Sync Family: UFOs, Exorcisms, Vampires, Werewolves, and Slashers

The generational links and syncs in the Gleason-Miller family is rather fascinating. Do actors choose their movies or do the films choose the actors?

On the 40th anniversary of the birthday of modern UFOs, June 24, 1987, Jackie Gleason, 71, the actor, who was an early advocate of flying saucer research, died. Gleason's known interest in UFOs allegedly prompted President Richard Nixon to share some information with him and to disclose some UFO data publicly.

John Herbert "Jackie" Gleason (February 26, 1916 – June 24, 1987) was an American comedian, actor, musician and writer who developed a style and characters in his career from growing up in Brooklyn, New York.

John Herbert Gleason was born in 1916 at 364 Chauncey Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He grew up at 328 Chauncey (an address he later used for Ralph and Alice Kramden on The Honeymooners). Named Herbert Walton Gleason, Jr., at birth, he was baptized John Herbert Gleason. His parents were Herbert Walton "Herb" Gleason, an Irish-American insurance auditor, and Mae "Maisie" (née Kelly), from Farranree, Cork, Ireland. Gleason was one of two children; his brother, Clement J., died of meningitis at age 14.

Jackie Gleason in The Hustler (1961)

Gleason's daughter with wife Genevieve Halford is Linda Mae Miller (née Gleason; born September 16, 1942), who became an actress and married actor-playwright Jason Miller. Their son, Gleason's grandson, is actor Jason Patric.

Jason Miller as Father Damien Karras in The Exorcist

Jason Miller (April 22, 1939 – May 13, 2001) was an American actor and playwright. He received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play That Championship Season and was widely recognized for his role as Father Damien Karras in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist, a role he reprised briefly in The Exorcist III.

Corey Haim and Jason Patric in The Lost Boys (1987)

Jason Patric in The Lost Boys (1987)

Joshua John Miller (born December 26, 1974) is an American actor, screenwriter, author, and director.

Joshua John Miller in River's Edge (1986).

Miller was born in Los Angeles to actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jason Miller and actress and Playboy pin-up Susan Bernard. Miller's half-brother is actor Jason Patric, and his maternal grandfather was photographer Bruno Bernard, also known as "Bernard of Hollywood". His father was of Irish and German descent, and his mother is Jewish.

Miller (on the right) is openly gay and, as of 2013, is in a relationship with fellow screenwriter M.A. Fortin (left). Miller collaborated with M.A. Fortin to write the DreamWorks TV and Fox production Howl (2011). The two also co-wrote the screenplay and executive produced the 2015 horror comedy film The Final Girls.

Known for The Werewolf of Ansbach, Killing Spree Visits Area

A suspect has been caught by police after allegedly shooting to death two people in a killing spree in Ansbach in northern Bavaria, Germany, on Friday morning, July 10, 2010.

The area is known as the site of famed werewolf account, in many ways, a German version of the Beast of Gévaudan (La Bête Du Gévaudan).

Coat of Arms of Anspach.

The name of the town was originally Onolzbach, meaning "On'z Brook". It was also formerly known as Anspach.

The Wolf of Ansbach was a man-eating wolf that attacked and killed an unknown number of people in the Principality of Ansbach in 1685, then a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Initially a nuisance preying on livestock, the wolf soon began attacking women and children. The citizens of Ansbach believed the animal to be a werewolf, a reincarnation of their late and cruel Bürgermeister, whose recent death had gone unlamented. During an organized hunt the locals succeeded in driving the wolf from a nearby forest and chasing it down with dogs until it leaped into an uncovered well for protection. Trapped, the wolf was slain, and its carcass paraded through the city marketplace. It was dressed in a man's clothing and, after severing its muzzle, the crowd placed a mask, wig, and beard upon its head, giving it the appearance of the former Bürgermeister. The wolf's body was then hanged from a gibbet for all to see until it underwent preservation for permanent display at a local museum. (See also, The Book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gould, and The Werewolf by Montague Summers).

Franz Ritter von Kobell and other writers wrote poems about the wolf and its actions.

The man arrested in conjunction with the July 10, 2015, Ansbach shooting is thought to be around 47 years old, is alleged to have driven in a silver Mercedes convertible to the village of Tiefenthal, where he stopped and had a brief exchange of words with an 82-year-old woman before shooting her dead.

Tuefebthal literally translates as "the deep valley." The municipality lies in a small hollow with northern slopes between the Eisbach and Eckbach valleys in the Palatinate. Tiefenthal belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Hettenleidelheim, whose seat is in the like-named municipality. Until 1969, the municipality belonged to the now abolished district of Frankenthal.

The German blazon reads: In Rot ein goldenes Tatzenkreuz. (A golden cross in red.)
Tiefenthal’s arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Gules a cross pattée humetty Or. The arms were approved by the now defunct Regierungsbezirk administration in Neustadt and date from a 1724 seal. They are borrowed from the arms once borne by the Counts of Leiningen-Westerburg, to whom Tiefenthal belonged.

The suspect fled the scene before shooting and killing a 72-year-old male cyclist 5km away in Rammersdorf.

Another man was threatened with a gun, and shortly afterwards a tractor driver was shot at, but was unhurt, police said.

Two mechanics working at a petrol station in Bad Windsheim overpowered the man after he entered the shop and threatened employees with a gun, police said.

Police said the man, named as Bernd G, was not previously known to the authorities.

Gerhard Neuhof, a senior public prosecutor in Ansbach, said there was no indication the gunman knew his victims and the incident appeared to have been a random killing spree.

The mayor of Leutershausen, Siegfried Hess, said he was shocked by the attack, according to the newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Crime scene investigators in Leutershausen, near Ansbach (EPA)

Hess told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he was "totally shocked".

Hess described the killings as "probably the worst crime in the history of the town." He said he had already sent his condolences to the family of the 82-year-old victim, and said he believed the suspect did not know the woman.

Apparently Herr Hess is unaware of the werewolf history of Ansbach!

When The Wolfbane Blooms

What does tonight's first Full Moon of 2009 foretell? This one is called the Wolf Moon, a Full Moon in Cancer, and it is indeed a precursor to a year that will be full of werewolf news.

"Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright." - The Wolf Man, 1941.

The word is slipping out.

Todd Campbell takes a look at the interplay between hidden forces, the Moon, in a Sirius vein, in his new notes delivered in "Bark at the Moon", over at Through The Looking Glass.



In the new edition of Entertainment Weekly, January 16, 2009, reporter Tanner Stransky gives us a hint about how some of this will be reflected in the popular culture via his ""Movie News":

In 2009, Werewolves Answer Hollywood's Call of the Wild

"The furry beasts are popping up everywhere, including the upcoming Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, New Moon, and more

"Take a gander at the big screen this year because you're likely to spy a full moon — and we aren't talking about Will Ferrell's bare butt. If 2008 marked a comeback for the vampire, the next 12 months belong to the werewolf. On Jan. 23, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans showcases the woolly beasts, while a furrier-than-usual Hugh Jackman returns in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1). Later this year, Benicio Del Toro stars in The Wolfman (Nov. 6), and in the Nov. 20 Twilight sequel New Moon, heroine Bella moons over werewolf Jacob. TV loves a lupine too: Fox just ordered the ludicrously titled dramedy pilot Bitches — about a quartet of female werewolf friends in New York City — and it's rumored that season 2 of HBO's True Blood will get hairy."



"So what's with the comeback? 'The last time this happened was World War II,' notes Brad Steiger, author of The Werewolf Book. 'It's reflective. We want to worry about something that can get us besides bailouts. I'm eager to see [these projects]. Benicio, God bless him, looks like a werewolf without the makeup.'"

Steiger's book is one of several similar books that have shape-shifted into our world lately, indeed, returning some old words in new presentations.



The republished The Book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gould is a new classic in hardback in a series from Cosimo Books.

Meanwhile, A Cryptozoological Study of the Shunka Warak'in by Mystical Mikal, published by BookSurge Publishing, late in 2008, looks at the overlap between one old saga of a werewolf-like creature and cryptozoology.

Yes, if Vampires seemed to rule in 2008, it appears certain the true Masters of the forests and the night, the Werewolves may be on the horizon.

Maleva: "Whoever is bitten by a werewolf and lives becomes a werewolf himself."
Larry Talbot: "Ah, don't hand me that. You're just wasting your time."
Maleva: "The wolf bit you, didn't he?"
Larry Talbot: "Yeah. Yeah he did!"

Stay tuned, for you have just been bitten.