‘A Christmas Story’ director, SMC student killed in head-on crash
PCH The director of “A Christmas Story” and his son, a gifted music student at Santa Monica College, were killed early Wednesday morning along a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in the Pacific Palisades when their car collided with an SUV driven by a suspected drunk driver, authorities said.
Killed were Robert Clark, 67, of Pacific Palisades, and Ariel Hanrath-Clark, 22, of Santa Monica, according to police.
Clark directed a number of movies, including the holiday-season standard “A Christmas Story,” in 1983, and the action-comedy “Loose Cannons,” in 1990. The New Orleans native also directed, wrote and produced the teen cult films “Porky’s” and “Porky’s II: The Next Day.”
The crash occurred around 2:30 a.m. in the 17300 block of PCH, just south of Bay Club Drive. Clark and his son were both pronounced dead at the scene.
LAPD investigators said Clark was driving a 1997 Infiniti Q-30 sedan southbound on PCH when the driver of a GMC Yukon — Hector Velazquez-Nava, 24, of Los Angeles — swerved across the center line and hit the Clarks head-on.
The road was closed until about 10:40 a.m. on Wednesday as authorities conducted their investigation, said LAPD Officer Jason Lee.
Velazquez-Nava and his passenger, Lydia Mora, 29, of Azusa, were transported to a local hospital where they were treated for minor injuries, Lee said.
Velazquez-Nava was found to be driving under the influence and operating a motor vehicle without a driver’s license. He has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter and will be taken into custody once he is released from treatment, Lee said.
Clark had a prolific career that spanned four decades writing and directing for film and television. In addition to “Porky’s,” which was based on Clark’s experiences during the 1950s with his high school buddies in Florida, Clark also directed “Rhinestone” with Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone, and “From the Hip,” starring Judd Nelson.
Hanrath-Clark was embarking on a promising career of his own as a budding composer who had written several pieces for the SMC jazz band and other ensembles, said Dr. David Goodman, a professor of music theory at SMC who taught the younger Clark.
“He was truly a gifted student, talented, very outgoing, effervescent, very upbeat and very positive,” Goodman said. “He was one of the most gifted students I had ever had in my 10 years at SMC. He was unusually bright.” Goodman remembers watching Hanrath-Clark, who was also an amateur acrobat, stand on his head or do cartwheels in the quad, entertaining his friends.
“He had a lot of raw talent,” Goodman added. “He was just really starting to find his voice as a composer.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 5, 2007. Read the original PDF.