Early life Red was born in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Nancy (née Pickhardt) and Cornelius Gerard Durdaller. He attended the
AFI Conservatory and graduated in 1983.
Screenwriter career The first film written by Red was ''
Gunmen's Blues'', a
short he produced and directed while a student at the
AFI Conservatory. He went broke trying to get national distribution for the film and had to drive a cab in
New York City for a year to recoup. His AFI thesis script,
The Hitcher, was produced in 1986. A major studio remake of
The Hitcher was released in 2007 with Red as a consultant. From the '80s through the '00s, his subsequent produced screenplays were
Near Dark,
Cohen and Tate,
Blue Steel,
Body Parts,
The Last Outlaw,
Undertow,
Bad Moon and
100 Feet.
Director career The first feature film directed by Red was
Cohen and Tate in 1987. He subsequently directed the films
Body Parts (1990),
Undertow (1995),
Bad Moon (1996) and
100 Feet (2008).
Novelist career Eric Red published his first novel, ''Don't Stand So Close
, in 2011. His subsequent published novels are The Guns of Santa Sangre
(2013), The Wolves of El Diablo
(2017), It Waits Below
(2014), Noose
(2018), Hanging Fire
(2019), White Knuckle
(2015), Strange Fruit
(2014), Branded
(2021) and The Crimson Trail'' (2021).
Car crash Following a car accident, Red crashed his truck into a crowded bar in Los Angeles on May 31, 2000, resulting in the deaths of two patrons. After the incident, Red apparently exited his vehicle and
attempted suicide by slitting his own throat with a piece of broken glass. News reports from the time stated that he had suffered from
syncope with occasional blackouts. Among the witnesses were three retired FBI agents who were a few feet from the point of impact, with one stating for the police statement that Red appeared "wake and alert". Red survived the incident, was taken to the hospital under an alias and was released weeks later. It was disclosed at the investigation that Red was driving on a suspended license due to a collision the previous year while his insurance was lapsed, with Red stating to police that he did not know his license was suspended (he had renewed it in the last month of 1999). He later disclosed that he had lied to police, assuming that a stop would lead to his arrest. Thick skid marks from the front tires were spotted inside the bar. No criminal charges were brought against Red, but a jury in a civil suit awarded monetary damages to the families of the victims, which challenged his claim of being treated for syncope by Dr. Herbert A. Rubin, who recanted these claims in his deposition. During the civil trial, he announced his move to Austin, Texas to find employment and later filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy for the second time in his life (having done so in 1995). The suit, which awarded over a million dollars to the families of the two men killed in the accident, was appealed to state and federal courts, which confirmed the original jury finding. ==Filmography==