John Carradine
Active - 1930 - 1988 | Born - Feb 5, 1906 in New York, NY | Died - Nov 27, 1988 in Milan, Italy | Genres - Horror, Drama, Western, Adventure, Comedy | Height: 6' 0"
Though best known to modern filmgoers as a horror star, cadaverous John Carradine was, in his prime, one of the most versatile character actors on the silver screen. The son of a journalist father and physician mother, Carradine was given an expensive education in Philadelphia and New York. Upon graduating from the Graphic Arts School, he intended to make his living as a painter and sculptor, but in 1923 he was sidetracked into acting.
Working for a series of low-paying stock companies throughout the 1920s, he made ends meet as a quick-sketch portrait painter and scenic designer. He came to Hollywood in 1930, where his extensive talents and eccentric behavior almost immediately brought him to the attention of casting directors. He played a dizzying variety of distinctive bit parts -- a huntsman in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a crowd agitator in Les Miserables (1935) -- before he was signed to a 20th Century Fox contract in 1936. His first major role was the sadistic prison guard in John Ford's Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), which launched a long and fruitful association with Ford, culminating in such memorable screen characterizations as the gentleman gambler in Stagecoach (1939) and Preacher Casy ("I lost the callin'!") in The Grapes of Wrath (1940).
Usually typecast as a villain, Carradine occasionally surprised his followers with non-villainous roles like the philosophical cab driver in Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938) and Abraham Lincoln in Of Human Hearts (1938). Throughout his Hollywood years, Carradine's first love remained the theater; to fund his various stage projects (which included his own Shakespearean troupe), he had no qualms about accepting film work in the lowest of low-budget productions. Ironically, it was in one of these Poverty Row cheapies, PRC's Bluebeard (1944), that the actor delivered what many consider his finest performance. Though he occasionally appeared in an A-picture in the 1950s and 1960s (The Ten Commandments, Cheyenne Autumn), Carradine was pretty much consigned to cheapies during those decades, including such horror epics as The Black Sleep (1956), The Unearthly (1957), and the notorious Billy the Kid Meets Dracula (1966).
He also appeared in innumerable television programs, among them Twilight Zone, The Munsters, Thriller, and The Red Skelton Show, and from 1962 to 1964 enjoyed a long Broadway run as courtesan-procurer Lycus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Though painfully crippled by arthritis in his last years, Carradine never stopped working, showing up in films ranging from Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) to Peggy Sue Got Married (1984). Married four times, John Carradine was the father of actors David, Keith, Robert, and Bruce Carradine.
Available Films:
Active - 1930 - 1988 | Born - Feb 5, 1906 in New York, NY | Died - Nov 27, 1988 in Milan, Italy | Genres - Horror, Drama, Western, Adventure, Comedy | Height: 6' 0"
Though best known to modern filmgoers as a horror star, cadaverous John Carradine was, in his prime, one of the most versatile character actors on the silver screen. The son of a journalist father and physician mother, Carradine was given an expensive education in Philadelphia and New York. Upon graduating from the Graphic Arts School, he intended to make his living as a painter and sculptor, but in 1923 he was sidetracked into acting.
Working for a series of low-paying stock companies throughout the 1920s, he made ends meet as a quick-sketch portrait painter and scenic designer. He came to Hollywood in 1930, where his extensive talents and eccentric behavior almost immediately brought him to the attention of casting directors. He played a dizzying variety of distinctive bit parts -- a huntsman in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a crowd agitator in Les Miserables (1935) -- before he was signed to a 20th Century Fox contract in 1936. His first major role was the sadistic prison guard in John Ford's Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), which launched a long and fruitful association with Ford, culminating in such memorable screen characterizations as the gentleman gambler in Stagecoach (1939) and Preacher Casy ("I lost the callin'!") in The Grapes of Wrath (1940).
Usually typecast as a villain, Carradine occasionally surprised his followers with non-villainous roles like the philosophical cab driver in Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938) and Abraham Lincoln in Of Human Hearts (1938). Throughout his Hollywood years, Carradine's first love remained the theater; to fund his various stage projects (which included his own Shakespearean troupe), he had no qualms about accepting film work in the lowest of low-budget productions. Ironically, it was in one of these Poverty Row cheapies, PRC's Bluebeard (1944), that the actor delivered what many consider his finest performance. Though he occasionally appeared in an A-picture in the 1950s and 1960s (The Ten Commandments, Cheyenne Autumn), Carradine was pretty much consigned to cheapies during those decades, including such horror epics as The Black Sleep (1956), The Unearthly (1957), and the notorious Billy the Kid Meets Dracula (1966).
He also appeared in innumerable television programs, among them Twilight Zone, The Munsters, Thriller, and The Red Skelton Show, and from 1962 to 1964 enjoyed a long Broadway run as courtesan-procurer Lycus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Though painfully crippled by arthritis in his last years, Carradine never stopped working, showing up in films ranging from Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) to Peggy Sue Got Married (1984). Married four times, John Carradine was the father of actors David, Keith, Robert, and Bruce Carradine.
Available Films:
Trivia:
Claimed near the end of his life to have appeared in more movies than any other actor, surpassing the record set by Donald Crisp, the Oscar-winning actor and director who had started in silent movies and had appeared in numerous one- and two-reel films, many of them lost. The title for actor who appeared in most films likely is a contest between Carradine (more than 300 films) and Crisp (at least 170 known films). Of the contemporary generation, Christopher Lee, who has acted in more films than his peers (over 200), does not come close to matching Carradine's prolific output.
According to oldest son David Carradine in "Hollywood and Whine", "... we carted the coffin over to our house and opened it up. I looked down at him, and the undertaker had put a demonic, artificial grin on his face--like nothing I had ever seen him do in real life, except in a horror film. I reached out and, using the sculptural skills I had learned from him, I remodeled his face to be more naturally like him. Then I poured half a bottle of J&B scotch, his favorite, down his throat, and we had a wake".
"I've made some of the greatest films ever made - and a lot of crap, too."
[on Darryl F. Zanuck] "Nobody liked working for Zanuck, the little goddamn Napoleon, always walking around with his polo mallet. Nobody had any respect for him except as an executive. And he was a good editor at one time, but he fancied himself a writer, and he was not a good writer."
[on Cecil B. DeMille] "I was very fond of him. I never saw him direct an actor; his specialty was the camera. He simply hired the best actors he could get and let them do their job. He didn't interfere with them unless something was drastically wrong. DeMille's specialty was the camera, the pageantry."
[on John Ford] "Oh, Ford was a peculiar man. You had to know how to handle him. Actors were terrified of him because he liked to terrify them. He was a sadist."
[on Bela Lugosi] "Oh, he was a charming man. He always had a bucket of red wine on the set which he pulled out gracefully all day long. He never forgot his line... he never lost his affability. He was a very affable man."
Claimed near the end of his life to have appeared in more movies than any other actor, surpassing the record set by Donald Crisp, the Oscar-winning actor and director who had started in silent movies and had appeared in numerous one- and two-reel films, many of them lost. The title for actor who appeared in most films likely is a contest between Carradine (more than 300 films) and Crisp (at least 170 known films). Of the contemporary generation, Christopher Lee, who has acted in more films than his peers (over 200), does not come close to matching Carradine's prolific output.
According to oldest son David Carradine in "Hollywood and Whine", "... we carted the coffin over to our house and opened it up. I looked down at him, and the undertaker had put a demonic, artificial grin on his face--like nothing I had ever seen him do in real life, except in a horror film. I reached out and, using the sculptural skills I had learned from him, I remodeled his face to be more naturally like him. Then I poured half a bottle of J&B scotch, his favorite, down his throat, and we had a wake".
"I've made some of the greatest films ever made - and a lot of crap, too."
[on Darryl F. Zanuck] "Nobody liked working for Zanuck, the little goddamn Napoleon, always walking around with his polo mallet. Nobody had any respect for him except as an executive. And he was a good editor at one time, but he fancied himself a writer, and he was not a good writer."
[on Cecil B. DeMille] "I was very fond of him. I never saw him direct an actor; his specialty was the camera. He simply hired the best actors he could get and let them do their job. He didn't interfere with them unless something was drastically wrong. DeMille's specialty was the camera, the pageantry."
[on John Ford] "Oh, Ford was a peculiar man. You had to know how to handle him. Actors were terrified of him because he liked to terrify them. He was a sadist."
[on Bela Lugosi] "Oh, he was a charming man. He always had a bucket of red wine on the set which he pulled out gracefully all day long. He never forgot his line... he never lost his affability. He was a very affable man."
