John Carpenter

WHO | HONOREE   John Carpenter

EMCEE                       Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Steve Nissen

GUEST SPEAKERS   To be announced

WHAT                        Dedication of the 2,806th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

WHEN                        Thursday, April 3, 2025 at 11:30 AM PT

WHERE                      7000 Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

WATCH LIVE            The event was streamed live exclusively at www.walkoffame.com

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce honored genre-defining director, screenwriter and composer John Carpenter with the 2,806th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Carpenter received his star in the category of Motion Pictures.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce administers the legendary Walk of Fame for the City of Los Angeles and has proudly hosted the globally iconic star ceremonies for decades. Millions of people from here and around the world have visited this cultural landmark since 1960.

ABOUT OUR HONOREE   

“The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is proud to pay tribute to director John Carpenter with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has forever shaped the horror genre and has created lasting cinematic masterpieces. It is an honor to dedicate a star to such a talented and influential director.” – Ana Martinez, Hollywood Walk of Fame Producer.

Few filmmakers have had as galvanizing and enduring an impact on cinema as John Carpenter. As director, writer, producer, and composer, Carpenter has brought to the screen some of the most popular and influential films in history. Starting out with his 1978 breakthrough: a low-budget horror film called Halloween, which shook both moviegoers and the film industry with a force that continues to be felt nearly 50 years later.

Carpenter’s horror films—including The Thing (1982), The Fog (1980), Christine (1983), and In the Mouth of Madness (1994)—have made him into the modern master of the genre, though his flair for action, suspense, mystery and comedy have been on considerable display in a remarkable range of now-classic films. They include the Oscar®-nominated Starman (1984), the hard-driving action of Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Escape from New York (1981), and Escape from L.A. (1996), horror-hybrids Vampires (1998) and Ghosts of Mars (2001), science-fiction thrillers Village of the Damned (1995), and the cult-classic action-comedies Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and They Live (1988).

On television, Carpenter has been equally influential, directing the suspense film Someone’s Watching Me and the Emmy®-winning Elvis, starring Kurt Russell. Carpenter won the Cable ACE Award for writing the HBO Film El Diablo (1990), and also created and co-directed, with Tobe Hooper, the fan-favorite Showtime anthology film Body Bags. Most recently, Carpenter collaborated with his wife, producer Sandy King, to create and produce the Peacock docu-horror series Suburban Screams, for which he directed an episode, returning to the director’s chair for the first time in more than a decade.

Carpenter’s iconic 1978 score for Halloween not only frightened audiences but influenced an entire generation of composers. It also began his career as a composer, which has included Lost Themes, three widely acclaimed albums of non-soundtrack music, as well as two albums called Anthology that include his inimitable film music.

Through Hollywood-based Storm King Productions, founded and run by Sandy King, Carpenter contributes to Storm King Comics, an acclaimed line of comics and graphic novels that feature horror, science-fiction, adventure, and suspense stories for all ages with imprints that bear the John Carpenter name.

Returning to his indelible 1978 creation, Carpenter served as executive producer of new Halloween films beginning in 2018. He composed the scores for the films, along with his son, Cody Carpenter, and godson, Daniel Davies.

Born in Carthage, New York, and raised in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. Carpenter moved to Los Angeles and attended the University of Southern California School of Cinema, where he directed his first theatrically released feature film, the 1975 science-fiction comedy Dark Star. In 2007, Western Kentucky University bestowed an honorary doctorate on Carpenter, who has been a resident of Hollywood for more than 50 years.

Carpenter, who received the lifetime achievement award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association earlier this year, supports numerous charities and non-profit organizations, including the Best Friends Animal Society, ASPCA, St. Jude’s, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.