Actors
Click A Name Lon Chaney Christopher Lee Peter Lorre Peter Cushing Boris Karloff Vincent Price
Lon Chaney
Lon Chaney acted in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Island and The Phantom of the Opera and suffered for his art! He was known as the master of make up during the era of the silent movie.There are stories about the lengths he would go to get the desired special effect. One reporter witnessed him pulling down his lower lids and gluing them to his cheeks and using wire on his upper lids to create a popped eye look for the film, London after Midnight (1928).
For the Hunchback of Notre Dame he used mortician's wax inside his mouth, which was held open permanently by a metal clip. From all accounts he was a bit of a masochist!
Chaney's parents were deaf mutes and his mother was also an invalid and this upbringing gave the actor a great grasp of gesture and its significance.
He deliberately built up a mystic and believed that talking in his films would damage this image, but he did finally make his sound debut in 1930 in The Unholy Three, a crime drama where he plays all of 'the three'.
His experiments in make up eventually impaired his sight and during The Unholy Three he was diagnosed with Bronchial caner which took his voice and then his life in the August of 1930.
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Christopher Lee
Or Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, the British star of many Hammer Horror Film. He started his film career in Corridor of Mirrors (1948/9). Ten years later he played his best-known character, Dracula! He often starred with Peter Cushing and Vincent Price and they all appeared together in the horror film The House of the Long Shadow.Some of his films are:
- The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
- Dracula (1959)
- The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
- The Mummy (1959)
- Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1966)
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Peter Lorre
Born on June 26th 1904 and named Laszlo Lowenstein, this Hungarian actor mostly played shady characters. I especially enjoyed him in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), with Cary Grant; he was also in The Maltese Falcon (1941).He spent some time in Berlin in the late 1920's and early 1930's, but left for Britain in 1933 where he worked with Alfred Hitchcock. Lorre had a wispy voice that was very effective in his villainous roles.
He died on March 23rd 1964.
Some of his films are:
- Mad Love (1935)
- Crime and Punishment (1935)
- The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)
- Casablanca (1942)
From (1937 - 39), he played the Japanese detective Mr Moto and made many TV appearances.
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Peter Cushing
Born in Kenley, Surrey, England in 1913 he was mostly known for his horror films. Peter Cushing was usually cast as the hero of the pieces, hunting vampires and monsters.He began his acting career on stage in the late 1930's and nine years later he left Britain for Hollywood.
In 1940 he even appeared with the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy in a film called A Chump at Oxford. Returning to Britain in the 1940's he resumed his stage career and appeared in a live TV adaptation of the novel 1984 by George Orwell.
He has also played Baron Von Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of The Baskervilles (1959), a character he played many times and Baron Van Helsing in Dracula (1959), and a couple of years earlier in 1957.
Some of his films are:
- Dr Who and the Darleks (1966)
- Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972)
- Star Wars (1977)
- Top Secret (1984)
He even had time to write two autobiographies. He died in 1994.
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Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff was born in London, England on 23rd November 1887; he's original name was William Henry Pratt or Charles Edward Pratt. He was a film and stage actor; in 1909 he emigrated to Canada and joined a touring company.He became type cast as the sympathetic monster or sinister villain when he starred in Frankenstein, the first Hollywood monster movie.
It was a smash and Boris went on to star in the sequel, Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939).
He frequently appeared on television and radio and in 1941 appeared on Broadway in the stage version of Arsenic and Old Lace. In 1950 he played Captain Hook on stage.
Some of his films are:
- The Criminal Code (1931)
- The Old Dark House (1932)
- The Mummy (1932)
- The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
He also starred as Mr Wong in the Chinese detective series of the same name, between 1938 - 39. He died on February 3rd 1969 in Midhurst, West Sussex, England.
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Vincent Price
Cultivated the image of the debonair, menacing villain with a wicked grin. He was born on May 27th 1911 and grew up to be an imposing six foot four inches tall.He attended Yale University and received a BA in Art History and English and at the University of London he studied fine arts.
His London stage debut was in 1935, he played Prince Albert in the West End production of Victoria Regina and by his film debut in 1938 he was already an established star.
He had a distinctive voice, creepy in tone yet melodious. He also wrote cookbooks, was a gourmet and an art connoisseur.
Some of his films are:
- The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
- King Charles II in Hudson's Bay (1941)
- The Three Musketeers (1948)
- The House of Usher (1960)
- The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
- The Raven (1963)
- The Haunted Palace (1964)
- The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
- The Whales of August (1987)
- Edward Scissorhands (1990) - A brief appearance as Edwards's creator.
He died in Los Angeles, California on October 25th 1993.
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