make, A Nightmare on Elm Street went on to make $25 million at the box office, launching Wes Craven's mainstream career and securing New Line Cinema as a Hollywood player. And critics and audiences just loved the latest horror bad-boy, the Washington Post  calling him "the most chilling figure in the genre since "The Shape" made his debut in "Halloween". Not bad for a guy who spends less than 7 minutes actually on screen!

Due to the success, a sequel was quickly greenlit but the producer's did not want to pay Englund's salary demands and hired an extra for the Freddy role, thinking that "it's just a guy in mask". But they underestimated his importance to the franchise and two weeks into filming producer Bob Shaye met Englund's demands. He would again don the claw for a record-total 8 times, with A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freedy's Revenge (1985), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), and ultimate mash-up film Freddy vs. Jason (2003).

His association with the horror genre would earn him top billing in nearly 30 more horror films over 33 years (see here for his complete filmography), including his directorial debut in 1988 with 976-EVIL and ranked the #40 top villain for the American Film Institution's Top 100 list of 100 Heroes and Villains for his role as Freddy Krueger. Englund has always remained satisfied that he will always be remembered for that role, remarking "I saw an entire magazine of Freddy Krueger tattoos. Hey, I'm a classically trained actor who was doing [Anton Chekhov], and now there are thousands of people walking around America with my tattoo on them!".

Happy birthday, Robert!