Beverly Bonner at the NEPA Horror Film Festival, Oct .2020. Actress and performer Beverly Bonner died. I learned this from a reply to an email I sent to her and some others. I don't have many details, except we knew that she wasn't in the best health for the last several years. I've only found a couple of posts about it on Facebook.
She's best known as an actor in several cult-classic horror movies, "Basket Case" being the best known; a movie I didn't see until about a year ago. I met her online about 10 years ago, responding to a Craig's List where she was looking for comedy sketch writers. She had settled into a relationship with the Broadway Comedy Club, producing all types of shows in the club's early slots, where she used my material from time to time.
She was boisterous and had a raspy voice that sounded like she had to explain things to lots of people over the years and had to make herself heard. And made a fuss over everyone she came into contact with.
This is the woman who asked me to write up an idea she had for a short horror comedy, which became "Steamed." It just started making the festival circuit this year, and we couldn't fully enjoy it because COVID. She did go to one festival in Scranton, PA, just last month (October 2020), where she told us the film got great reactions and she looked like she had a good time. I didn't attend. I hope COVID wasn't involved.
It's been a couple of days since I found out and I'm still processing it. Shock, sadness, anger. To be truthful, I guess we were more co-workers than friends and she was always had some hustle going on; most I sidestepped. She often made my introverted self retreat and that's on me. Just last week she emailed me about setting up a website for the movie and what would be a good time to call. It's not something I'm good at beyond Weebly, but I gave her a time. There was no call, which wasn't unusual for her, she always eventually did call. A while ago, I did set up a page on my site to promote the movie, Steamed, which is about the peak of my abilities. Before that, she called me a few weeks earlier, as I was building my backyard shed, and she was so pleased about the reaction to the short that she was making plans to produce more and wanted to know if I wanted to be part of it. I said "Sure."
But, to be honest, my first reaction to the news of her passing was selfish and now I have that guilt on top of all the other feelings. I read the email from the member of the production team telling me about her. When it finally registered, I thought, "crap, there goes the movie." Awful, right?
Then, naturally, her producing partner just found out the film got into another festival. They're still figuring things out. She was a tough cookie and was always working to make her next break. She saw an opportunity to use some of the chit she had from her horror fame and try to build off of that. And she thought that I might be able to make something of it. I'm sorry the timing didn't work out for her.
I had been noodling with the idea of doing a couple of blog posts about how Steamed came about. I still made do that.
Some year, right?
This is the woman who asked me to write up an idea she had for a short horror comedy, which became "Steamed." It just started making the festival circuit this year, and we couldn't fully enjoy it because COVID. She did go to one festival in Scranton, PA, just last month (October 2020), where she told us the film got great reactions and she looked like she had a good time. I didn't attend. I hope COVID wasn't involved.
It's been a couple of days since I found out and I'm still processing it. Shock, sadness, anger. To be truthful, I guess we were more co-workers than friends and she was always had some hustle going on; most I sidestepped. She often made my introverted self retreat and that's on me. Just last week she emailed me about setting up a website for the movie and what would be a good time to call. It's not something I'm good at beyond Weebly, but I gave her a time. There was no call, which wasn't unusual for her, she always eventually did call. A while ago, I did set up a page on my site to promote the movie, Steamed, which is about the peak of my abilities. Before that, she called me a few weeks earlier, as I was building my backyard shed, and she was so pleased about the reaction to the short that she was making plans to produce more and wanted to know if I wanted to be part of it. I said "Sure."
But, to be honest, my first reaction to the news of her passing was selfish and now I have that guilt on top of all the other feelings. I read the email from the member of the production team telling me about her. When it finally registered, I thought, "crap, there goes the movie." Awful, right?
Then, naturally, her producing partner just found out the film got into another festival. They're still figuring things out. She was a tough cookie and was always working to make her next break. She saw an opportunity to use some of the chit she had from her horror fame and try to build off of that. And she thought that I might be able to make something of it. I'm sorry the timing didn't work out for her.
I had been noodling with the idea of doing a couple of blog posts about how Steamed came about. I still made do that.
Some year, right?
