Biography

Versatile and underrated B-movie Renaissance man John "Bud" Cardos was born in 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri. His family has interesting roots in the entertainment industry: his cousin Spyros Skouras worked at Twentieth Century-Fox and his father and uncle managed the lavish Graumann's Egyptian and Chinese theaters. Cardos began his lengthy and extensive show business career as a child actor in Hal Roach's 1940s "Our Gang" comedies. He was a rodeo rider in his teen years, and worked as an animal wrangler and bird handler on Alfred Hitchcock's outstanding killer animal classic The Birds (1963). Cardos achieved his greatest cult popularity acting in several entertainingly trashy exploitation features for legendary Grade-Z schlockmeister Al Adamson: he's especially memorable as Mohawk-sporting Native American biker Firewater in the splendidly sleazy Satan's Sadists (1969) and as crazed half-breed Joe Lightfoot in the gritty (and often incoherent) western Five Bloody Graves (1969). He got into stunt work, and among the films Cardos performed stunts in are Nightmare in Wax (1969), the trippy hippie gem Psych-Out (1968), The Savage Seven (1968), The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971), and Jud (1971). Cardos tackled second unit director chores for Sam Peckinpah's magnificent landmark western The Wild Bunch (1969). He was a production manager on many movies; they include the creepy Dead of Night (1974), Killers Three (1968), The Rebel Rousers (1970), Lash of Lust (1972), Hell's Bloody Devils (1970), and Deadwood '76 (1965).

Cardos made his directorial debut with the blaxploitation item The Red, White, and Black (1970). His other directorial efforts include the superior revolt-of-nature horror winner Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), the not-half-bad sci-fi/horror opus The Dark (1979), and the nifty zombie flick Forbidden World (1982). Outside of his substantial film work, Cardos also did Western art. He died at age 91 on December 31, 2020 in Acton, California.