The director of some of filmdom's campiest flicks during the Tarnished Age of the "B" movie, the cross-dressing Edward D. Wood, Jr. is remembered by a loyal cult following as the "worst director of all time" for such unforgettable creations as the transvestite epic Glen or Glenda (1953) and the mock-serious science-fiction drama Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958). Replete with bad dialogue, moralistic narration, infamously cheap special effects, and starring an eclectic group of Hollywood outcasts, including an aging Bela Lugosi, Wood's films rank among the most dreadful spectacles in cinematic history. His films mouldered in relative obscurity for decades, known only to "B" film buffs, until the 1994 biographical comedy Ed Wood triggered a resurgence of interest in his work. This film showed how, in the words of Boston Herald film critic James Verniere, sometimes "a dream can take you further than talent."

Born in 1924, Wood...