Reply #96: "Christmas Story" director and his grown son die in collision.

[CBHagman]

I am truly sorry to have to report that the director of the much-loved A Christmas Story has been killed in a car accident. He and his grown son died when an unlicensed and drunken driver collided head-on with their car. To take someone's life due to DUI is appalling enough, but more two lives, a father and son -- unspeakable.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_en_mo/obit_clark

In Clark's most famous film, all 9-year-old Ralphie Parker wants for Christmas is an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle.

His mother, teacher and Santa Claus all warn: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

A school bully named Scut Farkus, a leg lamp, a freezing flagpole mishap and some four-letter defiance helped the movie become a seasonal fixture with "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street."

Clark specialized in horror movies and thrillers early in his career, directing such 1970s flicks as "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," "Murder by Decree," "Breaking Point" and "Black Christmas," which was remade last year.

His breakout success came with 1981's sex farce "Porky's," a coming-of-age romp that he followed two years later with "Porky's II: The Next Day."

In 1983, "A Christmas Story" marked a career high for Clark. Darrin McGavin, Melinda Dillon and Peter Billingsley starred in the adaptation of Jean Shepard's childhood memoir of a boy in the 1940s.

The film was a modest theatrical success, but critics loved it.

A Christmas Story gets considerable airplay at Christmastime in the States, even back-to-back screenings on one of the cable channels. Turner Classic Movies now includes it in their holiday schedule, too.