A native Texan (born in San Antonio, 1934), George Wead has been an educator for more than 40 years, teaching film, television and theatre at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Texas at Austin, and JMU. Before that, he was a journalist. He served for seven years as head of MCOM (today SMAD). He has written on film for professional journals, newspapers and popular publications. His work on Buster Keaton includes Buster Keaton and the Dynamics of Visual Wit (Arno, 1974) and (with George Lellis) The Film Career of Buster Keaton (G.K. Hall, 1977). With Lellis he also wrote Film: Form & Function (Houghton-Mifflin, 1981), an introduction to film study. He waits to be discovered as a writer of fiction. He has two novels, two plays and a number of short stories, but so far no agent.

Teaching Interests: Film History, Comedy

Research/Creative Activities: Keaton, comedy, Italian cinema, travel