Robert Barton Inglund is an American actor and director. He gained his world fame thanks to the film of the famous Wes Craven “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, where he played the mystic maniac killer Freddy Krueger. For the image he created, he was nominated for the Saturn Award.
The actor devoted most of his creative biography to films where he played the roles of villains and dark personalities, although friends speak of him as a very kind and disposing person. Prior to his acting career, Robert worked on the radio and hosted several television entertainment shows.
early years
Robert was born in 1947, on June 6, in the USA, in a family that had nothing to do with art. Mom led the household, and his father worked as an engineer at an aircraft factory.
The boy attended a regular school, but by the age of 12 he began to actively participate in school theater productions and gradually became very interested in the stage. Subsequently, his hobbies influenced the choice of profession and Robert entered first at the Cranbrook Theater School, then at acting courses at the University of California and at the Academy of Arts in Michigan. He later completed an internship at the New York Theater and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Actor career
After receiving an acting education, Inglund played several roles in the theater, and in 1974 he decided to try his hand at cinema.
On the advice of his friend Mark Hamill, Robert went on an audition in the movie "Star Wars", but his attempt was unsuccessful. After a while, he was invited to a series of episodic roles, which did not bring the actor either success or fame. But Robert did not despair and continued to work hard and look for new projects. And his search was not in vain.
Since the 80s, the actor has starred in more than a hundred films and television series.
"A Nightmare on Elm Street"
The main role of Robert Englund was the fictional killer and maniac from childhood dreams, known to all lovers of horror films, Freddy Krueger in the series A Nightmare on Elm Street.
About how the actor began acting in this film, there were many rumors and legends. Some of them said that on the eve of Robert quarreled with his close friend and, in order to annoy her, he painted his face with makeup and walked like that for several days. In this "mask" he was seen by the future director of the picture Wes Craven and invited him to shoot. The name Freddy Krueger, too, was not chosen by chance. It was said that the director named his hero in honor of a classmate who plagued him in his school years.
Nevertheless, the role of a maniac has become truly stellar for Inglund. He was called the "king of horror", crowds of fans chased the actor, not giving him a pass, and Robert himself provided himself with work for many years.
In one of his interviews, Robert said that the film was based on nightmares that haunted Wes himself for a long time. When he was very young, at night before going to bed he saw a strange man in a window in a multi-colored sweater with a burned or dirty face, who looked directly into the child's eyes. The boy went to bed, but soon he heard a noise near the front door. Looking through the peephole, he saw this strange man. These childhood fears, as well as stories about refugees from Vietnam who were dying in their dreams, formed the basis of the script for the film.
Until today, the image created by Inglund is considered one of the worst in cinema.
In the future, the actor played in many other films of the horror genre, among which were: “Crush”, “Wishmaster”, “City Legends”, “2001 Maniac” and many others.
