American filmmaker and screenwriter known for his horror films, particularly the Nightmare on Elm Street (1984-2010) and Scream (1996-2011) franchises. Trained in the humanities, he stumbled into filmmaking and became Hollywood’s high priest of horror.
The son of Paul and Caroline (Miller) Craven, he was raised as a strict Baptist. He earned a bachelor’s degree in education and psychology from Wheaton College in 1963 and a master’s degree in philosophy from Johns Hopkins in 1964. After teaching humanities for a while, he plunged into filmmaking as a production assistant and editor for several “B” production companies.
He made his directorial debut in 1972 with the gruesome Last House on the Left which left audiences and critics strongly divided in opinion. The Hills Have Eyes (1977) had the same effect and made a fortune. He moved up to big budgets with The Swamp Thing in 1982. Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, along with its sequels, were a blend of horror and humor and made Craven a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. In 1994 he directed Wes Craven’s New Nightmare in which he and other cast regulars played themselves. Two years later, he achieved another career high note with Scream and then Scream 2 the following year. He tried a drastic change in genre in 1999 with Music of the Heart, a sentimental drama that was quickly dismissed by the public and the critics. He returned to his comfort zone in 2000 with Scream 3.
Occasionally, he did television work, including some episodes of the Twilight Zone in the mid-1980s. He produced a situation comedy in 1989, The People Next Door, about a cartoonist who can imagine his drawings into life.
Craven was married and divorced twice. His first marriage to Bonnie Broecker lasted from 1964 to 1969 and produced his two children: Jonathan Craven was born in 1965 and Jessica Craven was born in 1968. His second marriage, to Mimi Craven, lasted from 1984 to 1987. Craven lived in Los Angeles. He died of brain cancer on 30 August 2015 at age 76.
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