Boris Karloff

A photo of him keeping wicket while C. Aubrey Smith was batting was included in a display in the Long Room at Lord's cricket ground in 2004. The display was to celebrate Sussex (the oldest county side) winning the County Championship for the first time and the photo was included because Smith had been a captain of Sussex CCC.

A photograph of Karloff in his Frankenstein (1931) monster makeup appears on one stamp of a sheet of 10 USA 37¢ commemorative postage stamps, issued 25 February 2003, celebrating American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes. The stamp, which honors makeup artists, shows Jack P. Pierce and an unidentified assistant applying the monster makeup.

Pictured on two of a set of five 32¢ US commemorative postage stamps, issued 30 September 1997, celebrating "Famous Movie Monsters". He is shown on one stamp as the title character in The Mummy (1932) and on the other as the monster in Frankenstein (1931). Other actors honored in this set of stamps, and the classic monsters they portray, are Lon Chaney as Phantom Of The Opera (1925); Bela Lugosi as Dracula (1931); and Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man (1941).

In 1970, he played the blind sculptor Franz Badulescu in Cauldron of Blood (1970), written, produced, and directed by Edward Mann, who had also come to the art of film from stage theater.

Karloff's last great role was as an aging horror movie star confronting a modern-day sniper in the Peter Bogdanovich film Targets (1968).

His TV career was capped off by achieving Christmas immortality as the narrator of Chuck Jones's perennial animated favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Three low-budget Mexican-produced horror films starring an ailing Karloff were released in the two years after his death; however, they do no justice to this actor. In retrospect, he never took himself too seriously as an actor and had a tendency to downplay his acting accomplishments.

Lovecraft-inspired Die, Monster, Die! (1965).

"His career experienced something of a revival in the 1960s thanks to hosting the TV anthology series Thriller (1960) and indie 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.

Took out his false teeth to achieve the metamorphosis in The Haunted Strangler (1958).

Received a Tony Award nomination in 1956 for his dramatic role in "The Lark".

The mad scientist character in the Bugs Bunny short Water, Water Every Hare (1952) is patterned after Boris right down to his slight lisp and heavy eyebrows.

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), to name but 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 Brewster brother in the hit, "Arsenic and Old Lace" (his role, or the absence of him in it, was amusingly parodied in the film version) and a decade later he enjoyed a long run in "Peter Pan," perfectly cast as "Captain Hook.

While Karloff continued appearing in a plethora of films, many of them were not up to the standards of his previous efforts, including appearances in two of the hokey Bud Abbott and Lou Costello monster movies (he had appeared with them in an earlier superior effort, Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949), which theater owners often added his name to the marquee), the low point of the Universal-International horror movie cycle.

Refused to reprise his role as Frankenstein's Monster in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), because he felt spoofs would not sell to the audience. He did agree to do publicity for the film and posed for pictures of himself going to see the film.

He was a wrongly condemned doctor in Devil's Island (1939), 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 cabman in The Body Snatcher (1945) and a Greek general fighting vampirism in the Val Lewton thriller Isle of the Dead (1945).

Karloff, on loan to Fox, appeared in one of the best of the Warner Oland Chan entries, Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), before beginning his own short-lived Mr. Wong detective series.

He donned the signature make-up, neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots again to play Frankenstein's monster in the sensational The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (1939).

He thoroughly enjoyed his role as a religious fanatic in John Ford's The Lost Patrol (1934), although contemporary critics described it as a textbook example of overacting.

Morlant in The Ghoul (1933).

He quickly appeared in several other sinister roles, including Scarface (1932) (filmed before Frankenstein (1931)), the black-humored The Old Dark House (1932), as the namesake Oriental villain of the Sax Rohmer novels in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), as undead Im-Ho-Tep in The Mummy (1932) and the misguided Prof.

His big break came in 1931 when he was cast as "the monster" in the Universal production of Frankenstein (1931), 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.

Karloff got the role in The Criminal Code (1930), a breakthrough role for him, because he was broke. He could not go to the Masquers Club because he could not pay his dues and could not afford his second choice, a cup of coffee, so he went to Actors' Equity, where he learned that there was casting for the role.

Needing cash to support himself, Karloff secured occasional acting work in the fledgling silent film industry in such pictures 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 serials (the majority of which sadly haven't survived). 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.

Domestic partner of Olive de Wilton whom he married in 1916 and divorced in 1919.

It has long been rumored that on June 30, 1912, a then-unknown Karloff had taken some time off to canoe while touring around the city of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada when a tornado had hit, and that he had further organized a concert to raised money for the victims. However, this myth is simply not true, as uncovered by noted Canadian historian, Greg Nesteroff after doing extensive research on Boris Karloff's life in Canada. Karloff was never part of the concert or benefit's organizing.

He was educated at London University in anticipation that he would pursue a diplomatic career; however, he emigrated to Canada in 1909 and joined a touring company based out of Ontario and adopted the stage name of "Boris Karloff. " He toured back and forth across the USA for over ten years in a variety of low-budget theater shows and eventually ended up in Hollywood, reportedly with very little money to his name.

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 perception of the "monster" from the classic Mary Shelley book, "Frankenstein". William Henry Pratt was born on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, London, England, 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.