Boris Karloff

Biography

Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public's image of the Frankenstein Monster from the classic 1818 Mary Shelley novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus". William Henry Pratt was born on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, London, England, UK, the son of Edward John Pratt Jr., the Deputy Commissioner of Customs Salt and Opium, Northern Division, Indian Salt Revenue Service, and his third wife, Eliza Sarah Millard. He was educated at London University in anticipation that he would pursue a diplomatic career; however, he emigrated to Canada in 1909, joined a touring company based out of Ontario and adopted the stage name of "Boris Karloff." He toured back and forth across the U.S. for over 10 years in a variety of low budget theater shows and eventually ended up in Hollywood, reportedly with very little money to his name. Needing cash to support himself, Karloff secured occasional acting work in the fledgling silent film industry in such films as The Deadlier Sex (1920), Omar the Tentmaker (1922), Dynamite Dan (1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927), in addition to a handful of film serials (the majority of these, sadly, are all lost films). Karloff supplemented his meager film income by working as a truck driver in Los Angeles, which allowed him enough time off to continue to pursue acting roles. His big break finally came when he was cast as the Frankenstein Monster in the Universal production of Frankenstein (1931), which was directed by James Whale, one of the studio's few remaining auteur directors. The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?". The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. He quickly appeared in several other sinister roles, including Scarface (1932) (filmed before Frankenstein (1931)), as the black-humored The Old Dark House (1932), as the titular Chinese villain of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu novels in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), as the living mummy Im-ho-tep in The Mummy (1932) and as the misguided Prof. Morlant in The Ghoul (1933). He thoroughly enjoyed his role as a religious fanatic in John Ford's film The Lost Patrol (1934), although contemporary critics described it as a textbook example of overacting. He donned the signature make-up, neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots to play the Frankenstein Monster twice more, the first time in the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and the second time in the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (1939). Karloff, on loan to Fox, appeared in one of the best of the Warner Oland Charlie Chan films, Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), before beginning his own short-lived detective film series as Mr. Wong. He was a wrongly condemned doctor in Devil's Island (1938), the shaven-headed executioner Mord the Merciless in Tower of London (1939), another misguided scientist in The Ape (1940), a crazed scientist surrounded by monsters, vampires and werewolves in House of Frankenstein (1944), a murderous cab-man in The Body Snatcher (1945) and a Greek general fighting vampires in the Val Lewton thriller Isle of the Dead (1945). While Karloff continued to appear in a plethora of films, many of them were not up to the standards of his previous efforts, including his appearances in two of the hokey Bud Abbott and Lou Costello monster films (he had appeared with both of them in an earlier, superior film, Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949), of which theater owners often added his name to the marquee) at the low point of the Universal-International horror film cycle. During the 1950s he was a regular guest on many high-profile TV shows, including The Milton Berle Show (1948), Tales of Tomorrow (1951), The Veil (1958), The Donald O'Connor Show (1954), The Red Skelton Hour (1951) and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1956), just to name a few, and he appeared in a mixed bag of films, including Sabaka (1954) and Voodoo Island (1957). On Broadway, he appeared as the murderous Jonathan Brewster in the hit play "Arsenic and Old Lace" (his role, or rather the absence of him in it, was amusingly parodied in the play's 1944 film version) and 10 years later he enjoyed a long run in another hit play, "Peter Pan," perfectly cast as Captain Hook. His career experienced something of a revival in the 1960s thanks to hosting the TV anthology series Thriller (1960) and independent film director Roger Corman, with Karloff contributing wonderful performances in The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), the ultra-eerie Black Sabbath (1963) and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Die, Monster, Die! (1965). Karloff's last great film role before his death was as Byron Orlok, an aging and bitter horror film star on the brink of retirement who confronts a modern-day sniper in the Peter Bogdanovich-directed film Targets (1968). After this, he played Professor John Marsh in The Crimson Cult (1968), in which he co-starred with Sir Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele; it was the last film that he starred in that was released in his lifetime. Before these two films, he played the blind sculptor Franz Badulescu in Cauldron of Blood (1968) which was produced, directed and written by Edward Mann, who had also come to the art of film from the stage and the theater; it was released in the U.S. in 1971 after his death. His TV career was topped off by achieving Christmas immortality as both the voices of the titular character and the narrator of Chuck Jones' perennial animated favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Four low budget horror films that were made in Mexico and starred an ailing Karloff, whose scenes for all four of them were shot on a soundstage in Hollywood, were released theatrically in Mexico in 1968 and then were released directly to television in the U.S. after his death between 1971 and 1972; however, they do no justice to this great actor. In retrospect, he never took himself too seriously as an actor and had a tendency to downplay his acting accomplishments. Renowned as a refined, kind and warm-hearted gentleman with a sincere affection for both children and their welfare, Karloff passed away on February 2, 1969 from pneumonia. Respectful of his Indian roots and in true Hindu fashion, he was cremated at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, England, UK, where he is commemorated by a plaque in Plot 2 of the Garden of Remembrance.