13 Things You Didn't Know About Friday 13th Part III

Not only was Richard Brooker the only Englishman to play Jason Voorhees, but he was, by all accounts, a jack-of-all-trades, a polymath, a renaissance man - call it what you like. Supposedly he left the circus he was performing in because he was having an affair with the ringmaster's wife, and there’s no part of that sentence that isn’t awesome.

A raconteur and larger than life personality who had travelled the world, always itching to try new things, Brooker was a highly educated, pipe-smoking iconoclast who made a huge impression on everyone he met.

Fantastic amateur photographer? Yup. Sailor, polo player? Check and check. Brooker later trained horses for use in stunt work and then became a highly sought after television director and producer, often producing five daily shows at the same time.

All that, and Brooker was an entrepreneur and inventor with his own website design company and a technology background specialising in wireless communication. His company Boxx Communications LLC was the recipient of a plaque for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development from the 2006 Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards, presented for ‘engineering developments so significant or so innovative in nature that they materially affect the transmission, recording or reception of television’. One of his gadgets was used by cellphones the world over.

Tragically, Brooker left us in April 2013 at only 58 years old. Still... what a remarkable man, and what an amazing legacy.