One of the more influential filmmakers of his day, Gustaufson Snedley Bordash was born in Stratford, a small town seventeen miles east of London, to a family of six. Researchers place his birthday at either April 6 or June 4, since young Gustaufson was clumsy with numbers (and indeed, later confessed to mixing up the order whe someone asked him his IQ).

Gustaufson initially wanted to be a scientist, although his motivation was fueled less by his science classes and more by the pages of Fantastic Adventures comic books. By the age of sixteen, someone had finally convinced him he'd have to continue to rely on hard work rather than luck to win the Nobel Prize, at which point, seeking the means of least effort for most reward, he packed his bags, gave his family the finger, and sailed across the Atlantic to Hollywood. Of course, had someone bothered to show him a map, he might have considered going across the country once he reached America.

Bordash's decision was not completely erratic. He had been sneaking into the movies for years, and sat through films like Behind The Green Door and Porkin' 2: The Big Pork-Out with timely comments about characterization, visual pacing and "good bristols." His father, recognizing there was a prodigious pervert in the family, urged him to watch other types of movies, at which point Gustaufson leaned towards American classics like She Done Him Wrong and He Done Her...Period. Working on the assumption that America was indeed the land of the free, Gustaufson bought a ticket and changed his name to Gavin Blod, believing such a moniker to be an instant claim form to fame and fortune.

Once he reached Hollywood, caught in the grip of Disco Fever, he immediately stood in line to become an extra in John Travolta's Stayin' Alive, only to find out, several hours later, he was standing in line for tickets to Travis Johnson's It's Alive! Undaunted, he took several menial jobs as waiter, bouncer, male stripper, proctologist test mannequin, glass breaking tester, guinea pig for the new barbed wire underwear by Calvin Clench, and finally assistant to Penny Marshall, until he finally managed to land a role in Czech Your Coat at the Door. His bit part, consisting of two lines: "What gun?" and "Oh, that one--ugh!" were later recorded as the flattest examples of dialogue since Margaret Dumont's responses to Groucho Marx's leering..."only," as Joe Seagull, movie critic, later commented, "Dumont was performing as the straight man. I can only assume Blod is straight."

His performance did, however, manage to catch the eye of enterprising filmmaker Samuel L. Bronkowitz, who immediately cast him in his comedic sage The Movie Usher, a slapstick comedy about a dyslexic theater usher who keeps leading patrons to the wrong movie. (This film made motion picture history when, so sure of its success, Bronkowitz launched preproduction to the sequel The Movie Usher 2: Sticky Floors before the first film had even been released.)

Usher was an utter flop, and Blod found himself without a backer, and unable to even secure a job at Brown University as a guest lecturer. He took several more roles, although common sense did force him to refuse Kubrick's offer of a lead role in Apocalypse Then:"Ouch, Kurtz, It Hurts!" In a rare fit of small-mindedness, Hollywood disavowed all endorsement of Gavin Blod, even as an extra, removed his name from the credits of all movies he'd been in, even as an extra, and labeled him "a has-been who never really got to 'be' in the first place."

Blod spent much of this time working menial jobs and wallowing in self-pity. He allegedly got Katie Ann Ivy, a Hollywood waitress, to marry him on a dare; she accepted, and spent the rest of her days catalouging everything he'd done wrong since he was born. Blod's drinking grew worse, and he was told by his doctor that, under no circumstances, was he to make love to anyone but his wife, so he wouldn't get excited.

Then, in the early nineties, Bronkowitz started drinking again and produced a slew of B-movies that managed to captivate the public eye. Blod brought audiences to tears as an obnoxious barroom drunk in There But for a Beer Go I, penned and soundtracked by future Thursdays at Dooleys composer Christopher Dewey. Blod ad-libbed most of his lines, including the following exchange, which eventually made its way into Reader's Digest:

Blod: Last night I managed to fill an entire stein with straight whiskey. Damn near killed me.
Bartender: Yeah? How's that?
Blod: Well you don't fill a stein without emptying it again, do you?
Bartender: Well that can't be good for your circulation.
Blod: Circulation, schmirculation. I keep coming in here and going back out, don't I? Come to think of it, you're right--going back out doesn't seem to be working for me.

I wish I could thank all the little people I stepped on to obtain this much-coveted award, but to do so would be to bring myself to their undoubtedly jaundiced attention...This award will undoubtedly be the first of a long line of fine new ashtrays. I would like to make them into toilet seat covers, but I am unwilling to wait the length of time it would require for the eggregious louts in the syndicate to recognize true talent and distinguish it from the rest of you. There will be a party in my limousine immediately after the festives. Women with large breasts are welcome; men who don't know of women with large breasts need not apply.

Blod's comedic flair in My Johns Have Always Been Boyfriends, as one in a string of clients a hooker has to choose between for an extra twenty dollars, caught indie writer Craig Long's eye (which was decidedly bloodshot at the time), at which point Blod was approached about a leading role in Long's upcoming film Thursdays at Dooleys.

Enthralled by the promise of a lucrative role and by Long's big words and empty promises, Blod told Bronkowitz exactly what to go and do with himself and signed on with Tso Long Productions. Unfortunately, Long was stuck in a teaching job, at which point he approached Bronkowitz for backing. Bronkowitz allegedly told Long: "If you want Blod, he'll be mopping floors if I have anything to say about it." Long cast Blod as a janitor instead of the lead bad guy like he'd planned, and Blod's optimism soured into a cloud of alcoholism and self-pity. He died shortly before Thursdays at Dooleys was scheduled to start shooting when he walked in on his wife undressing (after a costly breast implant surgery) and suffered a massive stroke. Blod's final cry of "The horror!" could refer either to seeing his wife Ivy in the nude with the lights on for the first time, or to how further the surgery had sunk him into debt. Investigators found a transcript of a phone call immediately after Blod's death between Long and Ivy:

Long: "Hey, Gavin, good news! You can have my part! I don't want to do anything too strenuous--I've decided to go back to window washing."
Ivy: "Gavin's dead, buddy. You want to fool around? We can prop his corpse up like he's watching us."
Long: "Shit. Well, back to the movies for me."

There was a bitter feud over Blod's estate, valued at just over eight hundred dollars; Vegas bosses wanted it for debts Blod had allegedly accrued at the slot machines, while one Etta Berger, a deaf-and-dumb woman from Sierra Falls, Nevada, claimed that she and Blod had been married over the phone and she'd been promised reimbursement for the costly phone bills. (Needless to say, there is more than one definition for "dumb.") In the end, Ivy took the brunt of the eight hundred dollars, moved to Borneo, and lives like a queen there to this day. If asked about her late husband, she'll say: "Late is right. I tried undressing in front of him on our honeymoon, but he was already passed out by then."

Gavin Blod will always be remembered as the pickle on the burger that Hollywood claims to be: a little tangy and bitter at first, but growing on you eventually until you don't even notice what you're eating.