Occupation: Film director

Appearances: Season 5

Who’d Play Him: Patrick Wilson

The Director Who Never Finished the Picture: Eric Autumn was a longtime director of Sunset Studios productions, having spent years working within the Blackthorne filmmaking empire and earning a reputation as an experienced, dependable hand behind the camera. His long association with the studio eventually led him to direct House of Palms, an ambitious production based on an old screenplay written by Will Thomerson.

The project carried enormous importance for Sunset Studios, but its location shoot in Acapulco quickly became plagued by conflict and danger. Eric’s forceful directing style did little to ease tensions on the set. He clashed with local residents and made enemies among the people surrounding the production, while leading stars Cassidy Solomon and Jack Childers behaved like demanding divas. Behind the scenes, Stormy Blackthorne and Kyle Fenwick argued over creative decisions, and production assistant Steven Chandler became involved with local drug dealers.

The hostility initially appeared to be the ordinary chaos of a difficult location shoot. In reality, the production had become entangled in a conspiracy involving Bryan Carlson and an Acapulco drug cartel. Jackie Lamont’s bitter wish that Brooke Taylor would disappear had been interpreted by Bryan as permission to remove her, and the film crew provided the perfect collection of wealthy and prominent targets.

Late one night, armed cartel members attacked the production. Stormy, Steven, Brooke, Jack, and Kyle were kidnapped from their rooms. Eric, Cassidy, and a security guard were instead brutally gunned down, turning a troubled movie set into the scene of a massacre.

Eric died without knowing that the difficulties surrounding House of Palms were part of something far more dangerous than local resentment or production mismanagement. His conflicts with the residents may have made the violence initially seem like retaliation, helping obscure the cartel conspiracy unfolding around the cast and crew.