Donald F. Glut is an American writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, motion picture director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, screenwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

, amateur

Amateur

An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....

 paleontologist

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

, musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 and actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

.

He is perhaps best known for writing the novelization of the second Star Wars

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

film, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is a 1980 American epic space opera film directed by Irvin Kershner. The screenplay, based on a story by George Lucas, was written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan...

.

Amateur career

From 1953 to 1969, Glut made a total of 41 amateur films, on subjects ranging from dinosaurs, to unauthorized adaptations of such characters as Superman

Superman

Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

, The Spirit

The Spirit

The Spirit is a crime-fighting fictional character created by writer-artist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940 in "The Spirit Section", the colloquial name given to a 16-page Sunday supplement, distributed to 20 newspapers by the Register and Tribune Syndicate and reaching five million...

, and Spider-Man

Spider-Man

Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

.

Due to publicity he received in the pages of Forrest J Ackerman

Forrest J Ackerman

Forrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...

's magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland

Famous Monsters of Filmland

Famous Monsters of Filmland is a genre-specific film magazine started in 1958 by publisher James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman.-Magazine history :...

, Glut was able to achieve a degree of notoriety based on his work. This allowed him to increase the visibility of his films by obtaining the services of known actors such as Kenne Duncan

Kenne Duncan

Kenne Duncan , born Kenneth Duncan MacLachlan, was a well-known B-movie character actor. Hyped professionally as "The Meanest Man in the Movies," the vast majority of his over 250 appearances on camera were Westerns, but he also did occasional forays into horror, crime drama, and science fiction...

 and Glenn Strange

Glenn Strange

Glenn Strange was an American actor who appeared mostly in Western films. He is best known for playing the Frankenstein Monster in three Universal films during the 1940s and for his role as Sam Noonan, the bartender on CBS's Gunsmoke television series...

 (who reprised his most famous role as the Frankenstein Monster for Glut).

His final amateur film was 1969's Spider-Man, after which he moved into professional work full-time.

On October 3, 2006 Epoch Cinema released a 2-DVD set of all 41 of Glut's amateur films called I Was A Teenage Moviemaker. The total running time of both DVDs is 480 minutes, and includes a documentary about the making of those films, with interviews with Forrest J Ackerman, Randal Kleiser

Randal Kleiser

John Randal Kleiser is an American film director and producer, perhaps best known for directing the 1978 musical film Grease.-Life and career:...

, Bob Burns

Bob Burns

Bob Burns was an American radio and film comedian during the 1930s and 1940s. Burns, who early in his career was billed as Robert Burns, coined the word bazooka.-Early years:...

, Jim Harmon

Jim Harmon

James Judson Harmon , better known as Jim Harmon, was an American short story author and popular culture historian who wrote extensively about the Golden Age of Radio. He sometimes used the pseudonym Judson Grey, and occasionally he was labeled Mr...

, Scott Shaw

Scott Shaw

Scott Shaw is an American actor, author, journalist, film director, film producer, musician, professor and martial artist.-Early life:...

, Paul Davids

Paul Davids

Paul Davids is a writer of films and novels, especially about science fiction. Often collaborating with his wife, Hollace, Davids has written and directed the films Starry Night, Roswell a documentary about the Roswell UFO incident and Timothy Leary's Dead...

, Bill Warren

Bill Warren

William Bond Warren , better known as Bill Warren, is an American film historian and critic generally regarded as one of the leading authorities on science fiction, horror and fantasy films....

, and others.

Professional career

Over the next decades, Glut pursued a variety of professions in the entertainment field. He worked heavily as a screenwriter, working mostly in children's television on shows such as Shazam!

Captain Marvel (DC Comics)

Captain Marvel is a fictional comic book superhero, originally published by Fawcett Comics and later by DC Comics. Created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, the character first appeared in Whiz Comics #2...

, Land of the Lost

Land of the Lost (1974 TV series)

Land of the Lost is a children's television series co-created and produced by Sid and Marty Krofft. During its original run, it was broadcast on the NBC television network....

, Spider-Man

Spider-Man (1967 TV series)

Spider-Man is an animated television series that ran from September 9, 1967 to June 14, 1970. It was jointly produced in Canada and the United States and was the first animated adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book series, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko...

, Transformers

The Transformers (TV series)

The Transformers is an animated television series depicting a war among giant robots who could transform into vehicles, other objects and animal-like forms. Written and recorded in America, the series was animated in Japan and South Korea...

, Challenge of the Gobots

Challenge of the GoBots

Challenge of the GoBots is an American animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera, based on the Gobots toy-line released from Tonka. Most of the toys were imported from the Japanese Machine Robo toy line. The show originally debuted in animated form as a five-part miniseries, which aired in...

, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends is an animated series produced by Marvel Productions starring established Marvel Comics characters Spider-Man and Iceman and an original character, Firestar...

, Duck Tales, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle

Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle

Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle is an animated series created by the Filmation studio for CBS. There are a total of 36 episodes produced over the first four seasons....

, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians

The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians

The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes which ran from 1985 to 1986. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera and is based on the Justice League and associated comic book characters published by DC Comics.-Summary:In the fall of 1985,...

, G.I. Joe X-Men

X-Men (TV series)

X-Men, also known as X-Men: The Animated Series, is an American animated television series which debuted on October 31, 1992, in the United States on the Fox Network as part of its Fox Kids Saturday morning lineup...

, and many more.

He was also responsible for creating some of the characters and much of the back story for the Masters of the Universe

Masters of the Universe

Masters of the Universe is a media franchise created by Mattel....

toy line, which served as the basis for the popular TV show.

With the release of 1996's Dinosaur Valley Girls, Glut began a professional directing career that has seen him helm several exploitation-style films, such as The Erotic Rites of Countess Dracula (2001), The Mummy's Kiss (2003), Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood (2004), The Mummy's Kiss: 2nd Dynasty (2006) and Blood Scarab (2007).

Writer

In addition to the Empire Strikes Back novelization (national number 1 best seller for six weeks), written in 1980 and still in print, Glut has written approximately 65 published books, both novels and nonfiction, plus numerous children's books based on popular franchises. Many of his nonfiction books have been about dinosaurs, including the award-winning Dinosaur Dictionary and the current Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia series of reference works.

He has also written for comic books such as Captain America

Captain America

Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...

, The Invaders

The Invaders

The Invaders, a Quinn Martin Production , is an ABC science fiction television program created by Larry Cohen that ran in the United States for two seasons, from January 10, 1967 to March 26, 1968...

, Kull the Destroyer, What If

What If (comics)

What If, sometimes rendered as What If...?, is the title of several comic book series published by Marvel Comics, exploring "the road not traveled" by its various characters...

, House of Mystery

House of Mystery

The House of Mystery is the name of several horror-mystery-suspense anthology comic book series. It had a companion series, House of Secrets.-Genesis:...

, Vampirella

Vampirella

Vampirella is a fictional character, a comic book vampire heroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and costume designer Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #1 . Writer-editor Archie Goodwin later developed the character from horror-story hostess, in...

, Tarzan

Tarzan

Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...

, Porky Pig

Porky Pig

Porky Pig is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts using the fat little pig...

, Solomon Kane

Solomon Kane

Solomon Kane is a fictional character created by the pulp-era writer Robert E. Howard. A late 16th / early 17th century Puritan, Solomon Kane is a sombre-looking man who wanders the world with no apparent goal other than to vanquish evil in all its forms...

, The Little Monsters, Star Wars

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

and many more, and also created (and wrote) The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor

Doctor Spektor

Doctor Spektor is a fictional comic book "occult detective" that appeared in Western Publishing's Gold Key Comics. Created by writer Donald Glut and artist Dan Spiegle, he first appeared in Mystery Comics Digest #5 -Publication history:...

, Dagar the Invincible

Dagar the Invincible

Tales of Sword and Sorcery Featuring Dagar the Invincible is a comic book series created by writer Donald Glut and artist Jesse Santos for Western Publishing' Gold Key Comics line.-Publication history:...

and Tragg and the Sky Gods

Tragg and the Sky Gods

Tragg and the Sky Gods was a comic book title published by Gold Key Comics in the mid 1970s. The series was created by writer Donald Glut and artist Jesse Santos. Later, artist Dan Spiegle would work on the title....

.

For a full list of Gluts's writing credits, see www.DonaldFGlut.com.

External links

• Frontline Entertainment Glut's production company website.
• I Was A Teenage Movie Maker Website devoted to Glut's amateur films.