Bill Rebane

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Bill Rebane bigraphy, stories - Film

Bill Rebane : biography

08 February 1937 –

Baronhereditary titled nobility" Baron" through his great-great-grandfather; Dr. Friedrich Willhelm Mac Donald, recipient of the Vlademier Cross and the order of St. Anne, Imperial Russia Bill Rebane (born February 8, 1937) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for low budget horror movies such as Twist Craze and The Giant Spider Invasion. Rebane also ran for the governor of Wisconsin in 1979 and 2002 as the American Reform Party candidate.

Career

Post-college

Rebane’s first positions in media included working for WGN-TV in Chicago, where he worked his way through the ranks, beginning with a position in the mailroom, and then as floor manager, assistant producer, and assistant to executive producer. Partaking in production of various live television broadcasts, also allowed him the opportunities as an actor and singer, resulting in appearances on such shows as the courtroom drama series They Stand Accused and the syndicated musical-variety series The International Cafe.

Baltes and Cinema Scope

Rebane returned to Germany at age 19, where he met and worked with producer Adalbert Baltes of Hamburg, Germany. Rebane credits working with Baltes as his start in the film industry. After working with Baltes as a production assistant, assistant director, and director on various ‘Cinema Scope Theatrical Short Subjects’ for ‘Baltes Film’, Rebane obtained the U.S. rights to the ‘Cinetarium’ circular motion picture process.

Rebane returned to the U.S. and introduced the proprietary process to the world film industry through ‘United Film and Recording Studios’ in Chicago, attracting such notables as Samuel Goldwyn, Roy Disney, Jack Warner, Hugh Hefner, and Michael Todd Jr. to the process, along with industry professionals from Russia, central Europe and Japan.

By age 22, Rebane was a millionaire. However, his early wealth was temporary, as costs of patents, legal fees, and research into means to manufacture vertical projection systems, were at the time beyond the financial means of the companies he had formed for development of the process.

Early film production

Rebane then turned to film production. His first independent production effort was the ten-minute musical theatrical short subject called Twist Craze which was purchased by American International Pictures. The film became an international success both theatrically and financially, and enjoyed a 10-week holdover at the Oriental Theater in Chicago, which until that time, was an unheard phenomenon for independent short subject theatrical productions. The film earned twenty times its production cost.

Rebane followed this success with a 20-minute theatrical musical short titled Dance Craze, which surpassed the success of Twist Craze, ultimately being purchased by Crown International Pictures for international release.

Radio

Rebane’s interests in media, and performance, and with the professional contacts he had made, led to his position as co-host of the Germania broadcast at Chicago’s WGES radio station, at the time the largest and most popular German-language broadcast in America. As a daily evening one-hour live show, it allowed Rebane to create, produce, and host other radio shows on WKFM, Chicago’s first FM station, as well as leaving time open for his day job as national public relations director and assistant advertising director for the American distributor for the German firm Grundig Radio.

First science fiction project

In 1961 Rebane decided to make a feature film, and in 1963 he began production of the science fiction feature film Terror at Halfway, starring June Travis and Peter Thompson, which marked Rebane’s becoming the first producer in Chicago to tackle an independent feature film production with a full union crew and screen actors guild talent. A chance meeting with Ronald Reagan nearly attached Reagan to the film. however, Rebane’s financial contacts would not go along, claiming Reagan was a "has been" and not worth the investment. Unable to finance the completion of the film, Rebane sold his completed footage to Herschell Gordon Lewis. Lewis went on to complete the film and release the film as Monster A Go-Go in 1965.