Bunker Gone, But Spirit Of Indy Goes On!
Bunker Gone, But Spirit Of Indy Goes On!
Edward Bunker was a trouble child while growing up and must have given his parents a tremendous amount of headache. This is assuming they didn't get anything more serious considering their child was the biggest troublemaker in neighbor. The authorities were called in when he was as young as three, when he smashed a neighbor's incinerator with a hammer. Or when he set a fire to a neighboring house. Or when he shoved a pen inside one of his classmate's eye.
As he grew up, Bunker graduated to more serious crimes including bank robberies, drug dealing, extortion and forgery. Could a man with such much baggage find a place that would welcome him open arms and give him tons based on his life of crime? Yes. And that place became Hollywood, the home of all the enfant terrible of this world.
Indeed, Bunker dove right in taking full advantage of the gems that existed in Hollywood. He began writing and enjoyed much success when his first few novels were published, including No Beast This Fierce that many believe is extremely auto-biographical. Then came Animal Factory that was directed by his good friend Steve Buscemi and starred such big names as Willem Dafoe, Edward Furlong, Danny Trejo, Mickey Rourke, Tom Arnold.
Animal House gained a nice following because it had a gritty feel to the story and it delivered some strong acting performances from Willem Dafoe and Bunker himself. Bunker and Buscemi had met on the set of Quentin Tarantino's 1992 film festival favorite Reservoir Dogs starring another list of impressive actors: Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen Tim Roth Chris Penn.
At the turn of the century, Bunker acted in a few small films called Family Secrets, 13 Moons and while many may have missed him in those projects, he reappeared this year in the Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. He played the role of Skitchy Rivers.
A lot of films have references to his novels and even other films that he was in. Reservoir Dogs had some hints that lead back No Beast This Fierce and so does this year's highly anticipated Machiavelli Hangman.
While his novel No Beast So Fierce tells the tale of a paroled thief trying to enter society again and create credibility, Machiavelli Hangman (http://www.hangmanmovie.com) tells the exact opposite: a regular Joe is infiltrating the criminal underworld without any of them knowing it, not even him.
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