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Boris Karloff (November 23, 1887 - February 2, 1969), whose real name was William Henry Pratt, was an English-born actor who emigrated to Canada in 1909. He is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the Frankenstein series of movies. His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch in the television special of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
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 earn a living. But it was his role as Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein which made him a star. A year later, Karloff played another iconic character, Imhotep, in The Mummy. Other movies quickly followed; The Old Dark House with Charles Laughton, and the star role in The Mask of Fu Manchu.
Karloff gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal horror movies, including several with Bela Lugosi, his main rival for heir to Lon Chaney, Sr.'s horror throne. Karloff was chosen over Lugosi for the role of the monster in Frankenstein (1931), making his subsequent career possible. Karloff played Frankenstein's monster in two other films, Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which also featured Lugosi.
Karloff played the role of the "mad scientist" in Frankenstein 1970 (1958), as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original inventor. The actor appeared at a celebrity baseball game as The 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 donned the headpiece and neck bolts for the final time in 1962 for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66, but he was playing "Boris Karloff," who, within the story, was playing "The Monster."
While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close mutual friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat. Follow-ups included Gift of Gab (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Black Friday (1940), You'll Find Out (also 1940), and The Body Snatcher (1945). During this period, he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (1939).
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.
From 1945 to 1946, Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam. During this period, Karloff was also a frequent guest on radio programs, sometimes spoofing his horror image with Fred Allen or Jack Benny.
In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including The Comedy of Terrors, The Raven, and The Terror. On The Red Skelton Show, Karloff guest starred along with horror actor Vincent Price in a parody of Frankenstein, with Red Skelton as the monster "Klem Kadiddle Monster."
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 genuinely superstitious - once, he refused to appear on the radio program Information Please because the episode would be broadcast on Friday the 13th.
Karloff was also a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild, and was especially outspoken regarding working conditions on sets that actors were expected to deal with in the mid-1930s, some of which were extremely hazardous. He married six times and had one child, daughter Sara Karloff, by his fifth wife.
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made throughout his career. Although he did many serious films, it is for his roles in horror films that he is most remembered.
Price was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Marguerite Cobb and Vincent Leonard Price, Sr., who was the president of the National Candy Company. His grandfather, Vincent Clarence Price, invented "Dr. Price's Baking Powder", the first cream of tartar baking powder, and secured the family's fortune.
Price's first venture into the horror genre was in the 1939 Boris Karloff film Tower of London. The following year he portrayed the title character in the film The Invisible Man Returns (a role he reprised in a vocal cameo at the end of the 1948 horror-comedy spoof Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein).
In the 1950s, he moved into horror films, with a role in House of Wax (1953), , then The Mad Magician (1954), and then the monster movie The Fly (1958). Price also starred in the original House on Haunted Hill (1959).
In the 1960s, Price had a number of low-budget including the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Comedy of Terrors (1963) The Raven (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1965).
During the early 1970s, Price hosted and starred in BBC Radio's horror and mystery series The Price of Fear.
He greatly reduced his film work from around 1975, as horror itself suffered a slump. During this time he increased his narrative and voice work, as well as advertising Milton Bradley's Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture. Price's voiceover is heard on Alice Cooper's first solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare from 1975, and he also appeared in the corresponding TV special Alice Cooper: The Nightmare.
In 1982 he performed a sinister "rap" on the title track of Michael Jackson's Thriller album.
From 1981 to 1989, he hosted the PBS television series Mystery!. Also, in 1985, he was voice talent on the Hanna-Barbera series The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo as the mysterious Vincent Van Ghoul, who aided Scooby-Doo, Scrappy-Doo and the gang in recapturing thirteen evil demons. During this time (1985–1989), he appeared in horror-themed commercials for Tilex bathroom cleanser.
His last significant film work was as the inventor in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990). Price was a lifelong smoker. He had long suffered from emphysema and Parkinson's disease, which had forced his role in Edward Scissorhands to be much smaller than intended.
He died of lung cancer on October 25, 1993. He was cremated and his ashes scattered off Point Dume in Malibu, California
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