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Don Coscarelli (born February 17, 1954) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for horror films. His credits include the Phantasm series, The Beastmaster, and Bubba Ho-Tep. Coscarelli was born in Libya and raised in Southern California. His family is among the Italian Libyan population. He speaks Arabic and American English aside from his native Italian. Although his family was not connected with the motion picture business, he was fascinated with cameras and filmmaking at an early age. Long before he was old enough to attend film school, his short films, made... MORE

Don Coscarelli (born February 17, 1954) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for horror films. His credits include the Phantasm series, The Beastmaster, and Bubba Ho-Tep. Coscarelli was born in Libya and raised in Southern California. His family is among the Italian Libyan population. He speaks Arabic and American English aside from his native Italian. Although his family was not connected with the motion picture business, he was fascinated with cameras and filmmaking at an early age. Long before he was old enough to attend film school, his short films, made with the help of neighborhood friends in his home town of Long Beach, California, were winning prizes on television. At the age of nineteen, Coscarelli became the youngest director to have a feature film distributed by a major studio when he sold his independently produced and critically acclaimed drama, Jim the World's Greatest, to Universal Pictures. The film was the first collaboration for Coscarelli with the accomplished actor Lawrence Rory Guy, who went on to achieve legendary horror icon status under the screen name Angus Scrimm. Jim the World's Greatest was an official selection of the USA LESS