About Me
My name is Steve Latshaw. I'm a midwesterner by birth, born and raised in Decatur, Illinois (Soybean capital of the world). I spent the winters throwing snowballs and riding sleds and the summers on my cousins farm, riding tractors at my Grandfathers farm tractor store in Warrensburg, attending fish fries in Niantic/Harristown or land surveying back country roads and forests with my Dad. I got my first pro job in the summer of 1976, working at the tender age of 16 as a 16mm news photographer for WAND-TV, Channel 17 (Decatur). To see more of what those days were like, check out Will Ferrell's film ANCHORMAN. I covered, among other things, the 1976 Presidential election. At the same time, did a CATV comedy TV show for G.E. Cablevision modeled on Monty Python called SIMON NASHS INCREDIBLE IMPORTED RAT POISON. We did sketches and thought we were very funny. That same summer, I saw my first concert (THE BEACH BOYS) in Peoria, Illinois. The first great love of my life was a girl from Mt. Zion High School; we consumated that relationship in my Dads pickup on New Years Eve 1976... and we would have married except that I had to go to college and she didnt want to wait. Ah, young love. My second great love was a girl from my own High School (Lakeview) who happened to be a Mormon. I wasn't, but we spent a couple of years trying to figure out how to make it work... sadly, we couldnt. My best friends in the world were Danny (now a computer genius in Springfield, IL - and the finest drummer I ever knew), Dave (now an artist with wood, building cabinets and restoring antiques) and Doug (now serving with the United States Army in the war). We got into more trouble than most but not as much as we should have. The Four Musketeers... we all planned a trip to California in the summer of 1977... but Danny got married and I went to college, so Doug and Dave went... and called me repeatedly from the coast. I was the only one who ended up living out here but somehow it is not the same without them. I attended college at SIU-C, Carbondale, a renowned party school. My major was Radio-TV. My minor was theater... and partying. I finally graduated in 1986, after taking a couple of years off to get married. I met my wife in college... we had a beautiful son in 1986. Professionally, I was Program Director of a cable tv station between 1983-1987, producing public affairs and comedy shows, running old movies, hosting a horror host show and making a couple of feature length movies. After our son was born, we moved to Orlando, Florida, then called Hollywood East; I had an Uncle by marriage who had been a successful screenwriter and I had wanted to make movies since I was 8 years old. I figured I would break in by making them in Florida. I started as an actor, doing commercials and appearing as a semi-regular day player on the SUPERBOY TV series. I switched to directing in 1990, doing a string of low budget horror and sci fi flicks in Florida...among them VAMPIRE TRAILER PARK (the world's first film about vampire bulimia - 3 stars plus an 86 on the vomit meter from Joe Bob Briggs), DARK UNIVERSE (starring Joe Estevez and the inimitable Steve Barkett), BIOHAZARD 2 aka BIOHAZARD: THE ALIEN FORCE (featuring an amazing performance from Chris (son of Robert) Mitchum), JACK-O (starring the very lovely Linnea Quigley and the very dead John Carradine and Cameron Mitchell). All big video and cable hits. I've been directing or writing movies ever since, frequently for action stars like Jean Claude Van Damme, Michael Dudikoff, Treat Williams and others. CURSE OF THE KOMODO was a sci fi channel premiere as was STAN LEE'S LIGHTSPEED. PLANET RAPTOR, starring Steven Bauer and Ted Raimi is due for release soon. Am currently at work on an action film for Dolph Lundgren's Thor Pictures. What a long strange trip it has been, indeed. Oh, and I am also world traveled. Have even been to Barstow.
