Portal:Horror/Selected biography archive/October 2006

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Boris Karloff (November 23, 1887 in East Dulwich, London, England – February 2, 1969), born William Henry "Bill" Pratt, was an English actor best known for his roles in horror films. After gaining fame, he was sometimes billed as "Karloff" and sometimes as "Karloff the Uncanny".

Orphaned in his youth, he was raised by his elder brothers and sister and attended Enfield Grammar School before moving to Uppingham School and Merchant Taylors' School, and eventually the University of London. Karloff's first goal in life was to join the foreign service — his brother, Sir John Henry Pratt, became a distinguished British diplomat — but he instead fell into acting. In 1909, Pratt travelled to Canada, changing his name to something more in keeping with his new vocation while on his way to an acting job with the Jeanne Russell Theater Co. in Kamloops, British Columbia. He spent years testing the waters in North America while living in smaller towns like Kamloops and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In 1912, while appearing in a play in Regina, Saskatchewan, Karloff volunteered to be a rescue worker following a devastating tornado where he organized a benefit concert for the victims of the tornado. He also lived in Minot, North Dakota for a year, performing in an opera house above a hardware store. For health reasons, he did not fight in World War I.

Some time between emigrating to Canada in 1909 and moving to California in 1910-11, William Pratt changed his professional name to "Boris Karloff." Pratt/Karloff always claimed he chose the name "Boris" because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that "Karloff" was a "family name." However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, "Karloff" or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. Whether or not his brothers (all dignified members of the British foreign service) actually considered young William the "black sheep of the family" for having become an actor, Karloff himself apparently worried they did feel that way. He did not reunite with his family again until 1933, when he went back to England to make The Ghoul, extremely worried that his siblings would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his elder brothers jostled for position around their "baby" brother and happily posed for publicity photographs with him.

Once Karloff arrived in Hollywood, California, he made dozens of silent films, but work was sporadic, and he often had to take up manual labor to pay the bills, like digging ditches and driving a cement truck (or "lorrie," as he called it.) His role as the Monster in Frankenstein (1931) made him a star. A year later, he played another iconic character, Imhotep, in The Mummy.

Karloff made a string of Universal horror movies in the 1930s, including several with Bela Lugosi, whose rejection of the lead role in Frankenstein made Karloff's subsequent career possible. Karloff played Frankenstein's monster three times; the other films being The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which also featured Lugosi as the demented Ygor. (continued)