Karloff The Life of Boris Karloff
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.
Henceforth, these book reports will be a time-saving device. You need not read entire books anymore. Read these condensed versions instead. You'll have that much more time for your own blog.
Today I skimmed, "Karloff The Life of Boris Karloff" by Peter Underwood, published in 1972.
Boris Karloff was born in 1887 in South London. His birth name was William Henry Pratt. He was the youngest of nine children. His father died when he was a baby. Karloff's older brothers all entered government service in China or India. A the black sheep of the family, he was a poor student who did not work, but was passionate about the theatre. The Pratts were a typical Victorian family, especially in their disapproval of the stage as a career.
In 1909, Karloff left home for Montreal. He applied for the job of experienced character actor, (although he was pitifully inexperienced) under the name he invented, Boris Karloff. He got the job. Karloff toured with a couple of different theatre companies and took odd jobs for the next decade. He acquired solid experience but little money. His friend Alfred Aldrich convinced Karloff to go to Los Angeles, in 1918 or 1919. The film studios were hiring. However, live-theatre actors considered it a step down to act in film. The stock theatre companies were put out of business by the film studios by the early 1920's.
Lon Chaney, a friend, gave Karloff career advice. In 1930, Chaney died bizarrely of a throat infection from choking on corn flakes used to represent snow on the movie set.
Each time Universal Studios was financially strapped, it resorted to horror films. After Lon Chaney died, it chose Boris Karloff as its horror star, typecasting him as Frankenstein's monster. Universal copyrighted Karloff's makeup design, which took more than three hours to apply. "Frankenstein" opened on 6 December 1931.
When Karloff did "The Mummy" in 1932, he was painted in blue-green beauty clay, which, when dry, cracked and allowed the application of pained cotton veins.
Karloff's three brothers (one had died) visited him in 1938. The brothers all had successful diplomatic careers. They were happy that Karloff was successful in films, not disapproving as Karloff thought they would be.
Karloff's first marriage to Helene Vivian Soule aka Polly in 1923, ended in divorce in 1929. Karloff married again, to Dorothy Stine, and they bought a house in Beverly Hills. When Karloff was 51 years old, they had a daughter, Sara Jane, in 1938. They divorced in 1945. Karloff wed for the third and last time in 1946 to Evelyn Helmore. They moved to England in 1959.
In 1941, Karloff was in "Arsenic and Old Lace" at the Fulton Theatre in New York. He loved the role of Jonathan Brewster, murderer, because he needed almost no makeup. He did dozens of films through the years. He had a radio and TV show "Starring Boris Karloff". He even did a children's radio show in the early 1950's. In 1966, a record album was released, "An Evening With Boris Karloff and His Friends", with scenes of "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Son of Frankenstein". He died in February 1969.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home