Bernie Wrightson, 1948-2017

Bernie Wrightson passed away on Saturday, March 18, 2017. He was 68 years old. Wrightson had been ill for some time and had only recently announced that he was effectively retired, not to produce new art or attend conventions. You can read his obituary on his website: http://berniewrightson.com.

Bernie Wrightson’s work in comics is legendary. As an illustrator, he was truly a giant of his field, one of the best ever. Witness his contribution to the history of Frankenstein as perhaps — and for many of us, undoubtedly — the finest illustrator yet to grace Mary Shelley’s novel.

Working on and off for almost seven years, Wrightson produced forty-seven incredibly detailed illustrations. The 1831 version of the novel, illuminated with Wrightson’s art, was first published in 1983.

Bernie Wrightson was a master of his art and his interpretation of Frankenstein will endure as his masterpiece.

Photo by Tim Bradstreet.

Dick Smith, 1922-2014

With great sadness we learn that special effect makeup master Dick Smith has passed away, July 30, 2014. He was 92 years old.

Dick Smith was a giant in his field, an innovator, and massively influential, though he might be best remembered for his generosity as a teacher and a mentor to aspiring makeup artists. He was even willing to share his knowledge with the very youngest monster movie fans as he did in 1965 with the magazine-format Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up Handbook published by James Warren’s Famous Monsters.

Here, reposted, is an article I wrote back in 2010 about Smith and the Handbook.

Dick Smith's Frankenstein

For first generation Monster Kids in 1965, Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-up Handbook was the holy grail. There had never been anything like it before. Here, incredibly, was a step-by-step guide on how to turn yourself into a monster, written in simple language, easily understood, and published in an inexpensive magazine format by Famous Monsters!

I sent away for the book and would spend the next year or two experimenting with monster makeup. I hunted down the suggested ingredients, esoteric stuff like spirit gum, collodion and thick, smelly liquid latex.

Soon, I could lace my arms with disturbingly realistic scars and give myself a bubbly burned face using corn syrup and breadcrumbs, adding red and blue strings for veins. I could arthritically deform my knuckles using glue and cotton matted down and shaped with acrylic paint. I even made a bald-head skullcap, painting liquid latex on a balloon, and worn to hilarious effect.

Smith’s book described a number of makeups, from an easy Weird-Oh character and a painted on split-skull face to more elaborate jobs, stepping up the difficulty level as he went on.

I never attempted the complex werewolf or the book’s pièce de résistance, Smith’s New Frankenstein Monster, which took its cue from Mary Shelley’s description, “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath.”

I can’t imagine how any kid could achieve this one without infinite patience, helping hands, and uncommon talent. The full-head job required hammering out a metal skullcap, carefully building up facial muscles with cotton and mortician’s wax (an anatomical diagram of facial muscles and arteries was provided), and covering everything with a transparent gelatin skin. The finished effect must have been stunning. Smith admitted that it did not photograph well, writing “the weird transparency of the skin is more apparent to the eyes than to the camera, but it was most effective.” The whole thing would theoretically peel away easily, though Smith suggested using baby shampoo to clean the red stains off your face!

Dick Smith’s book is symbolic of his generosity and his eagerness to share his knowledge, an avowed reaction to the wall of silence he encountered as a fledgling makeup artist in the late Forties. Hollywood makeup men wouldn’t share their secrets. “None of them would give you the time of day,” Smith said. Throughout his life, Smith was kind to fellow artists, most notably in his mentorship of Rick Baker, who was guided and encouraged by Smith when still a teenager.

Amazingly, when Dick Smith wrote his Handbook in 1965, his best work was still ahead. Smith would go on to create the latex appliance methods still in use today. He introduced the use of bladders for breathing effects, spurting blood, and the crawling skin transformations seen in Altered States (1980). He created the ultimate “old man” makeup, still a reference, for Dustin Hoffman’s Big Little Man, a design also used on vampire Barnabas Collins in House of Dark Shadows, both made in 1966. Smith designed the gruesomely realistic effects of violence in Coppola’s Godfather pictures, Scorcese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and, in what is perhaps his masterpiece, he created the astounding makeup effects on display in The Exorcist (1973).

Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Makeup Handbook, in both its original Warren magazine format and an updated book edition from 1985, is an expensive collector’s item today. Still available is a 40-minute demonstration video, Monster Makeup Hosted by Dick Smith, directed by John Russo.

 

Scans from the original Warren edition are on view over at the Magic Carpet Burn blog archives. Here’s The New Frankenstein Monster. Click and scroll around to see the rest of the mag.

  

Dick Smith’s website.

Still online, an abandoned blog, Max and Courtney Make Monsters, attempted to recreate every makeup described in Smith’s Do-It-Yourself book.

  

Related:
Dick Smith’s makeup for TV’s Arsenic and Old Lace.

Have a Cool Yule!

I’ve run this cover before, appropriate to the Season, from the January 1966 issue of Warren and Ackerman’s Monster World. It’s interesting how, 46 years later, this simple image, a no-budget cover mashing a Don Post rubber mask with a Santa Suit, has become near ubiquitous on the Net.

As the year winds down, allow me to pause one moment to note how, at some point back in October, this blog welcomed its one-millionth visitor. Page loads total well above 1.6 million. These astounding numbers, accumulated over five years of Frankensteinia, speak to the iconic nature and, nearly 200 years on, the perennial attraction of Frankenstein.

Thank you for stopping in, stand by for much more.

From the Frankensteinia Archives: Frank Frazetta, 1928-2010

A giant has passed away. Frank Frazetta died today, May 10, 2010.

I don't think I can improve on this post I made about two and half years ago. Please accept this as my tribute to the great Frank Frazetta...

A brutal, battling Frankenstein’s Monster straddles a tumbling tombstone on a cemetery knoll, rats and bats in attendance, and torch bearing villagers converging under a bloody orange sky.

When he delivered this dramatic, atmospheric oil painting for the cover of Creepy no. 10 (August, 1966), Frank Frazetta was at his creative peak. Over the next incredibly prolific seven years, Frazetta would produce most of the cover images that would cement his reputation as an artist’s artist. His paperback covers for Lancer Books’ Conan reprints not only fixed the image of the muscle-bound barbarian in the public consciousness, they fueled sales for the series in the millions of copies.

Publisher Jim Warren, an unabashed fan of Frazetta’s work, offered him total creative freedom. “Just do it,” Warren said. “Just bring it in!”. Frazetta would produce stunning covers for Warren’s horror comic magazines Eerie and Creepy, and sensuous masterpieces for Vampirella. Free to experiment, the artist explored unusual compositions and startling color combinations.

The outstanding Frankenstein cover for Creepy number 10 is three-dimensional, its main elements popping off the page, the graveyard in deep focus receding to a far horizon. The dynamic characters, anchored by heavily textured soil, are framed and focused by the dead tree and its clawing branches. If you are familiar with the work of Jeff Jones and Bernie Wrightson, you can actually see elements in this painting that influenced and informed their styles.

Though Frank Frazetta’s distinctive brushstroke signature would become instantly recognizable to fans, it is nowhere to be seen on this cover. The artist playfully engraved his name on the overturned tombstone.

Frank Frazetta Wikipedia page, and an “unofficial” Frazetta gallery site.

There are four Frazetta books edited by Arnie and Cathy Fenner of Spectrum fame: Legacy: Selected Paintings and Drawings by the Grand Master of Fantastic Art, Frank Frazetta; Frank Frazetta: Icon; Testament: The Life and Art of Frank Frazetta, and the newly published Spectrum Presents Frank Frazetta: Rough Work.

On DVD: Fire and Ice, Ralph Bakshi’s sword and sorcery epic designed by Frazetta is available in a two-disc limited edition that includes Painting With Fire, a documentary directed by Lance Laspina. Frazetta - Painting With Fire is also available as a standalone DVD.

The Art of Frankenstein : Basil Gogos

The Bride turns 75 this week! Maybe that explains the startled look on her face, as painted by the master, Basil Gogos.

The illustration at top is my reconstruction, from two different sources, of the original art used on the cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland number 17 (May 1962). Note how the illustration was cropped and flipped left to right for design purposes.

Below, a closeup detail of the original art taken from Famous Monster Movie Art of Basil Gogos by Kerry Gammil and J. David Spurlock — an absolute, gorgeous, must-have book if there ever was one. Gogos’ intense, luminous color and jazzy brushwork is always a joy to behold.

Here, on close inspection, the orange and yellow strokes at the temple and along the cheekbone are pure abstraction. Gogos’ monster portraits were always sizzling with color and popping with life.

I’ll be celebrating The Bride of Frankenstein’s diamond anniversary all week here on Frankensteinia. Lots more to show you, and a new banner every day. Tomorrow, we’ll look at all the actresses considered for the part of The Bride.

It’s The Bride’s Birthday Bash here, this week, on Frankensteinia. Join me for the party, won't you?

Dick Smith's Frankenstein

For first generation Monster Kids in 1965, Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-up Handbook was the holy grail. There had never been anything like it before. Here, incredibly, was a step-by-step guide on how to turn yourself into a monster, written in simple language, easily understood, and published in an inexpensive magazine format by Famous Monsters!

I sent away for the book and would spend the next year or two experimenting with monster makeup. I hunted down the suggested ingredients, esoteric stuff like spirit gum, collodion and thick, smelly liquid latex.

Soon, I could lace my arms with disturbingly realistic scars and give myself a bubbly burned face using corn syrup and breadcrumbs, adding red and blue strings for veins. I could arthritically deform my knuckles using glue and cotton matted down and shaped with acrylic paint. I even made a bald-head skullcap, painting liquid latex on a balloon, and worn to hilarious effect.

Smith’s book described a number of makeups, from an easy Weird-Oh character and a painted on split-skull face to more elaborate jobs, stepping up the difficulty level as he went on.

I never attempted the complex werewolf or the book’s pièce de résistance, Smith’s New Frankenstein Monster, which took its cue from Mary Shelley’s description, “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath.”

I can’t imagine how any kid could achieve this one without infinite patience, helping hands, and uncommon talent. The full-head job required hammering out a metal skullcap, carefully building up facial muscles with cotton and mortician’s wax (an anatomical diagram of facial muscles and arteries was provided), and covering everything with a transparent gelatin skin. The finished effect must have been stunning. Smith admitted that it did not photograph well, writing “the weird transparency of the skin is more apparent to the eyes than to the camera, but it was most effective.” The whole thing would theoretically peel away easily, though Smith suggested using baby shampoo to clean the red stains off your face!

Dick Smith’s book is symbolic of his generosity and his eagerness to share his knowledge, an avowed reaction to the wall of silence he encountered as a fledgling makeup artist in the late Forties. Hollywood makeup men wouldn’t share their secrets. “None of them would give you the time of day,” Smith said. Throughout his life, Smith was kind to fellow artists, most notably in his mentorship of Rick Baker, who was guided and encouraged by Smith when still a teenager.

Amazingly, when Dick Smith wrote his Handbook in 1965, his best work was still ahead. Smith would go on to create the latex appliance methods still in use today. He introduced the use of bladders for breathing effects, spurting blood, and the crawling skin transformations seen in Altered States (1980). He created the ultimate “old man” makeup, still a reference, for Dustin Hoffman’s Big Little Man, a design also used on vampire Barnabas Collins in House of Dark Shadows, both made in 1966. Smith designed the gruesomely realistic effects of violence in Coppola’s Godfather pictures, Scorcese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and, in what is perhaps his masterpiece, he created the astounding makeup effects on display in The Exorcist (1973).

Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Makeup Handbook, in both its original Warren magazine format and an updated book edition from 1985, is an expensive collector’s item today. Still available is a 40-minute demonstration video, Monster Makeup Hosted by Dick Smith, directed by John Russo.

Scans from the original Warren edition are on view over at Prof. Grewbeard’s delectable Magic Carpet Burn blog. Here’s The New Frankenstein Monster. Click and scroll around to see the rest of the mag.

Dick Smith’s website.

Read the excellent Cinefex interview (linked here) with Dick Smith, followed by a detailed outline of his career.

Still online, an abandoned blog, Max and Courtney Make Monsters, attempted to recreate every makeup described in Smith’s Do-It-Yourself book.

Related:
Dick Smith’s makeup for TV’s Arsenic and Old Lace.

The Covers of Frankenstein : Famous Monsters, No. 140

A very green Glenn Strange graces the cover of Famous Monsters No. 140, from January 1978.

After twenty years, the popularity of the classic movie monsters that had been the cornerstone of Famous Monsters had waned. Slasher films, never FM’s cup of tea, were entering their golden age and within a year, Fangoria would become the gore go-to magazine for contemporary horror film fans. Famous Monsters took a different angle, latching on to the science-fiction boom ignited by Star Wars.

Beginning with issue 137, in 1977, the Star Wars title began appearing in large letters across the top, with the cover logo displaced and eventually shrunken in size to accommodate such titles as Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica and Superman in bold letters. Color photos replaced the traditional painted covers and the magazine’s contents were heavy with cost-conscious reprint material. The issue displayed here was a throwback of sorts, despite the giant STAR WARS overtitle, being one of the last to feature FM’s classic cover design and a painted monster in the Gogos style.

Artist Maelo Cintron’s cover was his only contribution to FM. He was a paperback cover artist and had earlier produced two covers for Calvin Beck’s Castle of Frankenstein, including a Frankenstein-themed illustration for CoF no. 19. Cintron would become a regular at Skywald magazines, and is best remembered for his work on the celebrated Human Gargoyles series he co-created with editor and writer Alan Hewetson.

The Covers of Frankenstein : Famous Monsters Fearbook 1971

Famous Monsters “Fearbooks” were all-reprint annuals, this one published between regular issues number 87 and 88, in the winter of 1971.

Gleefully hyperbolic cover blurbs were standard for Warren and Ackerman’s Famous Monsters, getting your fanboy heart racing as soon as you caught sight of an issue on the newsstand. Best Issue Ever was used often enough to become a sort of FM mantra. Variations included Most Exciting, Biggest, Special and Super-Special, the ever-popular Collector’s Edition, and an occasional Super Spooktacular!

The portrait of Christopher Lee from 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein was painted by the great Basil Gogos. The same character had previously appeared on a Warren magazine cover in a version executed by Russ Jones. Both covers featured the same solid, fire engine red background for the flayed-faced Monster.

Book: Famous Monster Movie Art of Basil Gogos.

Related:
The Covers of Frankenstein: Famous Monsters Strike Back!

Unforgettable

I can’t believe it’s been forty years since Boris Karloff passed away, on February 2, in 1969. I was a teenager then and I remember hearing it on the news. I remember the newspaper obituaries, often illustrated with a picture of the Frankenstein Monster… as played by Glenn Strange. I’ve always felt privileged to have seen a few Boris Karloff movies in theaters when they came out, AIP films with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre like The Raven (1963) and The Comedy of Terrors (1964), and Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets (1968).

What strikes me — after all these years — is how brightly Boris Karloff’s star still shines. In his lifetime, Karloff was a popular character actor, a favorite movie villain, yet his work has endured and grown in stature. A handful of his best films are regarded now as genuine classics, and many of his lesser films enjoy cult status.

Few actors of his era are still celebrated, or even remembered anymore, yet Karloff’s name still resonates. It is still instantly recognizable and immediately associated with horror films. In the forty years that have gone by, Karloff’s films has been constantly available on video and DVD, his life and his work have been examined in books and documentaries and, of course, his association with the Frankenstein Monster is indelible, endlessly referenced, captured on stamps, sampled in advertising, accumulating into a genuine icon of the twentieth century.

In the summer of 1969, Famous Monsters of Filmland #56 was entirely devoted to Karloff. The tribute issue cover was painted by Basil Gogos.

A beautiful copy of the painting, sans overprinting, appears in the fabulous Famous Monsters Movie Art of Basil Gogos compiled by Kerry Gammill and J. David Spurlock.

Update!

Found in Famous Monsters No. 57, here’s a wonderful snapshot — taken in the New York offices of publisher James Warren — of editor Forry Ackerman and artist Basil Gogos back in 1969, posing with the original painting for the Karloff Tribute issue.

Boris Karloff’s IMDB page.

The Covers of Frankenstein: Famous Monsters of Filmland No.94

Spanish painter Sanjulian (Manuel Pérez Clemente) was recruited by publisher James Warren in 1970. The Barcelona-based artist would produce some of the most memorable and atmospheric covers ever to grace the Warren magazines, with a special emphasis on Vampirella titles. Sanjulian’s oils would also appear on paperback covers, including Harlequin romances, and a celebrated run on Ace Book’s Conan series.

Sanjulian contributed an intense, monochromatic portrait of Karloff’s Frankenstein for Famous Monsters of Filmland number 94 (1972). The image was later reused, cropped and spliced in with other painted images, as the cover of FM number 188, in 1983. 

 

Sanjulian’s official website.

A collection of Sanjulian’s spectacular art, Sanjulian: Master Visionary. 

The Covers of Frankenstein : Monster World No. 6

From the fall of 1965 (with a January ’66 cover date), a Don Post mask of Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein Monster made festive for Warren & Ackerman’s Monster World number 6.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who visited Frankensteinia this year. Readership is still growing (!) and that is very gratifying to me. Thanks to all of you who left comments — much appreciated! — and all of you who became “Friends of Frankensteinia”. If you are a regular reader and you have a blogger account, click “Follow This Blog” on the right-hand menu and make yourself known. You can also hook up with Frankensteinia on MySpace and/or Facebook. Come on, us Frankenstein fans have to stick together!

And may I say thanks, also, to those who follow my picture blog, Monster Crazy. I’ve posted every day there since launching back in August. Having a lot of fun with it, too. Check it out, won’t you? There’s a prominent link at right.

Here’s to a great Holiday Season, and may the New Year be your best one ever.

Have a Cool Yule!

The Covers of Frankenstein : Famous Monsters No. 42

I hadn’t planned on making this a Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man week, but here’s a nice tie-in with my two previous posts: A Ron Cobb reworking of the film’s original poster as a cover for Famous Monsters of Filmland No. 42, January 1966.

Cobb got started professionally at Disney Studios, working as an inbetweener on Sleeping Beauty, in 1955. By ‘66, he was an “underground” artist and a celebrated political cartoonist for the L.A. Free Press. In 1967, he created the classic LP cover for Jefferson Airplane’s After Bathing at Baxter’s.

By the late 70’s, Cobb was combining a vivid imagination with meticulous drafting skills to produce designs and concept art for motion pictures. His credits include Star Wars, Conan The Barbarian, and The Abyss. He designed and directed the opening sequence for the Spielberg-produced TV series Amazing Stories. He created the spaceship for Alien, the Nazi flying wing for Raiders of the Lost Ark and the time-traveling DeLorean for Back to the Future. He also wrote the story that would eventually become E.T. The Extraterrestrial. Cobb’s non-film clients include NASA, the Los Angeles Olympics, and Peter Gabriel.

Ron Cobb has enjoyed a superlative career. It's nice to note that, along the way, he painted 11 splendid covers for Warren magazines.

Ron Cobb’s official website and IMDB page.

Creative Masters video interviews with Cobb on Wacom’s The Art of Wa site.

Related
When Frankenstein Met The Wolfman
Frankenstein y el hombre lobo
The Covers of Frankenstein: Mad Monsters No. 5
Happy 125th, Bela Lugosi

Frankenstein Monster Ring

A Frankenstein Monster appears on one of five Monster Rings that went for 75 cents, postage and handling included, from Famous Monsters of Filmland’s in-house mail order outfit, Captain Company, in the Sixties.

The “secret flicker design” sounds like a simple lenticular effect using a clear, ribbed plastic cover that allowed you to see one of two different images at a time. Move your finger, the image changes. These were also called “flasher rings”. You could see a baseball player swinging a bat, or Moe of The Three Stooges making a funny face.

I wish I’d sent away from these plastic novelty items. I was utterly fascinated by these simple, stark graphics, but the set was too expensive. You could buy two issues of FM for 75 cents, and even have enough left over for some candy.

Related Post: Super Frankenstein Mask

Super Frankenstein Mask

A simple, striking ad for a Don Post Frankenstein mask offered by Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, circa 1964.

For all its success, publisher James Warren couldn’t get advertising agencies interested in his monster movie magazine. Famous Monsters was still too small to compete with the monthly combined sales figures of countless comic book titles, which is where all the young teen-oriented ads for bicycles, cereal, candy and air rifles ended up.

Warren, ever innovative and resolutely independent, came up with an original, in house solution. He set up a mail order service and turned his back pages into a catalog for, well, stuff. You could send away for Aurora monster kits and monster-related paperbacks, 8MM movie clips and spoken word records. You could order rubber bats, inflatable snakes, Venus fly trap plants (“actually eats insects and bits of meat!”), skull-shaped ceramic mugs, and a whistle sold as a “Werewolf Siren”. Binoculars were called “Phantom Opera Glasses”. You could also order a parachute, a miniature radio “powerful enough to pick up local station broadcasts”, a hundred magnets for one dollar, and even a live monkey. Best of all were the rubber monster masks.

A staple of novelty, joke and costume shops, the masks included a Mummy, a Vampira-like Girl Vampire, The Screaming Skull, Shock Monster, a Gorilla and The Horrible Melting Man, but the perennial best-seller by far was the classic Frankenstein Monster mask available as a regular “Full Face” mask for two dollars, or a “Super De-luxe” over-the-head version, for a (then) whopping $3.98.

The Super Frankenstein ad refers to the cover of Famous Monsters #1. That was publisher Warren himself under the mask.

Peter Cushing

Captured in oils by the great Basil Gogos on a cover of Famous Monsters, Peter Cushing was born on this day, May 26, in 1913.

In 1956, Cushing was at the peak of his powers. Stage-struck at an early age, he already had over 25 years of distinguished work in the theater under his belt. His award-winning live performances in the new medium of television made him immensely popular in Great Britain. Upon hearing that a small studio, Hammer Films, was preparing a new version of Frankenstein, Cushing asked his agent, John Redway, to suggest him for the part of the Baron.

With the phenomenal success of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Cushing film career was launched. He would become one of the great horror film stars, playing a wide range of parts, sinister or heroic. He essayed the sinister Baron Frankenstein in six fascinating films.

Much earlier, as a fledgling actor in 1939, Cushing’s first brush with the cinema had an interesting Frankenstein connection to it. The young Cushing had boldly set out for Hollywood, half a world away from his native England. He was promptly hired to work with Louis Hayward in The Man in the Iron Mask.

Heyward played twins, interacting with himself through special effects. It was Cushing who played opposite Heyward in these scenes, his work to be discarded after the split-screen process was assembled. Cushing was rewarded with a small onscreen part. The director of the film was none other than James Whale. Barely four years after making his masterpiece, The Bride of Frankenstein, Whale was directing the actor who would one day become the busiest Doctor Frankenstein of them all.

Another interesting meeting occurred shortly thereafter, when Cushing was invited to play a game of cricket with a team of British expats that included another Dr. Frankenstein, Basil Rathbone, and the master Monster himself, Boris Karloff.

Cushing’s Hollywood adventure ended when, patriotically moved to “do his bit” for the war effort, and admittedly “desperately homesick”, he decided to return home, hopping cross country to the East coast.

I was fascinated to learn that Cushing stopped briefly in my hometown, Montreal, lodging and working nights at the YMCA and taking a job as an usher at the Loews Theater. Where Cushing stayed exactly is not known, as there were several YMCA buildings downtown, but I’d like to think he might have stopped in at the one in Old Montreal, the first WMCA in North America, circa 1851, a fabulous building still standing and converted into a boutique hotel.

Cushing, writing in his 1986 autobiography, tells a funny story about picking up some film work in Montreal as a prop builder, fabricating rising sun and swastika flags for the British film The 49th Parallel, partially shot in Québec. Discovering the enemy insignia, an alarmed chambermaid caused Cushing to be arrested as an axis spy by the Mounties. The problem with the anecdote is that Powell and Pressburger’s epic was finished and released a year earlier, in 1941. Perhaps additional scenes were shot, or Cushing’s contributions were for promotional purposes but, as things stand, the dates don’t jibe.

As for the Loews where Cushing ushered, it was built in 1917 as Canada’s biggest, grandest movie and vaudeville house. Designed by Scots-born New Yorker Thomas Lamb, considered the greatest of all the theater architects, it answered the plaster opulence and flashy faux marble of its competitors with real Botticini marble stairs, vast frescoes, grandiose promenades and a unique elliptical mezzanine. Will Rogers, Red Skelton and Milton Berle were regular performers there. Groucho Marx fondly recalled honing his craft at the Loews, and joked about picking up a disease in that great sin city up north.

Come the sixties, I remember walking the Loews’ grandiose corridor to the cavernous lobby and down the swooshing staircase to the 2800 seat auditorium, glowing with dark blue lights, like an underwater palace. As a teenager, I saw the early James Bond movies there and Cushing himself in the upscale Hammer spectacle She (1965). I wonder if, decked out in his “bum freezer” uniform, escorting patrons to their seats in 1942, Cushing ever imagined himself giant size, up there on that screen.

Cushing returned to Montreal as a movie star 35 years later to shoot The Uncanny in which the character he plays meets his death on a frozen sidewalk. Appropriately, the Québécois title for the film was “Brrr”. The same year, 1977, Cushing signed one of his most famous roles as the galactically evil Grand Moff Tarkin — He even bosses Darth Vader around! — in Star Wars. Director George Lucas mostly shot the actor from the waist up, allowing him to swap his rigid leather jackboots for a pair of comfortable carpet slippers.

Cushing’s last hurrah was co-narrating — with his friend Christopher Lee — the comprehensive Hammer Films history Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror, written and directed by Ted Newsom. The documentary was broadcast on the BBC in two parts, on consecutive weekends, in August 1994. Cushing passed away that very week, between the two broadcasts, on August eleven.

The photograph from Man in the Iron Mask and biographical notes found in Peter Cushing's two autobiographies, collected together as An Autobiography and Past Forgetting, highly recommended, from Midnight Marquee Press.

Photo of the Loews theater from Montreal Movie Palaces: Great Theatres of the Golden Era, 1884-1938, by Dane Lanken (1993).

Peter Cushing Wiki page, and the BFI’s ScreenOnline page. The Peter Cushing Association site.

Holger Hass posts twelve wonderful watercolors by Peter Cushing on his Hammer and Beyond blog.