| Who is it? | Producer, Director, Actor |
| Birth Day | April 24, 1914 |
| Birth Place | New York City, New York, United States |
| Age | 106 YEARS OLD |
| Died On | May 31, 1977(1977-05-31) (aged 63)\nLos Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Birth Sign | Taurus |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Occupation | Director, producer, screenwriter, actor |
| Spouse(s) | Ellen Falck (1948–1977; his death) |
| Children | 2 |
William Castle simply went nuts. He came up with "Coward's Corner," a yellow cardboard booth, manned by a bewildered theater employee in the lobby. When the Fright Break was announced, and you found that you couldn't take it anymore, you had to leave your seat and, in front of the entire audience, follow yellow footsteps up the aisle, bathed in a yellow light. Before you reached Coward's Corner, you crossed yellow lines with the stenciled message: "Cowards Keep Walking." You passed a nurse (in a yellow uniform?...I wonder), who would offer a blood-pressure test. All the while a recording was blaring, "Watch the chicken! Watch him shiver in Coward's Corner!" As the audience howled, you had to go through one final indignity – at Coward's Corner you were forced to sign a yellow card stating, "I am a bona fide coward."
Alfred Hitchcock decided to make Psycho after noting the financial success of 1950s B-movies by Castle and Roger Corman.
Ambitions unsatisfied, Castle began to make films independently. The inspiration of the 1955 French psychological thriller Les Diaboliques set the genre he would choose. He financed his first movie, Macabre (1958), by mortgaging his house. He came up with the idea to give every customer a certificate for a $1,000 life insurance policy from Lloyd's of London in case they should die of fright during the film. He stationed Nurses in the lobbies with hearses parked outside the theaters. Macabre was a hit.
John Waters portrays Castle in the episode "Hagsploitation" in the first season (subtitled Bette and Joan) of the FX television anthology series Feud, depicting the notorious rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford through the production and aftermath of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. Waters as Castle appears onstage at an Oklahoma theater in 1964, exuberantly introducing a screening of Strait-Jacket while Jessica Lange as Crawford in a blood-red evening gown proceeds down the aisle, wincing and wielding an axe past hooting teenagers before pursuing Castle behind a backlit scrim to "decapitate" him in silhouette.
Castle died on May 31, 1977, in Los Angeles, California, of a heart attack. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
The protagonist in the 1993 film Matinee, played by John Goodman, is based on Castle.
Two of his films were remade by his daughter Terry Ann Castle, who co-produced House on Haunted Hill in 1999 and Thirteen Ghosts in 2001 (the latter retitled Thir13en Ghosts).
A documentary focusing on Castle's life, Spine Tingler! The william Castle Story, directed by Jeffrey Schwarz, premiered at AFI Fest 2007 in Los Angeles on November 8, 2007. It won the Audience Award for Best Documentary.
Castle was unable to build on the film's success. He suffered kidney failure soon after its release. By the time he recovered, all momentum was lost, and he went back to making B-movies. His most significant acting role was also his last—as the Director of the doomed "Waterloo" epic in The Day of the Locust in 1975.
