November 23rd Birthday

BORIS KARLOFF

That's right folks.....the first of the spooky Hollywood greats was born November 23rd in 1887.

He was a British actor who emigrated to Canada during the 1910s, but is best known for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 film "Frankenstein", 1935 film "Bride of Frankenstein", and 1939 film "Son of Frankenstein". His popularity following Frankenstein in the early 1930s was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or, on some movie posters, "Karloff the Uncanny".

Karloff spent years testing the waters in North America while living in smaller towns like Kamloops, BC and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In 1912, while appearing in a play in Regina, Saskatchewan, Karloff volunteered to be a rescue worker following a devastating tornado. He also lived in Minot, North Dakota, for a year, performing in an opera house above a hardware store.

Due to the years of difficult manual labor in Canada and the U.S. while trying to establish his acting career, he suffered back problems for the rest of his life. Because of his health, he did not fight in World War I.

Once Karloff arrived in Hollywood, he made dozens of silent films, but work was sporadic, and he often had to take up manual labor, such as digging ditches and driving a cement truck, to pay the bills. His role as Frankenstein's monster in "Frankenstein" (1931) made him a star. A year later, he played another iconic character, Imhotep, in "The Mummy" (1932).

Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in the 1932 film "Scarface". He played a religious WWI soldier in the 1934 John Ford epic "The Lost Patrol". Karloff gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal horror movies, including several with his main rival as heir to the horror throne of Lon Chaney, Sr., Béla Lugosi, whose refusal to play the monster in "Frankenstein" made Karloff's subsequent career possible. Karloff played Frankenstein's monster three times; the other films being "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) and "Son of Frankenstein" (1939), which also featured Lugosi as the demented Igor (spelled "Ygor" in this movie). Karloff would revisit the Frankenstein mythos in film several times after leaving the role. The first would be as the villainous Dr. Niemann in "House of Frankenstein" (1944), where Karloff would be famously contrasted against the then more popularized Glenn Strange, who became the standardized interpretation of the Monster during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

From 1945-1946, Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton; "Isle of the Dead", "The Body Snatcher", and "Bedlam". In a 1946 interview with Louis Berg, of the Los Angeles Times, Karloff discussed his three-picture deal with RKO, his reasons for leaving Universal Pictures and working with producer Lewton. Karloff left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. The latest installment 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 continues, "Mr. Karloff has great love and respect for Mr. Lewton as the man who rescued him from the living dead and restored, so to speak, his soul".

In later years, Karloff hosted and acted in a number of television series, most notably "Thriller", "Out of This World", and "The Veil", the latter of which was never broadcast and only came to light in the 1990s. In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including "Comedy of Terrors", "The Raven", and "The Terror", the latter two directed by Roger Corman, and "Die Monster Die" (1965).

In the mid-1960s, Karloff gained a late-career surge of American popularity when he narrated the made-for-television animated film of "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas", and provided the sounds of the Grinch (the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was sung not by Karloff, but by American voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft). Karloff later won a Grammy in the spoken word category after the story was released as a record.

In 1968 he starred in "Targets", a movie directed by Peter Bogdanovich about a young man who embarks on a spree of killings carried out with handguns and high powered rifles. The movie starred Karloff as "retired horror film actor" Byron Orlok (a lightly-disguised version of himself) facing an end of life crisis, resolved through a confrontation with the shooter.

Karloff ended his career appearing in a trio of low-budgeted Mexican horror films that were shot shortly before his death; all were released posthumously, with the last, "The Incredible Invasion", not seeing release until 1971, two years after Karloff's death.

In contrast to the sinister characters he played on screen, Karloff was known in real life as a very kind gentleman who gave generously, especially to children's charities. Beginning in 1940, Karloff dressed up as Santa Claus every Christmas to hand out presents to physically disabled children in a Baltimore hospital.

Karloff was also a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild, and was especially outspoken regarding working conditions on sets (some extremely hazardous) that actors were expected to deal with in the mid-1930s. He married six times. He had one child, a daughter, by his fifth wife.

Boris Karloff lived out his final years at his cottage, 'Roundabout,' in the English village of Bramshott. After a long battle with arthritis and emphysema, he succumbed to pneumonia on February 2, 1969. He was cremated, following a requested low-key service, at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, where he is commemorated by a plaque in the Garden of Remembrance.

William Henry Pratt (a.k.a. Boris Karloff) - 1887 to 1969