Film director Tobe Hooper. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.Film director Tobe Hooper. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
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Tobe Hooper, Horror Film Director, Dies

Film director Tobe Hooper, best known for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist, has died.

The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office has confirmed that the American filmmaker died of natural causes in Sherman Oaks, California Saturday. He was 74.

Hooper made a name for himself directing horror projects for film and television, with Chainsaw and 1982's Poltergeist being among his more popular works.

He was born in Austin, Texas to parents who had owned a movie theater. He was first exposed to filmmaking when he picked up an 8mm film camera at age nine. He studied drama under a Dallas coach and attended classes in radio, television and film at the University of Texas. He first made a living shooting documentaries and teaching college classes, and one of his first short films, 1965's The Heisters, was invited to be entered for Academy Award consideration in the short subject category. The film, however, was not completed before the Academy's deadline.

Hooper's first feature film was 1969's Eggshells, and he completed a documentary film about folk legends Peter, Paul and Mary the same year called The Song is Love. His breakout film was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974. Hooper had tried to deemphasize the film's gore in the hopes of getting the family-friendlier PG rating in the US, but it was ultimately rated R. Despite several cinemas refusing to show it amidst complaints about the violence, the movie was very profitable and has since become an influential cult hit.

Hooper directed Eaten Alive in 1977 and The Funhouse in 1981 before Poltergeist came out the following year. Poltergeist was acclaimed by critics and was a box office hit, and it also received three Academy Award nominations.

Films that came out later in Hooper's career include a sequel to Chainsaw in 1986, Night Terrors in 1993, Crocodile in 2000, and his most recent film Djinn in 2013.

Hooper also found steady work in television. He directed the Stephen King thriller Salem's Lot for CBS in 1979, which was highly regarded and was nominated for three Emmy Awards.

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