75TH ANNIVERSARY OF DIRECTOR ED WOOD'S BIRTH (OCT 10)

75TH ANNIVERSARY OF DIRECTOR ED WOOD'S BIRTH (OCT 10)

NEW YORK (Wireless Flash) -- Classic campy film director Ed Wood, Jr. would be turning in his grave if he could hear all the bad things critics say about him. That's according to Wood biographer Rudolph Grey, who claims the late director -- who would have been 75 this Sunday (Oct. 10) -- was a true artist. Grey, says the director of cult classics like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" was one of the first directors to combine horror and sci-fi in movies -- paving the way for today's star directors like Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. He claims Wood was a true auteur who used elements of German expressionism in his transvestite film, "Glen or Glenda." These days, Grey is trying to gain some respect for the dead director by writing a screenplay adaptation of one of Wood's books entitled "Killer in Drag." The story follows a transvestite mob hitman who's on the lam and being chased by another killer transvestite.