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Originally Posted by www.imdb.com
Director Bob Clark, who helmed the modern holiday classic A Christmas Story and was the writer-director-producer of the Porky's films, died in a car crash with his son on the Pacific Coast Highway early Wednesday morning; he was 67. According to police reports, Clark's car was hit head-on around 2:30am by an SUV that swerved into Clark's southbound lane; Clark and his 22 year-old son, Ariel, were pronounced dead at the scene. The SUV driver, who was driving without a license, was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and is to be booked for gross vehicular manslaughter. The director of the 1974 cult horror film Black Christmas as well as the 1980 Jack Lemmon drama Tribute (which nabbed Lemmon a Best Actor Oscar nomination), Clark scored a major box office success in the early '80s with the teen sex comedy Porky's, a surprise hit that he wrote, directed and produced which became the highest-grossing film of 1982 and one of the highest-grossing films ever in Canada. Clark went on to helm the sequel, Porky's II: The Next Day, a year later, but it was another 1983 film that would become his most memorable. Based on humorist Jean Shepherd's short story collection In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, A Christmas Story was the nostalgic and humorous tale of a young boy named Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) growing up in the 1940s who yearned for the ultimate Christmas gift, a Red Ryder BB gun. Also starring Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon, the comedy (which Clark directed, co-wrote and produced) was a modest success in its initial box office run but gained a strong and steady following through the next two decades, becoming a TV staple during the holiday season and a consistent seller on DVD. Clark's other films included the Dolly Parton-Sylvester Stallone comedy Rhinestone, Turk 182!, From the Hip, and the two Baby Geniuses movies. Recently, there had been talk of Howard Stern producing a remake of Porky's, and Clark had begun development on a remake of one of his first films, the horror movie Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff
As the director of my favorite movie of all time and a local Clevelander to where the film was actually shot, this truly saddens me. And unlike most director's, I admire Clark's alternative superstardom as a cult director moreso than mainstream, as an old quote that goes somewhere along these lines clearly fits his famous work:
"A mainstream film will be seen one time by a thousand people. But a cult film will be seen a thousand times by one person."
I'd like to note that while it is true that Clark's films have been seen by one person a thousand times (living proof right here), they have also been seen by thousands of people, thousands of times.
R.I.P., Bob. You have the fortunate event of never being forgotten at Christmas time for your most famous film, especially in the heart of locals in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Everything I do, I do to make my second stepdad proud.
Everything I do, I do to make my second stepdad proud.
