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Jan 4, 2012 · When Bela Lugosi turned down the role of the Monster in FRANKENSTEIN, Boris Karloff accepted the part and became an icon of Horror overnight. We are speaking today with Sara Karloff, daughter of the film, radio, and TV star.
- Nickolas Cook
Sara Karloff was born on 23 November 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for My Lovely Monster (1991), Deader Country (2009) and Horror Kung-Fu Theatre (1990). She was previously married to William J. "Sparky" Sparkman and Richard Cotten.
- Additional Crew, Actress
- November 23, 1938
Oct 31, 2016 · Born William Henry Pratt in England, Boris Karloff was the youngest of nine children. When asked how he got his stage name, his daughter said, “Karloff came from his mother’s family and Boris came out of thin air.”. He studied for the British Council Service, but did not pursue that path.
- Boris Karloff Wasn’T His Legal name.
- Boris Karloff Had Small Parts in More Than 70 Films Before Frankenstein.
- Boris Karloff Drove A Cement Truck to Pay The Bills in Between Acting Gigs.
- Boris Karloff Spent Hours Getting in and Out of Monster Makeup.
- Boris Karloff Was in The Original Scarface.
- Boris Karloff Was A Founding Member of The screen Actors Guild.
- Boris Karloff Poked Fun at His Own Career in The Hit Play Arsenic & Old Lace.
- Val Lewton’s Horror Movies Were A Breath of Fresh Air For Boris Karloff.
- Boris Karloff Was An Avid Cricket Player.
A native of South London, he was born on November 23, 1887, as William Henry Pratt. According to his daughter, Sara, he adopted the stage name Boris Karloff in the late 1910s “because he felt the name Pratt would not be particularly fortunate on a marquee, perhaps due to the term pratfalls.” (The Frankenstein performer never legally changed his nam...
Karloff’s acting career began on the stage and included a 10-year stint in theaters across Canada. When he finally got into the movie industry in 1919, he found himself cast in dozens of small roles in both silent pictures and talkies, with many of the parts remaining uncredited. The jobs themselves were far from glamorous—Karloff was oftentimes re...
Despite appearing in movies on a fairly regular basis, Karloff was still struggling financially throughout the '20s. This forced him to find odd jobs in between roles, including driving a truck for a cement company in Los Angeles. So, on one Sunday, Karloff's friend taught him to drive and the next day he applied for a driving job, which he got. Th...
For the original Frankenstein, it took artist Jack Pierce three hours every morning to apply Karloff’s makeup and prosthetics—and removing them at the end of the day was another long, grueling process. Things got even worse for Karloff when he was cast as the ancient villain Imhotep in 1932's The Mummy. Getting the actor camera-ready with multiple ...
Today’s audiences are probably more familiar with the 1983 Al Pacino remakeof this gangster classic. In the original 1932 version, Karloff portrayed mobster Tom Gaffney. (Spoiler alert: He gets murdered at a bowling alley.)
Not only was Karloff subjected to all those long hours in Jack Pierce’s makeup chair, but he also seriously injured his back while making Frankenstein. To help fight for equity and safer working conditions, Karloff joined the nascent Screen Actors Guild (SAG), which was established in 1933. He was only the ninth actorto ever receive a membership ca...
Penned by Joseph Kesselring, the whimsical dark comedy Arsenic & Old Lace opened on Broadway in January 1941. The part of Jonathan Brewster, a murderer who undergoes plastic surgery to conceal his identity, was written for Karloff. Karloff was reluctant to do the play at first, due to his lack of Broadway experience, but he came around when produce...
The House of Frankenstein(1944) was arguably the first “monster mash.” Another Universal project, the movie brought Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s monster together in the same film. Emceeing the whole show is Dr. Gustav Niemann, a mad scientist played by Karloff. While he may have handed the character of the monster off to actor Glenn St...
“I was a frightful duffer, but I tried very hard,” Karloff said of his usual on-field performance. He was a longtime member of the Hollywood Cricket Club, an amateur group that also included the likes of Laurence Olivier, Errol Flynn, Elizabeth Taylor, and scriptwriter P.G. Wodehouse.
Karloff's daughter, Sara, publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, "Karloff" or otherwise. It has been speculated by film historians that he took the stage name from a mad scientist character named "Boris Karlov" in the novel The Drums of Jeopardy by Harold MacGrath.
ProgramEpisodeDateCalifornia MelodiesKarloff appeared with the Hallelujah ...Jan. 3, 1932Hollywood on the Air (Hollywood on ...Karloff appeared with Katharine HepburnNov. 25, 1932Hollywood on the Air (Hollywood on ...Karloff appeared with Victor McLaglenOct. 7, 1933California MelodiesKarloff appeared as a guestOct. 24, 1933Feb 5, 2023 · Feeling that "William Pratt" was too bland a moniker, the young actor took the surname "Karloff" allegedly from a maternal relative of Russian descent. However, Karloff's daughter, Sara, asserts she can find no such relatives .
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Why does Sara Pratt have a surname 'Karloff'?
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Why did Boris Karloff change his name?
Jun 17, 2005 · Hi Oren, Sara Karloff (aka Sara Pratt, really) said that her father made up the last name “Karloff”. In those early days, there was a fascination with Russia, many films have Russian czars and themes and many actors changed their names and adopted a Russian name.
