Ted Newsom

Ted Newsom
Newsom in April 2007
Born	(1952-12-03) December 3, 1952 (age 64) Portland, Oregon, U.S.
Occupation	Filmmaker, actor
Years active	1978-present

Ted Newsom (born December 3, 1952) is an American writer, director, producer and actor. Newsom has worked primarily as a documentary filmmaker, specializing in documentaries on the history of the horror and science fiction film.

Son of Vernon and Patricia Newsom; grew up in Portland, OR, Spokane, WA and the San Fernando Valley; served in the US Army 1972-75 as a surgical assistant in Heidelberg, Germany. While in the military, he attended the University of Maryland extension; later, Portland State University, then moved to California, attending UCLA extension, graduating from Los Angeles Pierce College with an AA, and further study at California State University at Northridge, where his teachers included Lucille Ball, Sidney Salkow and producer Ben Brady.

Freelancing for magazines and newspapers led him to magazine editing jobs. With John D. Brancato, Newsom co-wrote The Unofficial NFL Players Handbook, a humor book for Simon & Schuster. The team then collaborated on several screenplays of Marvel Comics characters: Sgt. Fury, Spider-Man, and The Sub-Mariner, working with Stan Lee on these adaptations.

Active in the WGA strike in 1988, Newsom segued into directing and producing video documentaries, notably Flesh and Blood, the Hammer Heritage of Horror, becoming the last director to team the British horror stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, who co-narrated. The first half of the program was broadcast on the BBC four days before Cushing died.