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David Del Valle, an encyclopedic horror film historian, author and scholar who contributed to dozens of laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray commentaries during his eclectic career, has died. He was 77 years old.
Del Valle died Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after a battle with esophageal cancer, his caregiver and friend, producer Dano Marino, said. The Hollywood Reporter.
He lived across the street from an apartment on Harold Way in Los Angeles, where Dracula Star Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack in 1956. “The only way out of Harold Way, it seems, is feet first,” he joked.
Del Valle produced and hosted a series of cable television interviews under the umbrella of Evil Image, in which he spoke with Vincent Price, Cameron Mitchell, Russ Meyer, and Curtis Harrington. His hour-long chat with Price in 1987 is considered the most substantial interview the horror legend ever gave.
He also wrote books Lost Horizons under the Hollywood Sign and Six rings underPublished in 2010 and 2012, respectively, and articles for that Fangoria magazine; Wrote an online column called “Camp David”. Movies in review; and introduced a weekly screening of horror movies in 2020 for the channel/app Full Moon Features.
About 120 of Del Valle’s films are included in commentaries for companies such as the Criterion Collection (Count Giorgi), Severin Films (Horrors of Spider Island, A bloody pit of horrors, Angel for Satan, Nightmare Castle), Kino Lorber (An amazing transparent man, a man who got himself back), Synapse Films (Sighs), Scream Factory (flying) and Arrow Films.
Del Valle knew most of the people he wrote and spoke about personally, and was known for his wicked sense of humor and skill as a storyteller. “He never wanted to grow up in the most glamorous of ways,” Marino said.
An only child, Ronald David Del Valle was born on September 24, 1949 in El Paso, Texas. He says his love of horror began with the classic Universal monster movies of the 1930s.
After her parents divorced, she and her mother, a dance instructor at Arthur Murray, moved around the country, living in Florida, Wisconsin and elsewhere before settling in Sacramento.
Price became her favorite actor after frequent trips to the drive-in, and while writing for the school newspaper at Encina High School, Del Valle, then 16, first interviewed the star when Price came to town for a play. The two would remain close until Price’s death in 1993.
Del Valle has also appeared on a local television show creature characteristicswhich was hosted by Bob Wilkins around that time.
Del Valle interviewed after graduating from San Francisco State University A maniac policeman director-producer William Lustig in 1983, and their discussion was used on the laserdisc edition of The Vampire Classics Daughters of Darkness (1971). This opened all kinds of doors for him.
Del Valle has also worked for Cannon Films, acted as a talent agent for the horror community, and curated a 2006 LA photo exhibit dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe’s films about Price and Roger Corman.
He has appeared on screens in movies like From a whisper to a shout (1987), Evil Bong 420 (2015) and Puppet Master: Break the Axis (2017) and legendary scream queen Barbara Steele produced a 30th anniversary dark shadows which was released on home video in 1996.
His longtime partner Chris died of HIV in the early 2000s.
Marino said he will oversee Del Valle’s archives and vast collection of movie memorabilia, which includes posters, photographs and rare books.
“The champion of cinema’s underdogs, his supporting players, his many amazing and magical characters and everything in between, he was and will remain a legend,” Marino wrote on Facebook.
