Jack Pierce - The Man Behind the Monsters (3 page)

Jack Pierce’s first attempt to create an unforgettable screen character in the new sound era of filmmaking was essentially thwarted by the star of the first project “greenlit” by Junior Laemmle in 1930. While
Dracula
afforded Pierce the chance to bring a vampire character unlike any seen before to the screen, Béla Lugosi arrived in California with different plans. As Lugosi had always applied his own makeups on stage, he assumed the same situation would occur in Universal’s film version. Steadfast that he make himself into the cinematic version of Count Dracula (below), Jack Pierce was relegated to designing a green greasepaint for the character (through Max Factor’s organization), and likely designed the widow’s peak hairstyle in concert with hairstyling department head Lily Dirigo. Instead of working on the title character, Pierce, Dirigo, and costume designer Vera West collaborated to create the looks for Helen Chandler as Mina (above left) and the Count’s brides (above right). Nonetheless, when it was released in February of 1931,
Dracula
was an unqualified smash, and the Universal brass clamored for a follow-up. Though Lugosi was originally cast as the Monster when screenwriter-director Robert Florey was putting together the next Universal horror effort,
Frankenstein,
Junior Laemmle dismissed the test footage, claiming that the Lugosi Monster was too derivative of the title character in the German classic
Der Golem
(1920). When both Lugosi and Florey were subsequently assigned to
Murders in the Rue Morgue
(1932), an incalculable opportunity arose for Jack Pierce, Universal, and fans of the horror film genre.

frankenstein

“I believe this character has been the greatest of all monsters portrayed in motion pictures,” said a Jack Pierce to TV host Wayne Thomas in 1962. The original
Frankenstein
from 1931 remains a benchmark for movie makeup. Pierce described in great detail what inspired his classic character conception after he read the novel—given to him by Carl Laemmle Junior—three times in 1930. “I did research work for six months before I created the Frankenstein monster,” he said. “It was a lot of hard work, trying to find ways and means, what can you do? Frankenstein wasn’t a doctor; he was a scientist, so ... he had to take the head and open it, ... and he took wires to rivet the head. I had to [add] the electrical outlets to connect electricity in here on the neck. I made it out of clay and put hair on it and took it in to Junior Laemmle’s office He said, ‘you mean to tell me you can do this on a human being?’ I said, ‘positively.’ He said, ‘all right, we will go the limit.’ From then on, the story was written, and we went to work. “

For Pierce’s first
Frankenstein
film — there were six eventual sequels for which he would create a monster — he described the process of assembling the character. “The wig was made with a cotton roll on the top to get the flatness and the circle that protrudes out from the head,” he revealed. “Instead of giving [the character] a round head, you get a different edge around the sides. The entire head was built new every day. The large gash on the top of the forehead, that’s where you open the head to put the brains in there, the artificial brain. It took three hours each morning. Then the electrodes were put on his neck. The makeup was sky gray, originated by me through Max Factor’s organization.”

Pierce reserved his final comments regarding James Whale’s landmark
Frankenstein
for his friend and longtime colleague, Boris Karloff. “For Boris, the coat was cut down so the length of arms and the fingers would look long,” he explained. “ Everything was in black to give him the height. Also, I padded him to look eight feet tall. I didn’t really teach him how to walk. Boris and I would talk, but the man is so wonderful, I think the greatest of them all as far as playing these parts.”

Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein with Karloff

Dwight Frye as Fritz torments the Monster

Edward Van Sloan as Dr. Waldman

Boris Karloff
James Whale