Of Bloody Crimes, Real and Imagined: The David E. Durston Centennial

Born 100 years ago today, David E. Durston (1921-2010), sometimes billed as Ed or Edward or D.E. Durston. I don’t know that I celebrate his life and art precisely? But I do observe it.

Durston was one of those guys who did it all: performed, wrote, directed, and produced, in theatre, television, and films, both in the “legit” realms of show business, and some fairly sketchy areas as well. He was quite young when he appeared in the World War Two morale show Winged Victory on Broadway (1943) and on screen (1944). Then came television. IMDB has him as a producer on Your Hit Parade (1951-52) and the 1956 Tournament of Roses Parade, and a writer on Tales of Tomorrow (1952-53). Other sources claim that he was a cast member of the Chez Paris Revue and that he wrote and directed by Playhouse 90, Studio One, and other shows. In 1961 he was in a short-lived Broadway show called How to Make a Man, with Michael Dunn,Peter Marshall,Tommy Noonan, and Allen Swift.

In 1964 Durston wrote and directed a low budget movie called Felicia, about a woman who becomes an alcoholic shut-in. This was followed by the 1965 exploitation film The Love Statue, about murder on an LSD trip. This moment marks our descent into weirdness. In 1969 Durston was with Diane Linkletter when she jumped to her death from an upper story window. Some have speculated that he helped her over the balcony, or gave her some LSD that made her crazed. Her celebrity father Art Linkletter harped on the LSD issue and waged a massive public campaign against the drug — in spite of the fact that none was in her system. In reaction to these events, John Waters made one of his first movies The Diane Linketter story.

In 1971, Durston demonstrated the sobering impact the tragedy had on him by making his next film, I Drink Your Blood, about a man who tries to foil a Manson Family style cult by giving rabies to its members…only to turn them into even more murderous zombies! His next two films were dramas with some exploitation elements, Blue Sextet (1971) starring his significant other John Damon, and Stigma (1972) starring Philip Michael Thomas (later of Miami Vice). After this he resorted to making gay porn films: Boy ‘Napped (1975) and Manhole (1978).

Then in 1985, he happened to be present at yet another suspicious death, the drowning of Tonight Show regular Carol Wayne, at a Mexican beach. By now I think we can begin to see that telling Durston’s life story might best be done employing his own cinematic techniques. Which are admired, by the way. I Drink Your Blood has its own cult of fans. (Doctor, give that cult some rabies!) He lived another quarter century but most of his subsequent activity seems to have consisted of giving interviews about horror and true crime.