The opening credits for The Creeping Terror list A.J. Nelson as the director, and actor Vic Savage receives top billing. Of course, A.J. and Vic were in fact one in the same. If anyone had investigated further, they would have found that "A.J. Nelson" was also another alias for Arthur Nichols White, the birth name of this visionary filmmaker.
The makers of CREEP! have uncovered many interesting facts about this intriguing individual, some of which we share here for your enjoyment. Look for CREEP! to be your definitive source of information on Arthur, with plenty of on-camera testimonials and fascinating insights from those people "lucky" enough to know him.
The information you will find here has all been culled from the research and personal recolections of the many people interviewed for CREEP!.
"He would comb his hair down...and he would stand in the mirror and pretend he was Hitler then he’d say, "I'm God...you had better always remember that'." -Ex-wife and author, Lois Wiseman.
The year was 1933. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were well under way. Adolf Hitler had become the dictator of Germany under the Reichstag. The film King Kong dazzled audiences at Radio City Music Hall, the first drive-in theater opened in Camden, New Jersey and Arthur Nelson White was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The son of an abusive alcoholic father and an alcoholic Algonquin Indian mother, Arthur was out of control at just 10 years of age. A troubled boy given over to social deviance and eventually a full blown psychopathic personality, White spendt 8 years in Meriden School for Boys and by 1950 had served a term in a Connecticut federal correction institution. His tormented mind attempted to find resolution in his writing of a play on juvenile delinquents. He began to dream of making his story come to life on the screen. He dreamt of a movie called Street Fighter.
Fast forward to 1954. Art Nelson had just married his first victim: naive, 17 year old Lois Schwartz, who was desperately looking for her own escape. "Once we were stable, he told me, we'd go out to California 'To see what we can get into'... I wondered what life would be like there. Sometimes the thought of it scared me, I worried that all those rich movie people would take advantage...since we weren’t used to the way they did things." (Lois Schwarz, Hollywood Con Man, 2000, p. 22)
Arthur Nelson White, aka Vic Savage, was hell-bent on making it big in Hollywood with his trademark sideburns and a charismatic twinkle in his eye. His slick personality seemed to grant him entrance to premieres where he professionally lifted the wallets of those none the wiser. Perusing theater groups, he honed his skill at persuading others to part with their cash with amazing ease. Everyone, that is, except professional boxer and mobster Mickey Cohen. At one point, the mob beat Art badly after trying to cash a hot check in Las Vegas.
Art completed his movie Street Fighter and raked in a surprising $48,000. But no one other than himself sees the money, and he flees back to Connecticut to spend his riches on clothes, furniture, cars and a 14-year-old secret girlfriend of 5 years.
A violent alcoholic and drug addict, he found pleasure in his erotic rages. No empathy, no conscience. He is what Dr. Robert Hare, author of Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, described as an "intraspecies predator".
Art Nelson returned to Hollywood without his wife and children, and the infamous legend of the making of The Creeping Terror unfolded. The real victims awaited, unaware or who or what a "creeping terror" really was.
Welcome the CREEP!