Mark Simon: From Bullied To Hollywood

It All Started In Texas

Back in 1980, while living in Houston, Texas, I was attacked by a gang who tried to kill me….and then followed me home and attacked my family in our front yard.

After months of attacks, and legal warnings to the parents of the gang’s ringleaders, I had those parents arrested. My case set the precedent across the country for holding parents responsible for failure to control the actions of their juveniles, as you may have seen in the recent Georgia and Michigan school shooter cases where parents were arrested.

At the time of the attacks, I didn’t realize how my art had been affected. As I was writing my memoir of those attacks a few years ago, Attacked! Bullied: Surviving Terror and Finding Justice, I pulled samples of my art from that time and found that it had gotten really dark. My drawings transformed from cartoons and superheroes to deformed mutants, warped reality and futuristic machines blowing people to pieces. (which would serve me well in my later career)

All the attacks on me and my family took its toll. I went from a straight-A honors student to failing advanced math.

That gave me an extra class during the school day, and I filled it with another art class. My art teacher suggested that I use that time to help the theater department with their posters and programs. I went from drawing their posters, to designing the sets to backstage managing in a couple of months. I fell in love with theater, went to a summer theater camp, and was offered a theater scholarship to college.

 I Found My Love of Film In College

In college, I ended up studying film, business and art, instead of theater (they finally caught on and cancelled my scholarship after my first year). We shot short films and I created a number of animations. I was also the school cartoonist. I was drawing and telling stories. That’s what I wanted to do with my life.

Two weeks after graduation, I was living in Hollywood. I didn’t know anybody there, but I had a background in construction (family business) and design. I figured set construction, design and art direction was my way in.

I got my first Hollywood job at a set-building company, Serrurier and Assoc. I quickly learned how sets were built and left to become the construction coordinator on a movie at Roger Corman’s studio on the movie Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity. Within two weeks I was made art director.