Sam Irvin grew up with movies as his playground. His grandfather, Warren Irvin, and his father, Sam Irvin, Sr., ran competing movie theater chains in North and South Carolina, where young Sam spent much of his childhood. He made numerous 8mm movies including one starring his younger brother, Tim, as Dracula wearing a black beach towel for a cape (and lots of ketchup). As a student, Irvin wrote, edited and published his own fanzine on horror movies called Bizarre for which he met and conducted interviews with Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Diana Rigg and dozens of others.After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts at the University of South Carolina, Irvin started his professional career in movies working for director Brian DePalma as an extra in "The Fury" (for which he wrote a journal published in Cinefantastique Magazine), as the Associate Producer and Production Manager of DePalma's "Home Movies" and the director's assistant on "Dressed To Kill." After some preliminary assistant work during prep on DePalma's "Blow Out," Irvin was assigned to produce "The First Time" for which DePalma served as "Creative Consultant."From there, Irvin began pursuing his own career as a director in New York. He self-financed his own film, "Double Negative," which he wrote, directed and produced. The film was an official selection for the Sundance Film Festival and played theatrically in New York and Los Angeles. To pay for the production, Irvin worked in film marketing as Director of Advertising for United Artists Classics (under the regime of Tom Bernard and Michael Barker); then as Vice President of Marketing for Spectrafilm; and finally Marketing Director for Vestron Pictures. During that period, Irvin won Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards for his movie poster designs for Paul Verhoeven's "The 4th Man" and Francois Truffaut's "Confidentially Yours."In 1990, Irvin relocated to Los Angeles and has been directing motion pictures, television movies and episodic TV ever since. In addition to directing, Irvin has written several screenplays and has been a script doctor. He has also served in various producing capacities on such films as Bill Condon's Oscar-winning masterpiece, "Gods And Monsters," for which Irvin also co-directed the "Making of" extra for the DVD release.Aside from long-form directing, Irvin has directed commercials, music videos and the opening of the 100th Anniversary of the World Series, 2003, for Fox Television (a "through the ages" montage featuring the music of and starring Sheila E.). Irvin also directed several segments for the 2004 Super Bowl (including a comedy sketch starring Eugene Levy as a scientist trying to improve the entertainment value of football). For the Fox Sports opening of the 2007 Sugar Bowl, Irvin directed a segment shot on the streets of New Orleans called "Dueling Musicians."After directing several American-financed films in Romania, Irvin was invited by Romanian-based Mediapro Studios to direct "Garcea si oltenii," a spin-off of Romania's most popular television show, starring a Monty Python-like sketch comedy group known as Vacante Mare. It became the highest grossing motion picture in Romanian history, beating previous record-holder, James Cameron's "Titanic." Irvin was then asked to direct a rock opera for a 10-camera live Romanian television event from the National Theater in Bucharest; entitled "I Will Return A Man" by the Romanian rock group Vama Veche, the anti-war musical was in the same genre as Pink Floyd's "The Wall."In 2005, 2006 and 2007, Irvin has been the sole director for the first three seasons of "Dante's Cove," the gay horror series produced by here! TV.Between directing projects, Irvin is writing a book on the life of the multi-faceted entertainer, Kay Thompson, best known for her starring role in "Funny Face" and as the author of "Eloise."Irvin resides in Los Angeles with Gary Bowers, his longtime partner since 1982.
