Directing
Birthday: 1944-01-01
Place of Birth: The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
Also Known As: Russ Carlson, Lars Tobin, Eclair von Ott, Otto Von Lickit, Harry Gordon, Jack Hammer, Helmuth Richler, Kenneth Schwartz, John Stover, Oscar Tripe, Nicholas Berland, Amanda Barton, Warren Evans, Arlo Benson, Martin Jones, Arthur van Deuvel, Joel Devlin, Stephen Steinberg, Jerry Conti, Howard Steinman, Howard Stein, Rick Livermoore
Shaun Costello began directing for "loops" (10-minute scenes shown in coin-operated viewers in adult theaters) in NYC in the early 1970s, and soon was directing (and acting in) full porn movies and other grindhouse "roughies" shown in Times Square's 42nd Street adult theaters. Costello took work where he could get it, often working for the Mob, who owned many adult theaters and distribution, and working under different aliases for different theaters so that no one (at the time) knew that he was his own competition. Eventually moving on to a mainstream documentary career, Costello written and directed grindhouse movies - rough and violent and reflecting of their times - have seen a resurgence as the 2010's have seen these movies be remastered and re-released and often seen for the first time in decades. Anyone interested in the history of American porn or grindhouse/exploitation theater of the late 1960s and 1970s will likely have encountered Shaun Costello's work, often unknowingly due to his prolific use of aliases.
