Joseph B. Vasquez

Born in the South Bronx, the son of two heroin addicts, Joseph Vazquez was 10 months old when his mother left him (and his two older brothers) to be raised by her mother (his father died of a drug overdose in 1985). When he was 12, he began making his own movies, using a relative's Super-8 camera. Awarded a filmmaking degree from City College of New York in 1983, Vazquez got a job in a film postproduction company, and in 1989 he put together his own film, The Bronx War (1991). It made the rounds of the film festivals and soon Vazquez was contacted by New Line Cinema. He showed them a script he had been working on for several years, and New Line agreed to finance and distribute the film, Hangin' with the Homeboys (1991). It was a success both critically and financially, and Vazquez' career as a filmmaker seemed to be launched. However, his already erratic behavior on set worsened when he was attacked one morning in the subway by a deranged derelict, who slashed his face with a knife. Vazquez had ambitions to be an actor as well as a director, and he believed that the knifing ended his acting career; according to cast and crew members, he took out his frustrations on them. His behavior after the film opened began to alienate people in the industry (at the New York premiere he made a speech in which he thanked the people of New York "because they have the best drugs") and he turned down so many projects that were offered to him that eventually the offers stopped coming. In 1994 he was offered a job in Puerto Rico directing Manhattan Merengue! (1995). Vazquez believed that the film was going to be a hit but it was never released and he became severely depressed. He moved to Hollywood, but his erratic behavior worsened to the point where one day he was taken to a county mental facility after being arrested while running naked through an apartment building. A psychiatrist diagnosed him as manic-depressive and recommended hospitalization, but Vazquez refused and signed himself out of the hospital. Believing himself to be Jesus Christ, he used the last of his money to rent a house in which he gathered a group of homeless people and prostitutes as his `family', and even managed to get some money together to begin shooting a film, but after a few days of filming the crew he hired deserted the project when he came on the set one day screaming and waving a loaded gun. He eventually left the house he was living in and moved in with his mother, whom he hadn't seen in decades and who was living in a small town near the Mexican border. His mental state deteriorated further and he was hospitalized several times, and on one of his stays it was discovered that he had AIDS. He died of complications from AIDS in a San Diego hospital on December 16, 1995.