Bill Landis(1959-2008)

Noted exploitation cinema expert and historian Bill Landis was an air force brat who was born in 1959 in France and partly raised in Europe. His parents frequently took him to Broadway stage productions when he was a kid. Bill first fell in love with New York City's notoriously seedy 42nd Street venue after returning from England to America. Landis graduated early from high school at age sixteen and took a BA-MBA program at New York University up until 1980. During this time period Bill voraciously watched countless double and triple bills of trashy low-budget independent pictures at various sordid Times Square grindhouse theaters. Landis published the first issue of the excellent and influential underground cinema magazine "Sleazoid Express" in June, 1980; the magazine enjoyed a successful run up until 1985. Moreover, he also reviewed exploitation flicks for the newspaper "Soho Weekly News" and interviewed schlock movie directors for such publications as "Fangoria" and "Film Threat." Bill worked at several stuffy Wall Street jobs in his late teens prior to finding more suitable employment at age twenty-two as a film projectionist at a handful of sleazy 42nd Street fleabag theaters. From 1980 to 1982 Landis held weekly public screenings of scuzzy B features at such nightspots as Club 57, the Mudd Club, and Danceteria. In addition, he acted in over thirty 80s adult films under the pseudonym Bobby Spector. Bill was the author of the book "Anger: An Unauthorized Biography of Kenneth Anger." In 1997 Landis and his wife Michelle Clifford launched the acclaimed magazine "Metasex." They subsequently revived "Sleazoid Express" in the spring of 1999 and wrote articles for such publications as "Variety," "The Village Voice," "Film Threat," "Screw," and "Carbon14." Clifford and Bill resided in New Jersey and regularly hosted screenings of exploitation films all over the United States. They had a daughter named Victoria. Bill Landis died suddenly of a heart attack at the tragically young age of 49 on December 23, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois.