Daniel Thomas O'Bannon (September 30, 1946 – December 17, 2009) was an American film screenwriter, director and visual effects supervisor, usually in the science fiction and horror genres. O'Bannon wrote the screenplay for Alien, adapted from a story he wrote with Ronald Shusett. He also wrote and directed the cult horror comedy The Return of the Living Dead. He contributed computer animation to Star Wars and worked on cult classics such as Dark Star, Heavy Metal, and Total Recall. Early life O'Bannon was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Bertha (née Lowenthal) and Thomas Sidney O'Bannon, a carpenter. During his childhood he was a science fiction and horror enthusiast. He attended the art school of Washington University in St. Louis, where he did stand-up comedy routines, did make-up for campus theater productions, and provided illustrations for Student Life, the student newspaper. While there he roomed with future movie producer Michael Shamberg. O'Bannon moved home briefly after Washington University and attended Florissant Valley Junior College where he wrote and directed a short science fiction satire titled "The Attack of the 50-foot Chicken." O'Bannon also attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. During this period he pursued a psychology degree, but later became interested in becoming a film director. According to O'Bannon, he was reading an issue of Playboy when he found an article discussing the best film schools, which led him to the University of Southern California (USC). He received a bachelor's degree in film from USC in 1970. While at USC he lived near the Los Angeles Campus in an old two-story house affectionately called the "Menlo Manor" which he shared with other USC students (Don Jakoby, who collaborated on several screenplays with Dan including Blue Thunder; and Jeffrey J. Lee). As a student, O'Bannon spent many late nights in old Hollywood editing his and other student films. Career 1970s It was at USC that he met John Carpenter and collaborated with him on a student film, which they eventually expanded into the feature-length science fiction movie Dark Star. Part of the movie was filmed at Menlo Manor. Released in 1974, it had a final budget of only US$60,000. O'Bannon served in a number of capacities, including scripting, acting in one of the leading roles ("Sergeant Pinback") and editing, for which he used a 1940s Moviola. In 1975, Dark Star won the Golden Scroll award (the Saturn Awards' original