Behind the velvet curtain

Jane Campion's infant son Jasper lived just 12 days — a private grief amid her rising international career

      Jane Campion
      1990s
      Tragedy
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In 1993, shortly after Jane Campion had achieved global recognition for The Piano (which won the Palme d'Or in 1993 and earned Campion an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1994), she and her then-husband Colin David Englert welcomed a son, Jasper. The infant lived for only 12 days. The loss was a stark and heartbreaking footnote to a period of intense professional acclaim—Campion and Englert went on to have a second child, Alice Englert, in 1994. The marriage ended in divorce in 2001. While biographical summaries note the dates and basic facts, the brief life of Jasper stands out as a profound personal tragedy that coincided with Campion’s ascent as an internationally celebrated director, and it has been part of the private biography that shaped her family life in the years that followed.

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Jane Campion's infant son Jasper lived just 12 days — a private grief amid her rising international career

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Jane Campion's infant son Jasper lived just 12 days — a private grief amid her rising international career

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Ash Christian, the Texas-born filmmaker who began writing and directing short films as a teenager and moved to Los Angeles at 16, died unexpectedly on August 14, 2020, at the age of 35. Christian was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on vacation when he suffered a heart attack in his sleep. His death abruptly ended a career that had already spanned acting, directing, producing, and Broadway: at 19, he wrote, directed, and starred in Fat Girls, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won Outfest’s 2006 Award for Outstanding Emerging Talent. Through his company Cranium Entertainment, he later co-produced films including Hurricane Bianca, Social Animals, 1985, Burn, and Chick Fight, while also working on television programs such as The Good Wife and The Good Fight and producing the musical Next to Normal. The circumstances were not connected to a film set or known production accident; the tragedy lay in the sudden loss of a prolific young independent filmmaker and producer whose career had begun unusually early and was still expanding.

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Chuck Vincent’s 1991 Death During the AIDS Crisis

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Chuck Vincent, born Charles Vincent Dingley, died in Key West, Florida, on September 23, 1991, just seventeen days after his 51st birthday. His death was attributed to complications from AIDS, ending a career that had moved from regional theater and Off-Broadway work into sophisticated softcore and hardcore filmmaking, mainstream-adjacent B movies, and Playboy Channel production. Vincent had directed the acclaimed 1981 pornographic feature Roommates, worked frequently with performer Veronica Hart, and later directed the fantasy film Warrior Queen with Sybil Danning and Donald Pleasence. The available biographical record does not describe a specific production accident, final illness, or public controversy surrounding his death, but his loss at 51 was part of the devastating toll AIDS took on gay artists and performers during the early 1990s. He left behind an unusual cross-industry career spanning experimental theater, adult cinema, cable entertainment, and low-budget genre film.

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Steve Taylor, born Richard Cole in Dixfield, Maine, became one of the largely unseen architects of the gay adult-film industry’s transition into the 1980s. After meeting performer Andrew “Drew” Okun—professionally known as Al Parker—while cycling in Hermosa Beach in 1973, Taylor and Parker formed both a domestic and professional partnership that lasted nearly fourteen years. In 1980 they founded Surge Studios, with Parker serving as its best-known performer and public-facing creative figure while Taylor handled much of the business operation, production work, and still photography. Taylor’s importance was therefore often greater than his screen credits or publicity suggested, and he was involved as the company began promoting safer-sex practices during the early AIDS crisis. Taylor died in Los Angeles on September 9, 1986, from complications related to AIDS, at only forty-six years old. His death came during a period when AIDS was devastating gay communities and the adult-film world, while fear, stigma, and limited medical understanding made the loss especially painful and politically charged. Although Taylor had worked behind the scenes as much as in front of the camera, his death marked the disappearance of a key producer and business figure from an important period in gay cinema. His remains were cremated and scattered at sea, giving the story a stark final image after a career spent helping build a studio whose public identity was more closely associated with his partner.

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Jane Campion's infant son Jasper lived just 12 days — a private grief amid her rising international career

Daily darkside

Jane Campion's infant son Jasper lived just 12 days — a private grief amid her rising international career

More Stories from the Hollywood Archive

The Fatal 2009 Fall That Ended Producer Dick Berg’s Career

The Final Hollywood Hotel Room of Joe Bodolai

Ash Christian’s Sudden Death at 35 During a Mexican Vacation

Chuck Vincent’s 1991 Death During the AIDS Crisis

The 1991 Fratricide That Ended the Mitchell Brothers’ Porn Empire

The AIDS-Era Death of Surge Studios Co-Founder Steve Taylor

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