Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt, better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor who was primarily known for his roles in horror films. He portrayed Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein. He also appeared as Imhotep in The Mummy.
In non-horror roles, he is best known to modern audiences for narrating and as the voice of the Grinch in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. For his contribution to film and television, Karloff was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early years
Karloff was born William Henry Pratt on 23 November 1887, at 36 Forest Hill Road, Dulwich, Surrey, England. His parents were Edward John Pratt, Jr. and Eliza Sarah Millard. His brother, Sir John Thomas Pratt, was a British diplomat. Edward John Pratt, Jr. was an Anglo-Indian, from a British father and Indian mother, while Karloff's mother also had some Indian ancestry, thus Karloff had a relatively dark complexion that differed from his peers at the time. His mother's maternal aunt was Anna Leonowens, whose tales about life in the royal court of Siam were the basis of the musical The King and I. Pratt was bow-legged, had a lisp, and stuttered as a young boy. He learned how to manage his stutter, but not his lisp, which was noticeable throughout his career in the film industry.Pratt spent his childhood years in Enfield, in the County of Middlesex. He was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother's death was brought up by his elder siblings. He received his early education at Enfield Grammar School, and later at the public schools of Uppingham School and Merchant Taylors' School. After this, he attended King's College London where he took studies aimed at a career with the British Government's Consular Service. However, in 1909, he left university without graduating and drifted, departing England for Canada, where he worked as a farm labourer and did various odd itinerant jobs until happening upon acting.
Acting career
Pratt began appearing in theatrical performances in Canada, and during this period he chose Boris Karloff as his stage name. Some have theorised that he took the stage name from a mad scientist character in the novel The Drums of Jeopardy called "Boris Karlov". However, the novel was not published until 1920, at least eight years after Karloff had been using the name on stage and in silent films, opening the possibility that the Karlov character might have been named after Karloff after the novel's author noticed it in a cast listing and liked the sound of it rather than simply being a coincidence. Warner Oland played "Boris Karlov" in a film version in 1931. Another possible influence was thought to be a character in the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy novel H. R. H. The Rider which features a "Prince Boris of Karlova", but as the novel was not published until 1915, the influence may be backward, that Burroughs saw Karloff in a play and adapted the name for the character. Karloff always claimed he chose the first name "Boris" because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that "Karloff" was a family name.Karloff's daughter, Sara, publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, "Karloff" or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. Whether or not his brothers actually considered young William the "black sheep of the family" for having become an actor, Karloff apparently worried they felt that way. He did not reunite with his family until he returned to Britain to make The Ghoul, extremely worried that his siblings would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his brothers jostled for position around him and happily posed for publicity photographs. After the photo was taken, Karloff's brothers immediately started asking about getting a copy of their own. The story of the photo became one of Karloff's favorites.
Karloff joined the Jeanne Russell Company in 1911 and performed in towns like Kamloops and Prince Albert. After the devastating tornado in Regina on 30 June 1912, Karloff and other performers helped with clean-up efforts. He later took a job as a railway baggage handler and joined the Harry St. Clair Co. that performed in Minot, North Dakota, for a year in an opera house above a hardware store.
Whilst he was trying to establish his acting career, Karloff had to perform years of manual labour in Canada and the U.S. in order to make ends meet. He was left with back problems from which he suffered for the rest of his life. Because of his health, he did not enlist in World War I.
During this period, Karloff worked in various theatrical stock companies across the U.S. to hone his acting skills. Some acting companies mentioned were the Harry St. Clair Players and the Billie Bennett Touring Company. By early 1918 he was working with the Maud Amber Players in Vallejo, California, but because of the Spanish Flu outbreak in the San Francisco area and the fear of infection, the troupe was disbanded. He was able to find work with the Haggerty Repertory for a while. According to Karloff, in his first film he appeared as an extra in a crowd scene for a Frank Borzage picture at Universal for which he received $5; the title of this film has never been traced.
Hollywood
Early films
Once Karloff arrived in Hollywood, he made dozens of silent films, but this work was sporadic, and he often had to take up manual labour such as digging ditches or delivering construction plaster to earn a living.His first on screen role was in a film serial, The Lightning Raider with Pearl White. He was in another serial, The Masked Rider, the first of his appearances to survive.
Karloff could also be seen in His Majesty, the American with Douglas Fairbanks, The Prince and Betty, The Deadlier Sex, and The Courage of Marge O'Doone. He played an Indian in The Last of the Mohicans and he would often be cast as an Arab or Indian in his early films.
Karloff's first major role came in a film serial, The Hope Diamond Mystery. He was Indian in Without Benefit of Clergy and an Arab in Cheated Hearts and villainous in The Cave Girl. He was a maharajah in The Man from Downing Street, a Nabob in The Infidel and had roles in The Altar Stairs, Omar the Tentmaker , The Woman Conquers, The Gentleman from America, The Prisoner and the serial Riders of the Plains.
Karloff did a Western, The Hellion, and a drama, Dynamite Dan. He could be seen in Parisian Nights, Forbidden Cargo, The Prairie Wife and the serial Perils of the Wild.
Karloff went back to bit part status in Never the Twain Shall Meet directed by Maurice Tourneur but he had a good support role in Lady Robinhood.
Karloff went on to be in The Greater Glory, Her Honor, the Governor, The Bells , The Nickel-Hopper, The Golden Web, The Eagle of the Sea, Flames, Old Ironsides, Flaming Fury, Valencia, The Man in the Saddle, Tarzan and the Golden Lion , Let It Rain, The Meddlin' Stranger, The Princess from Hoboken, The Phantom Buster, and Soft Cushions.
Karloff had roles in Two Arabian Knights, The Love Mart, The Vanishing Rider , Burning the Wind, Vultures of the Sea, and The Little Wild Girl.
He was in The Devil's Chaplain, The Fatal Warning for Richard Thorpe, The Phantom of the North, Two Sisters, Anne Against the World, Behind That Curtain, and The King of the Kongo, a serial directed by Thorpe.
Karloff had an uncredited bit part in The Unholy Night directed by Lionel Barrymore, and bigger parts in The Bad One,The Sea Bat , and The Utah Kid directed by Thorpe.
Howard Hawks and others
A film which brought Karloff recognition was The Criminal Code, a prison drama directed by Howard Hawks in which he reprised a dramatic part he had played on stage. In the same period, Karloff had a small role as a mob boss in Hawks' gangster film Scarface, but the film was not released until 1932 because of difficult censorship issues.He did another serial for Thorpe, King of the Wild, then had support parts in Cracked Nuts, Young Donovan's Kid, Smart Money, The Public Defender, I Like Your Nerve, and Graft.
Another significant role in the autumn of 1931 saw Karloff play a key supporting part as an unethical newspaper reporter in Five Star Final, a film about tabloid journalism which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
He could also be seen in The Yellow Ticket The Mad Genius, The Guilty Generation and Tonight or Never.
''Frankenstein''
Karloff acted in eighty movies before being found by James Whale and cast in Frankenstein. Karloff's role as Frankenstein's monster was physically demanding – it necessitated a bulky costume with four-inch platform boots – but the costume and extensive makeup produced a lasting image. The costume was a job in itself for Karloff with the shoes weighing each. Universal Studios quickly copyrighted the makeup design for the Frankenstein monster that Jack P. Pierce had created.It took a while for Karloff's stardom to be established with the public – he had small roles in Behind the Mask, Business and Pleasure and The Miracle Man.
As receipts for Frankenstein and Scarface flooded in, Universal gave Karloff third billing in Night World, with Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke and George Raft.
Horror star
Karloff was reunited with Whale at Universal for The Old Dark House, a horror movie based on the novel Benighted by J.B. Priestley, in which he finally enjoyed top billing above Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart. He was loaned to MGM to play the titular role in The Mask of Fu Manchu, for which he gained top billing.Back at Universal, he was cast as Imhotep who is revived in The Mummy. It was as successful at the box-office as the other two films and Karloff was now established as a star of horror films.
Karloff returned to England to star in The Ghoul, then made a non-horror film for John Ford, The Lost Patrol, where his performance was highly acclaimed.
Karloff was third billed in the Twentieth Century Pictures historical film The House of Rothschild with George Arliss, which was highly popular.
Horror, however, had now become Karloff's primary genre, and he gave a string of lauded performances in Universal's horror films, including several with Bela Lugosi, his main rival as heir to Lon Chaney's status as the leading horror film star. While the long-standing, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat and continuing with Gift of Gab, in which both had cameos. Karloff reprised the role of Frankenstein's monster in Bride of Frankenstein for James Whale. Then he and Lugosi were reunited for The Raven.
For Columbia, Karloff made The Black Room then he returned to Universal for The Invisible Ray with Lugosi, more a science fiction film. Karloff was then cast in a Warner Bros. horror film, The Walking Dead.
Non-horror period
Because the Motion Picture Production Code began to be seriously enforced in 1934, horror films suffered a decline in the second half of the 1930s. Karloff worked in other genres, making two films in Britain, Juggernaut and The Man Who Changed His Mind.He returned to Hollywood to play a supporting role in Charlie Chan at the Opera then did a science fiction film, Night Key.
At Warners, he did two films with John Farrow, playing a Chinese warlord in West of Shanghai and a murder suspect in The Invisible Menace.
Karloff went to Monogram to play the title role of a Chinese detective in Mr. Wong, Detective, which led to a series. Karloff's portrayal of the character is an example of Hollywood's use of yellowface and its portrayal of East Asians in the earlier half of the 20th century. He had another heroic role in Devil's Island.
''Son of Frankenstein'' and horror revival
Universal found reissuing Dracula and Frankenstein led to success at the box-office and began to produce horror films again starting with Son of Frankenstein. Karloff reprised his role, with Lugosi co starring as Ygor and Basil Rathbone as Frankenstein.After The Mystery of Mr. Wong and Mr. Wong in Chinatown he signed a three-picture deal with Columbia, starting with The Man They Could Not Hang. Karloff returned to Universal to make Tower of London with Rathbone, playing the murderous henchman of King Richard III.
in British Intelligence
Karloff made a fourth Mr Wong film at Monogram The Fatal Hour. At Warners he was in British Intelligence, then he went to Universal to do Black Friday with Lugosi.
Karloff's second and third films for Columbia were The Man with Nine Lives and Before I Hang. In between he did a fifth and final Mr Wong film, Doomed to Die.
Karloff appeared at a celebrity baseball game as Frankenstein's monster in 1940, hitting a gag home run and making catcher Buster Keaton fall into an acrobatic dead faint as the monster stomped into home plate.
Karloff finished a six picture commitment with Monogram with The Ape. He and Lugosi appeared in a comedy at RKO, You'll Find Out, then he went to Columbia for The Devil Commands and The Boogie Man Will Get You.
1940s and 1950s
''Arsenic and Old Lace''
An enthusiastic performer, he returned to the Broadway stage in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace in 1941, in which he played a homicidal gangster enraged to be frequently mistaken for Karloff. Frank Capra cast Raymond Massey in the 1944 film, which was shot in 1941, while Karloff was still appearing in the role on Broadway. The play's producers allowed the film to be made conditionally: it was not to be released until the production closed.In 1944, he underwent a spinal operation to relieve a chronic arthritic condition.
Producer Val Lewton and other films
Karloff returned to film roles in The Climax, an unsuccessful attempt to repeat the success of Phantom of the Opera. More liked was House of Frankenstein, where Karloff played the villainous Dr. Niemann and the monster was played by Glenn Strange.Karloff made three films for producer Val Lewton at RKO: The Body Snatcher, his last teaming with Lugosi, Isle of the Dead and Bedlam.
In a 1946 interview with Louis Berg of the Los Angeles Times, Karloff discussed his arrangement with RKO, working with Lewton and his reasons for leaving Universal. Karloff left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course; the entries in the series after Son of Frankenstein were B-pictures. Berg wrote that the last installment in which Karloff appeared—House of Frankenstein—was what he called a " 'monster clambake,' with everything thrown in—Frankenstein, Dracula, a hunchback and a 'man-beast' that howled in the night. It was too much. Karloff thought it was ridiculous and said so." Berg explained that the actor had "great love and respect for" Lewton, who was "the man who rescued him from the living dead and restored, so to speak, his soul."
Post-war
Horror films experienced a decline in popularity after the war, and Karloff found himself working in other genres.For the Danny Kaye comedy, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Karloff appeared in a brief but starring role as Dr. Hugo Hollingshead, a psychiatrist. Director Norman Z. McLeod shot a sequence with Karloff in the Frankenstein monster make-up, but it was deleted from the finished film.
Karloff appeared in a film noir, Lured, and as an Indian in Unconquered. He had support roles in Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, Tap Roots, and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff.
During this period, Karloff was a frequent guest on radio programmes, whether it was starring in Arch Oboler's Chicago-based Lights Out productions or spoofing his horror image with Fred Allen or Jack Benny. In 1949, he was the host and star of Starring Boris Karloff, a radio and television anthology series for the ABC broadcasting network.
He appeared as the villainous Captain Hook in Peter Pan in a 1950 stage musical adaptation which also featured Jean Arthur.
Karloff returned to horror films with The Strange Door and The Black Castle.
He was nominated for a Tony Award for his work opposite Julie Harris in The Lark, by the French playwright Jean Anouilh, about Joan of Arc, which was reprised on Hallmark Hall of Fame.
During the 1950s, he appeared on British television in the series Colonel March of Scotland Yard, in which he portrayed John Dickson Carr's fictional detective Colonel March, who was known for solving apparently impossible crimes. Christopher Lee appeared alongside Karloff in the episode "At Night, All Cats are Grey" broadcast in 1955. A little later, Karloff co-starred with Lee in the film Corridors of Blood.
Karloff appeared in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and visited Italy for The Island Monster and India for Sabaka.
Karloff, along with H. V. Kaltenborn, was a regular panelist on the NBC game show, Who Said That? which aired between 1948 and 1955. Later, as a guest on NBC's The Gisele MacKenzie Show, Karloff sang "Those Were the Good Old Days" from Damn Yankees while Gisele MacKenzie performed the solo, "Give Me the Simple Life". On The Red Skelton Show, Karloff guest starred along with actor Vincent Price in a parody of Frankenstein, with Red Skelton as "Klem Kadiddle Monster". He served as host and frequent star of the anthology series The Veil which was never broadcast due to financial problems at the producing studio; the complete series was rediscovered in the 1990s.
Karloff made some horror films in the late 1950s: Voodoo Island, The Haunted Strangler, Frankenstein 1970 , and Corridors of Blood. In the "mad scientist" role in Frankenstein 1970 as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original creator. In the finale, it is revealed that the crippled Baron has given his own face to the monster. Karloff donned the monster make-up for the last time in 1962 for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66, which also featured Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr.
During this period, he hosted and acted in a number of television series, including Thriller and Out of This World.
American International Pictures (AIP)
Karloff appeared in Black Sabbath directed by Mario Bava. He made The Raven for Roger Corman and American International Pictures. Corman used Karloff in The Terror playing a baron who murdered his wife. He made a cameo in AIP's Bikini Beach and had a bigger role in that studio's The Comedy of Terrors, directed by Jacques Tourneur and Die, Monster, Die!. British actress Suzan Farmer, who played his daughter in the film, later recalled Karloff was aloof during production "and wasn’t the charming personality people perceived him to be".In 1966, Karloff also appeared with Robert Vaughn and Stefanie Powers in the spy series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., in the episode "The Mother Muffin Affair," Karloff performed in drag as the titular character.
That same year, he also played an Indian Maharajah on the installment of the adventure series The Wild Wild West titled "The Night of the Golden Cobra".
In 1967, he played an eccentric Spanish professor who believes himself to be Don Quixote in a whimsical episode of I Spy titled "Mainly on the Plains".
Karloff's last film for AIP was The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.
''The Grinch''
In the mid-1960s, he enjoyed a late-career surge in the United States when he narrated the made-for-television animated film of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and also provided the voice of the Grinch, although the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was sung by the American voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft. The film was first broadcast on CBS-TV in 1966. Karloff later received a Grammy Award for "Best Recording For Children" after the recording was commercially released. Because Ravenscroft was uncredited for his contribution to How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, his performance of the song was often mistakenly attributed to Karloff.He appeared in Mad Monster Party? and starred in the second feature film of the British director Michael Reeves,The Sorcerers.
''Targets''
Karloff starred in Targets, a film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, featuring two separate stories that converge into one. In one, a disturbed young man kills his family, then embarks on a killing spree. In the other, a famous horror-film actor contemplates then confirms his retirement, agreeing to one last appearance at a drive-in cinema. Karloff starred as the retired horror film actor, Byron Orlok, a thinly disguised version of himself; Orlok was facing an end of life crisis, which he resolved through a confrontation with the gunman at the drive-in cinema.Final films
Around the same time, he played occult expert Professor Marsh in a British production titled The Crimson Cult, which was the last Karloff film to be released during his lifetime.He ended his career by appearing in four low-budget Mexican horror films: Isle of the Snake People, The Incredible Invasion, Fear Chamber and House of Evil. This was a package deal with Mexican producer Luis Enrique Vergara. Karloff's scenes were directed by Jack Hill and shot back-to-back in Los Angeles in the spring of 1968. The films were then completed in Mexico. All four were released posthumously, with the last, The Incredible Invasion, not released until 1971, two years after Karloff's death. Cauldron of Blood, shot in Spain in 1967 and co-starring Viveca Lindfors, was also released after Karloff's death.
While shooting his final films, Karloff suffered from emphysema. Only half of one lung was still functioning and he required oxygen between takes.
Spoken word recordings and horror anthologies
He recorded the title role of Shakespeare's Cymbeline for the Shakespeare Recording Society. The recording was originally released in 1962. A download of his performance is available from audible.com. He also recorded the narration for Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra under Mario Rossi.Records he made for the children's market included Three Little Pigs and Other Fairy Stories, Tales of the Frightened, Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and, with Cyril Ritchard and Celeste Holm, Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, and Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark.
Karloff was credited for editing several horror anthologies, commencing with Tales of Terror . This wartime-published anthology went through at least five printings to September 1945. It has been reprinted recently. Karloff's name was also attached to And the Darkness Falls ; and The Boris Karloff Horror Anthology, though it is less clear whether Karloff himself actually edited these.
Tales of the Frightened, though based on the recordings by Karloff of the same title, and featuring his image on the book cover, contained stories written by Michael Avallone; the second volume, More Tales of the Frightened, contained stories authored by Robert Lory. Both Avallone and Lory worked closely with Canadian editor and book packager Lyle Kenyon Engel, who also ghost-edited a horror story anthology for horror film star Basil Rathbone.
Personal life
Beginning in 1940, Karloff dressed as Father Christmas every Christmas to hand out presents to physically disabled children in a Baltimore hospital.He never legally changed his name to "Boris Karloff." He signed official documents "William H. Pratt, a.k.a. Boris Karloff."
He was a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild, and he was especially outspoken due to the long hours he spent in makeup while playing Frankenstein's Monster.
He married five times and had one child, daughter Sara Karloff, by fourth wife Dorothy Stine. One marriage was in 1946 right after his divorce. At the time of his daughter's birth, he was filming Son of Frankenstein and reportedly rushed from the film set to the hospital while still in full makeup.
Death
Upon returning to England in 1959, his address was 43 Cadogan Square, London. In 1966 he bought 25 Campden House, Kensington W8, and'Roundabout Cottage' in the Hampshire village of Bramshott. A longtime heavy smoker, he had emphysema which left him with only half of one lung still functioning. He contracted bronchitis in 1968 and was hospitalised at University College Hospital. He died of pneumonia at the King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, in Sussex, on 2 February 1969, at the age of 81.
His body was cremated following a requested modest service at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, where he is commemorated by a plaque in the Garden of Remembrance. A memorial service was held at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London, where there is also a plaque.
During the run of Thriller, Karloff lent his name and likeness to a comic book for Gold Key Comics based upon the series. After Thriller was cancelled, the comic was retitled Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery. An illustrated likeness of Karloff continued to introduce each issue of this publication for more than a decade after his death; the comic lasted until the early 1980s. In 2009, Dark Horse Comics began publishing reprints of Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery in a hard-bound edition.
Legacy
For his contribution to film and television, Boris Karloff was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1737 Vine Street for motion pictures, and 6664 Hollywood Boulevard for television. Karloff was featured by the U.S. Postal Service as Frankenstein's Monster and the Mummy in its series "Classic Monster Movie Stamps" issued in September 1997. In 1998, an English Heritage blue plaque was unveiled in his hometown in London. The British film magazine Empire in 2016 ranked Karloff's portrayal as Frankenstein's monster the sixth-greatest horror movie character of all time.On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Boris Karloff among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.