Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth Interview with Sam Irvin, Award Winning Director, Author “I Was A Teenage Monster Hunter!”
Sam Irvin is a multi-award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, author and educator whose love of horror movies as a child made him determined to meet and get to know the people who made those movies.
As a young teenager he produced a hugely popular fan magazine called “Bizarre”, dedicated to celebrating and promoting horror movies and the people who made them. Through a combination of ingenuity, tenacity, luck, and sheer force of will, he was able to meet, interview and sometimes befriend dozens of legendary stars including Vincent Price, Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, Jane Seymour, Christopher Lee, Diana Rigg, Robert Morley, Michael York, and many others. And get this – by the time he was 13, he had already met a whole slew of big stars – everyone from George Burns, Jane Russell and Natalie Wood, to Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Robert DeNiro.
The fascinating journey of his remarkable youth as a self-proclaimed “professional groupie”, is the subject of his memoir entitled, “I Was a Teenage Monster Hunter: How I Met Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and More.” The book is a must-have for horror movie fans, because it contains the full text of his fabulous interviews with members of horror movie royalty at the pinnacle of their popularity.
Sam Irvin began his filmmaking career as an assistant to legendary director Brian DePalma, working on the classic movies “The Fury” and “Dressed to Kill”. Since then, he has directed over 50 films including “Elvira’s Haunted Hills”, “Guilty as Charged”, “Oblivion”, “Out There”, “Acting on Impulse”, “Backlash: Oblivion 2”, “Magic Island”, “Fatal Acquittal”, and “Kiss of a Stranger”, which he also wrote. For television, he’s directed “Strip Mall”, “From Here on OUT”, “My Sister is so Gay”, and “Dante’s Cove”. He also co-produced the Academy Award winning movie, “Gods and Monsters”, as well as “The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy”, and the brilliant “Home Movies”, directed by Brian DePalma.
And if all of that weren’t enough, he wrote the acclaimed biography “Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise”, which led to being a consultant on Liza Minnelli’s Tony Award winning Broadway show, “Liza’s At the Palace”.
He’s also written 3 other books: “The Epic Saga Behind FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY”, which provides a fascinating account of the making of the groundbreaking 1973 TV movie; he’s written a novel entitled, “ORBGASM: An Erotic Pulp Sci-Fi Satyricon”; and he wrote a hilarious children’s book called “Sam’s Toilet Paper Caper!” He has also taught graduate courses on filmmaking at USC, and over the years he has won FOUR prestigious Rondo Awards.
Harvey Brownstone is a retired judge of the Ontario Court of Justice and was the first openly gay judge in Canada. He is also the bestselling author of “Tug of War: A Judge’s Verdict on Separation, Custody Battles and the Bitter Realities of Family Court” and hosted “Family Matters with Justice Harvey Brownstone,” a television talk show on matters involving the family justice system.
After a distinguished legal career, Harvey was appointed a judge at the age of 38 in 1995. He has presided in family and criminal courts. He has been a trailblazer in several ways. He was the first openly gay judge in Canada. He was the first sitting judge in the world to write a national best seller and to host a TV talk show.
Harvey has been a role model and icon in the LGBTQ community. When same-sex marriage was legalized in Canada in 2003, he was the only judge to make himself publicly available to officiate at weddings for lesbian and gay couples travelling to Toronto from all over the world to get married. In 2007, he officiated at the wedding of Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, the American couple whose marriage triggered the 2013 United States Supreme Court decision overturning the definition of “spouse” in the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
In February 2021, Harvey launched his online talk show “Harvey Brownstone Interviews” on his own YouTube channel. He saw this as an interesting hobby. Within several months, the show attracted hundreds of thousands – and then eventually, millions – of viewers. Because of the overwhelming success of the show, Harvey decided to retire from the judiciary on December 31, 2021 after having presided as a full-time judge for 26 1/2 years. Free from the constraints imposed upon judges regarding the expression of opinions and the endorsement of private enterprise, Harvey now happily devotes his full-time attention to hosting “Harvey Brownstone Interviews” as a regular member of the public – albeit one with a rather illustrious and unique career history.
Watch Sam Irvin on Harvey Brownstone Interviews on Youtube here:
The official website for Harvey Brownstone Interviews may be found at https://www.harveybrownstoneinterviews.com
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