Jack Pierce - The Man Behind the Monsters DVD

A look behind the June 17, 2000 event that paid tribute to the master
monster-maker

As a writer and producer of special Hollywood projects, I always wanted to
do something that paid homage the classic monsters. But what to do? Film
clips of the monsters were wrapped up tightly by their home studio,
Universal, and the various estates, specifically those of Karloff, Lugosi,
and Chaney, were also spoken for. However, in 1998, there had never been a
fully-realized project about Jack Pierce.


To the rare uninitiated monster fan, Pierce was the makeup genius who
started at Universal in the 1910s, doing everything from stunt work to
assistant directing before becoming a full-time makeup artist in the 1920s.
After successes such as "The Monkey Talks," Pierce became Universal's head
of makeup in 1928. He scored a major success turning Conrad Veidt into "The
Man Who Laughs" that year, but the 1930s would bring him into legendary
status.


After working on "Dracula," in succession, Pierce created the title
characters for "Frankenstein," "The Mummy," "The Werewolf of London," "The
Bride of Frankenstein," "The Wolf Man," and "Phantom of the Opera,"
in addition to working on all of the sequels to those films through "House
of Dracula" in 1945. The studio then dismissed him after giving them 30
years and never signing a contract.


To undertake a Pierce project that would properly reflect this great body of
work, I chose to at first present most of these films onstage through a
combination of partial set pieces and accurate character re-creations. To do
so, much like the efforts in realizing my earlier tributes to "Planet of the
Apes" and "The Wizard of Oz," I had to recruit the best possible people in
Hollywood to work on the creative aspects of the show.


In this case, my first collaborators, and among the very few original
participants to make it all the way through production, were makeup
supervisor Robert Burman and his wife, costume designer Jennifer McManus.
They saw the project as an opportunity to delve into an atypical but
fulfilling project. "What I was glad about for this project was the ability
to make classic historical characters and really do them right," said
Burman. "It was really fun to be able to update everything so that it was
today's standards with yesterday's style."


We set out in the spring of 1999 casting actors who would appropriately
resemble Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr., Claude Rains, and Elsa
Lanchester. Additionally, we also sought to represent the "straight" or
non-monster actors who were in the great film classics. As a result, we
endeavored to cast a Dwight Frye, Colin Clive, Ernest Thesiger, Maria
Ouspenskaya, and the wonderful Una O'Connor. Plus, we would need a Jack
Pierce, no easy casting task. The idea of including more than just monster
characters intrigued the expanding crew, many of whom we would need months
in advanced of the planned two-hour stage show. "Having the chance to
recreate not just the monsters, but the characters themselves, was really a
great concept," said Burman. "That really attracted me to this project."


In the early incarnations of the conceived show, we wanted both a young
Pierce, who would be seen interacting with the various actors in backstage
scenes, and an older Pierce, established as a narrator looking back upon key
moments in his life. In fact, early drafts of the script featured studio
executives Carl Laemmle and Carl Jr., director James Whale, and actor Glenn
Strange. However, due to budget constraints, those elements would ultimately
be cut as live actor versions in favor of re-creating them as voice-overs
and onscreen photo and video playbacks.


In cutting the amount of live performers, we would reduce the original
100+-costume list to fewer than 25 and cut a 108-page script to 45 pages.
Nevertheless, we also had to lose some great scenes from the annals of the
"Frankenstein" films: Pierce and Lugosi testing an original Monster makeup;
the legendary meeting of Boris Karloff and James Whale at the Universal
commissary; the famed creation of Pierce's sixth Frankenstein Monster by
surprising friend Glenn Strange (Pierce had covered his makeup mirror and
unbeknownst to Strange, put him into a new version of the Monster makeup
while the actor lay in Pierce's makeup chair). In the end, we chose to
re-create vignettes from "The Man Who Laughs," the first three "Frankenstein" films, "The Mummy," "The Invisible Man," and "The Wolf Man."
Production designer John Ivanoff constructed partial sets for those films
and Jack Pierce's makeup lab.


After scheduling conflicts pushed the show from October of 1999 to June of
2000, we were charging forward in the spring of the new millennium. Of
course, by the time the little money that we had came through, about four
months of preparation time existed. Noted McManus: "Jack Pierce and the
people all part of the team in making those great monster movies certainly
took more time than we did in this tribute. But we did put our hearts into
it, and I think that's the most important part."


Pieces of costume materials were purchased, borrowed or rented; the vast
majority had to be fabricated by McManus working alone by hand. The first
item to be assembled was the Monster costume, actually done a year earlier
for a makeup test that was assembled to see if the project could physically
be pulled off. "During the construction of the Monster costume, there was
much padding and densing up in order to create the same sort of qualities
that we saw in the movies for the actor playing the Monster, Matt Thompson,"
said McManus. "I pulled off the rest of the costumes in about a month except
for the Bride of Frankenstein whose gown was built by Simone Williams. She
literally sewed the actress, Sheila Marie Shostac into her costume, just
like they did in the old days."


McManus also made different lab coats for show, to be worn by actors playing
Clive and Thesiger. "They went through so many changes in the films, and so
I carefully studied the pictures in the film archives that I could get my
hands on," she explained. "I discerned the silhouette and created various
different coats."


For Una O'Connor, who was represented by Denise Moses in vignettes for "The
Invisible Man" and "Bride of Frankenstein," McManus indulged in her period
costume skills. "In this costume in particular, we did a 'two in one' to
carry off each film," she noted. "We had to have her do the change extremely
fast. The costume had to be multi-versatile, and so we did a black shell
underneath and did various different aprons."


Another key period costume was for actor Kevin Isola playing Basil Rathbone
in "Son of Frankenstein". "That was a two-toned coat that all of my tailor
friends told me was not done until the 1960s!" she said. "And I said,
'Excuse me? It was been done in the Thirties and Forties.'"


While costumes were going together, Rob Burman and his team were preparing
16 makeups that would encompass the tribute - 12 of them prosthetically
based. Actors were lifecasted, makeups were sculpted, molds were made and
makeup appliances were fabricated in prosthetic materials, most usually foam
latex.


Simultaneously, hair and wig stylist Kim Ferry conceived the 16 separate
hairstyles that would be used in the show. She worked methodically to
determine which of the characters would be using wigs or partial wigs -
typically monster or prosthetic characters - and which would get their own
hair styled for period. The day of the show, she worked intermittently
throughout the makeup and costuming process to prep and style all the
performers' hair.


One of the ideas going into the show was to create the makeups and costumes
in black-and-white using various shades of grey so that the audience would
see the classic characters on stage as if they were watching them in an old
black-and-white movie. "As far as the black-and-white, I think some of the
straight makeups were the hardest things to make look right," reflected
Burman. "In person, to the eye, you saw a little bit of the flesh tone
coming through, but for the most part, when they got up on stage, everything
just really looked black and white. It was great that Dr. Sumner up at
Morton Greenspoon's optical office was able to put the black-and-white
lenses together for us. I think lenses really helped sell the makeups as
being black and white."


Burman's brother, Barney, was charged with sculpting Jack Pierce as he
existed at 79-years-old, the time of his death in 1968. "Doing Jack's makeup
was definitely interesting because actor Perry Shields was completely
different than what the final character was going to end up being. But my
brother and makeup artist Andy Schoneberg really pulled it off well. In the
end, Perry was wearing nine separate prosthetic pieces plus his bald cap and
hairpiece, so it was really elaborate amounts of makeup that had to be done.
Andy's application of my brother's sculpture was just beautiful, stunning."
Pierce and The Man Who Laughs were the lone characters done in color since
they appeared in "real life" scenes and not as part of movie vignettes.


For Shields, being cast as Pierce was a stroke of destiny. "I happen to be a
huge Universal Monsters fan and have been a fan of Pierce's work since about
the age of 10," he said. "I was actually looking forward to sitting in the
makeup chair. Forry Ackerman and Bob Burns, two men I have known about since
I first picked up Famous Monsters hung around the makeup room all day. To
look over and see these men while I was being made up is an experience that
can never be equaled in my life. That alone prepared me mentally for the
show that night. Playing Pierce was ultimately a dream come true."


For the other characters, one of the first craftspeople on board was
award-winning makeup artist Kevin Haney. "His doing Frankenstein was a
blessing," said Burman. "He's such a talented man that it was really good to
be able to just let him go and take care of the character all on his own.
The day of the show, I think Kevin worked on him the longest of any of the
people in getting ready. But Kevin being the perfectionist that he is, I'm
sure that that was not too much for him."


For Frankenstein's Bride, Burman created the lab work for the character,
applied the day of the event by Ve Neill after a coming-and-going of Bride
makeup artists. "It was really nice of Ve to be able to step in last minute
to be able to pull this off," said Burman. "I realized we had to change her
whole hairline and nose and chin, so I fashioned a three-piece makeup. Her
nose tip and chin were made out of foamed gelatin per Ve's request. The
forehead was all foam because it was such a large piece and we had to glue
the hairpiece to it. John Norin generously donated the wig and we had Ron
Pipes make a new front for it."


To transform Cale Thomas, in his early 20s at the time, into Ernest Thesiger
as he appeared as Dr. Praetorius in "Bride of Frankenstein" was a major task
for Burman and his team. "I think that everybody really came to bat well
with that character," Burman recalled. "We must have re-sculpted his face
half a dozen times to make it work right. I really wanted to do the
Praetorius makeup myself, but I'm really glad that Darren Jinks and Ned
Neidhardt did it. They did a really nice job. I think he's one of the most
changed from his original look of the performer to the made-up character."


One of the most formidable challenges was the realization of Im-Ho-Tep for
"The Mummy" sequence, staged when he first comes back to life. The primary
lab work was created by sculptor Brent Armstrong as a foam latex mask and a
full head-to-toe costume. Armstrong fabricated the costume by gluing
bandages onto a spandex undersuit, followed by adhering a mixture of sprayed
latex and rubber cement to the bandages. He used a 25-gallon drum of tough
industrial rubber cement shot through an air gun to seal the suit in. The
cement stiffened the suit, holding the bandages together so that they wouldn
't tear. Two hand appliances - palms and backs of hands - were utilized, and
the whole thing was painted with rubber cement paints. "On the day of, I was
assisted by Rick Stratton," said Armstrong. "After the actor, Ken DeShan,
was in the suit, the suit was coated with a mix of gaf-quad, alcohol and
fuller's earth. When it dried and the alcohol had evaporated, it gave a dry
crusted dust appearance to the suit. When he'd move, it would crack and dust
bits would fall off. The final touch was black scleral contact lenses."


A variety of other classic characters were achieved with a combination of
lab work expertise and on-set makeup artistry. James Roland, a veteran of TV's "Star Trek" shows, did Una O'Connor's makeup. "That was a very hard
character, because her face changed in every single scene that we saw her
in, so we never really got a good idea of what Una O'Connor looked like on
her own," stated Burman. "She was a three-piece makeup: forehead, chin, and
then her nose and cheeks were all one big piece with the upper lip." Another
prominent makeup challenge was Colin Clive, even though actor James Sloane
was chosen because he plays Clive in live shows at Universal Studios,
Hollywood. "Because his features are so prominent, it was really tough on
the small face of the actor," Burman described. "Bruce Fuller had such a fun
time doing that makeup. Also, Camille Calvet did a beautiful job making
Kevin Isola into Basil Rathbone. Sheilu Burman, my sister-in-law, played
Maleva, Maria Ouspenskaya's character from "The Wolf Man," I did her
eight-piece makeup. She was a completely different woman when she got into
makeup!"


One of the final major makeup challenges was executed by Todd Tucker, who
created a newly envisioned recreation of Pierce's last original classic
character - The Wolf Man from 1941, played by Douglas Meyers. Sculpting in
clay with help from his assistant, Chris Gallaher, Tucker created an
overhead mask appliance, hands and feet, rounded off with lenses by Dr.
Sumner. "It was natural for me to do, since I've created many of my own wolf
characters over the years," said Tucker. Marvin Westmore did Claude Rains
and Evelyn Ankers as straight makeups from the "Wolf Man" vignette which
concluded the character material in the show.


Burman reflected on the project, which finally built up to the June 17
performance and was staged only one time. "I barely remember any of it,"
Burman stated. "Everything went so fast, and so much had to be done. I mean,
we did get sixteen people done in a matter of some six or eight hours. With
the amount of work everybody put into these characters, it was a really
amazing day."


Note: The Jack Pierce Tribute DVD will only be found at Monsters In Motion
and we will be the first in the industry to announce this unique title