Ken Tipton

Ken Tipton was born in El Paso, Texas in 1952. In 1954, after Ken's step-father was discharged from the Air Force, he moved them to Columbia, MO to attend the University of Missouri "Mizzou” on the GI Bill.

At age 4 Ken began his life-long journey as an entrepreneur when he learned that entertainment could provide an income. Ken’s mother made him a cute Tiger costume complete with a tail and “Tiger Cub” across the chest in support of the Mizzou Tigers football team.

On game days, Ken would sing the Tiger fight song as students walked from the campus to the football stadium past their old Army barracks that were left over from World War II. The barracks had been converted into small apartments for veterans using their G.I. Bill educational benefits from the Korean War.

Ken would sing his heart out as he marched back and forth high-stepping and wielding a toilet plunger up and down like the drum major that led the pep club band. All manner of coins were tossed Ken’s way and his mom used a butterfly net to catch the booty while fighting off other kids and their parents scrambling for the coins. The extra money was needed to supplement his family's income. In 1958, the family moved to St. Charles, MO, located 23 miles from downtown St. Louis on the western bank of the Missouri River.

As Ken grew up, his entrepreneurial experience continued. He sold Mason Shoes, kitchen pots and pans sets, and various greeting cards door to door as well as just about anything else advertised in the back of the Boy Scout magazine called “Boys Life”. A paper route followed, along with numerous retail and restaurant jobs. In the winter he would shovel snow from driveways and in the summer, he would cut people’s grass, pick strawberries at local farms, and scoop up lost golf balls at area courses from water hazards using swim fins, googles and a butterfly net.

After high school, Ken attended the University of Missouri - Mizzou before enlisting in the Air Force. Ken was trained as an airborne electronic navigation specialist with a secret clearance.

His job allowed Ken to travel the world in a military airlift squadron. After his tour in the Air Force ended, he returned to St. Louis to work for IBM as a computer engineer.

BUSINESSMAN

Ken has an unstoppable entrepreneurial spirit. While still employed at IBM he turned his love of flying into an aerial advertising company called HIGH SIGNS that used a powered hang-glider. St. Louis mega-realtor, Gordon Gundaker, was Ken’s best customer.

Gordon hired Ken to fly over all Mizzou football games, no matter where they were played, with the words GUNDAKER REALTY in black tape on the massive wings.

Ken’s unusual looking ultralight aircraft would wow the crowds by flying low and slow.  He would turn the aircraft into the wind and expertly trim the controls to allow him to  stop in midair. Seventy-five thousand spectators would watch Ken’s advertising UFO sit  motionless in the blue sky as Ken waved Tiger flags with both hands. Ken and his wife, Darlene, now fly ultralight trikes and gyrocopters.

Ken is also a big-time movie geek and opened VIDEO LIBRARY in 1980 while still working for IBM. VIDEO LIBRARY was the very first VHS-only home videocassette movie rental store in the United States when all the other stores carried only Betamax home videos. At that time, choosing VHS over Betamax videos was the worst possible choice because all potential customers had only Betamax VCRs (Video Cassette Recorders).

On the verge of going out of business and losing all the money originally set aside for a new home, Ken’s business was saved by none other than rock and roll legend Chuck Berry. Chuck had a compound 26 miles west of St. Charles and had just bought a brand new $1900 VHS VCR. Ken’s store in St. Charles, MO was the only VHS video store around and it happened to be on the way to Chuck’s home at “Berrytown” in Wentzville, MO.

Mr. Berry rented 30 movies for 30 days and would come back month after month. Thankfully, Ken stayed in business and was rewarded when hundreds of people got new VHS VCRs that Christmas. (In Ken’s award-winning movie, HEART of the BEHOLDER, Chuck Berry was played by the star of CANDYMAN, Tony Todd.)

With hard work, VIDEO LIBRARY grew into a multi-million-dollar company comprised of video stores, franchises, and stand-alone robotic video kiosks called Movie Machines.

The Movie Machines were the first ever videocassette vending machines and were invented by Ken and his partners. The kiosks offered video movie rentals 24/7 with no employees and were sold in many states.

Ken added pizza operations to his stores with pick-up and delivery as well as video delivery under his Movies-to-Go service. Decades before Uber Eats, Door Dash, or Grub Hub, Ken added pickup and delivery of food from local restaurants and grocery stores.

Other businesses Ken owned were PAINTBALL WARGAMES and BUSHWACKERS PAINTBALL which were very popular with corporations who used the game as a team building exercise. They operated out of the now closed St. Charles Speedway and in Wentzville, MO where they were constantly booked because the next nearest paintball field was over 70 miles away in Illinois.

BANKRUPTCY & DIVORCE

Ken lost his multi-million-dollar video chain and franchises, his Movie Machines, and his paintball parks, because he refused to buckle to Rev. Donald Wildmon’s religious censorship group called the National Federation for Decency (NFD).

The NFD demanded that Ken remove Martin Scorsese’s controversial film THE LAST TEMPTATION of CHRIST from their shelves. Ken fought hard against the censorship, winning two court cases, but the legal fees and negative publicity cost him everything.

FAMILY

In 1993, St. Louis experienced the flood-of-the-century. As Ken had done many times in the past, he volunteered to help build sand-bag flood walls. His four kids wanted to help also, but they were too young.

Ken set up an entrepreneurial project for them building flood souvenirs to be given to the flood volunteers.

A CNN reporter saw Ken and his kids collecting Missouri River flood water in small glass jars and did a news report which garnered world-wide attention.

The flood souvenirs were given personally to Vice President Al Gore and the Governor of Missouri, Mel Carnahan, when they toured the area flood damage. Due to the media exposure, orders for the flood souvenirs came in from around the world and the kids began mass production in Ken’s small apartment.

They sold and shipped over 1300 souvenirs at $19.95 each around the world. One wound up on the set of the TV show called HEARTS AFIRE which was based on a small Missouri town newspaper.

After the flood and publicity died down, the kids were allowed to keep $50 dollars each and the rest of the money was split between the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

The CNN reporter also referred Ken to a movie producer who optioned Ken's story about losing his video stores for a TV movie.

HOLLYWOOD

Ken moved to Los Angeles to live with his brother, Kyle, while he helped his producer pitch his story about the destruction of his business and family when he refused to remove Martin Scorsese’s controversial film, THE LAST TEMPTATION of CHRIST from his video company.

Ken was targeted because he was the President of the St. Louis Video Dealers Association as well as one of the founders of the national VSDA - Video Software Dealers Association. Ken’s video stores were also the only stores in St. Louis who dared to offer the controversial movie.

A religious fundamentalist group run by Rev. Donald Wildmon, and his National Federation for Decency, blackmailed the Prosecuting Attorney into ruining Ken. Ken’s family endured constant harassment and death threats. One devilish bit of harassment was when thousands of magazine subscriptions were filled out by the religious fanatics using Ken’s name and address. Although Ken won two court cases, the legal fees and negative publicity bankrupted Ken's business and family, which eventually led to his divorce.

Years later, Ken found out about the blackmailing of the St. Louis prosecutor by religious fanatics which ruined Ken’s business and family. With the help of St. Louis TV reporter, Herb Humphries, a successful sting was set up and the prosecutor was brought down.

To earn money, while his producer tried hard to get Ken’s story made as a TV movie, Ken worked on over 200 movies and TV shows as a background extra. Ken was very active in high school theater productions as well as community theater. He had worked on almost every movie or TV show shot in St. Louis as an extra, such as ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, which was his first experience working on a feature film.

1986 - Since Ken owned the largest chain of video stores in St. Louis at that time, the St. Louis video distributor invited him and many of his employees to work as background extras in the John Hughes movie, PLANES, TRAINS, and AUTOMOBILES with Steve Martin and John Candy.

Ken was heavyset so they asked him to be John Candy's stand-in for the day. Years later, Ken was trying to earn his Screen Actors Guild Card and contacted John for advice.

John told Ken to go to the Los Angeles film office and look for permits on movie shoots whose locations were as far away from the city as possible, then go to the shooting location and tell the 1st assistant director that he was trying to earn his SAG card and that John Candy was his mentor. Being far from L.A. the shoot might have an opening available if a booked background extra failed to show up to work.

Ken found the perfect shoot in the movie THE FLINTSTONES. The 1st AD was very cool, but there just weren’t any openings. Day after day Ken would show up, but there was never a job for him.

Ken created one by washing the dusty car windows in the parking area at the quarry where the Bedrock set was built.

Finally, an opening came up and Ken earned his SAG card on the day John Candy died. The very first job Ken got as a professional actor was doing photo-double insert shots for John on the movie Candy died on, WAGONS EAST. When perseverance and opportunity meet, it’s called Karma.

The one thing that John Candy asked of Ken is that he help others earn their SAG card. Ken has helped many actors earn their SAG cards and five of them got their card on his directorial debut based on his family’s true story, HEART of the BEHOLDER.

HEART OF THE BEHOLDER

Ken moved to Los Angeles in 1993 and lived with his brother while helping the producer who optioned his family’s story. After over a year, his producer failed to get any interest in Ken’s movie because it was too controversial and sure to piss off the religious right.

Getting any movie made is a minor miracle and almost impossible as an independent project with no studio support. In 2000, Ken made his living doing commercials and industrial films until a commercial strike was called by the Screen Actors Guild. To make a living Ken found work as a bodyguard and limo driver until he was fired for pitching his family’s movie to A-list movie star.

An indie film website called Film Threat wrote a story called “How to NOT Make it in Hollywood” which was read by Darlene Lieblich. Darlene was an executive at Fox television in the program standards and practices, also known as the network TV censor.

As a censor, she had to deal with complaints about programming on Fox from far-right religious groups, including the same one who ruined Ken’s video business in St. Louis, “The National Federation for Decency”, run by Rev. Donald Wildmon.

After reading about Ken’s firing and how he was pitching his family’s story about religious censorship, Darlene went to his website and read the screenplay. The story was riveting and even though she had never produced a movie before, she optioned Ken’s life rights.

After many ups and downs, Darlene and Ken were able to crowdfund the movie and Ken was allowed to direct it on a budget of $500K and an 18-day shooting schedule. Their movie, HEART of the BEHOLDER, won 5 back-to-back Best Feature Film awards before being picked up for distribution and is available on Netflix and at Amazon.com.

BEHOLDER was also the feature film debut of Chloe Grace Moretz who later starred in KICK ASS with Nicholas Gage and KICK ASS 2 with Jim Carrey. Martin Scorsese then cast her in one of his best movies, HUGO.

When Darlene optioned Ken’s life rights she received the screenplay for HEART of the BEHOLDER. He also gave her a book he had written in 1988 about sexual abuse Ken and his best friend experienced in the Boy Scouts.

LOST VALLEY - LOST INNOCENCE

KEN & DARLENE

Ken and Darlene were married in 2005 and have continued developing independent movie, TV, and Internet projects such as FosterFolks.com where seniors are matched with families who don’t have grandparents, aunts, or uncles.

They have also expanded their entrepreneurial ventures by owning and operating Doody Calls, the #1 Pet Waste Removal company in St. Louis, which was sold in 2023.

In 2016, Ken and Darlene launched AmazingKarma.com based on their personal philosophy of Karma, defined as the non-religious concept of “what goes around, comes around”.

They believe that good Karma comes from simply doing the right thing. Take responsibility by owning your actions, make amends, then move ahead, is the key to a higher quality of life. They hope to help many others as the brand ambassadors of AmazingKarma.com.

Ken has experienced many of life’s ups and downs with some of the biggest hardships caused by others' greed, dishonesty, and abuse of power. The natural urge is to seek some type of revenge. There is only one kind of revenge that Ken advocates and advertises on his car license plate: TBRIS — The Best Revenge is Success.