A page from a late 17th century handwritten and illustrated version of Charles Perrault's Contes de ma mère l'Oye, depicting Puss in Boots

The familiar figure of Mother Goose is an imaginary author of a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes^[1] which are often published as Mother Goose Rhymes. As a character, she appears in one "nursery rhyme".^[2] A Christmas pantomime called Mother Goose is often performed in the United Kingdom. The so-called "Mother Goose" rhymes and stories have formed the basis for many classic British pantomimes. Mother Goose is generally depicted in literature and book illustration as an elderly country woman in a tall hat and shawl, a costume identical to the peasant costume worn in Wales in the early 20th century, but is sometimes depicted as a goose (usually wearing a bonnet).

Identity[link]

Mother Goose is the name given to an archetypal country woman. English readers were familiar with Mother Hubbard, already a stock figure when Edmund Spenser published his satire "Mother Hubbard's tale", 1590; with the superstitious advice on getting a husband or a wife of "Mother Bunch", who was credited with the fairy stories of Madame d'Aulnoy when they first appeared in English.^[3] Mother Goose is credited with the Mother Goose stories and rhymes; yet no specific writer has ever been identified with such a name. An early mention appears in an aside in a versified chronicle of weekly happenings that appeared regularly for several years, Jean Loret's La Muse Historique, collected in 1650.^[4] His remark, ...comme un conte de la Mère Oye ("...like a Mother Goose story") shows that the term was already familiar.

Other references to "mère l'oye" or "mère oye" occur in earlier French writings. A compilation of satires published in 1626 mentions "un conte d'Urgande et de ma mère l'Oye," (Les satyres de Saint-Regnier)^[5] Guy de la Brosse, in his 1628 work "De la nature, vertu et utilite de plantes",^[6] mentions "contes de la mère oye." And in Pieces Curieuses en suite de celles du Sieur de St. Germain,^[7] a piece written in 1638 reads "... tout ce que je fais imprimer dans mes Gazettes passe desormais pour des contes de ma mère l'oye, et des fables du moisne Bourry pour amuser le peuple... ." A side note reads: "Dont l'on fait peur aux petits enfans a Paris."

Mary Goose's gravestone in Granary Burying Ground is shown to tourists in Boston, Massachusetts

In spite of evidence to the contrary,^[8] there are doubtful reports, familiar to tourists to Boston, Massachusetts that the original Mother Goose was a Bostonian wife of an Isaac Goose, either named Elizabeth Foster Goose (1665–1758) or Mary Goose (d. 1690, age 42) who is interred at the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street.^[9] According to Eleanor Early, a Boston travel and history writer of the 1930s and '40s, the original Mother Goose was a real person who lived in Boston in the 1660s.^[10] She was reportedly the second wife of Isaac Goose (alternatively named Vergoose or Vertigoose), who brought to the marriage six children of her own to add to Isaac's ten.^[11] After Isaac died, Elizabeth went to live with her eldest daughter, who had married Thomas Fleet, a publisher who lived on Pudding Lane (now Devonshire Street). According to Early, "Mother Goose" used to sing songs and ditties to her grandchildren all day, and other children swarmed to hear them. Finally, her son-in-law gathered her jingles together and printed them.^[12]

In The Real Personages of Mother Goose (1930), Katherine Elwes Thomas submits that the image and name "Mother Goose", or "Mère l'Oye", may be based upon ancient legends of the wife of King Robert II of France, Berthe la fileuse ("Bertha the Spinner") or Berthe pied d'oie ("Goose-Foot Bertha" ), called in the Midi the reine Pedauque who, according to Thomas, is often referred in French legends as spinning incredible tales that enraptured children. The authority on the Mother Goose tradition, Iona Opie, does not give any credence to either the Elwes Thomas or the Boston suppositions.

Perrault's "Tales of my Mother Goose"[link]

The initiator of the literary fairy tale genre, Charles Perrault, published in 1695 under the name of his son a collection of fairy tales Histoires ou contes du temps passés, avec des moralités, which grew better known under its subtitle, "Contes de ma mère l'Oye" or "Tales of my Mother Goose". Perrault's publication marks the first authenticated starting-point for Mother Goose stories.

In 1729 there appeared an English translation of Perrault's collection, Robert Samber's Histories or Tales of Past Times, Told by Mother Goose (London, 1729),^[13] which introduced "Sleeping Beauty", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Puss in Boots", "Cinderella" and other Perrault tales to English-speaking audiences. These were fairy tales.

The first public appearance of the Mother Goose stories in the New World was in Worcester, Massachusetts, where printer Isaiah Thomas reprinted Samber's volume under the same title, in 1786.^[14]

Mother Goose as nursery rhymes[link]

John Newbery published a compilation of English rhymes, Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradl 1791 edition of Mother Goose's Melody^[15] which switched the focus from fairy tales to nursery rhymes, and in English this was until recently the primary connotation for Mother Goose.

A book of poems for children entitled Mother Goose's Melody was published in England in 1781, and the name "Mother Goose" has been associated with children's poetry ever since.^[16]

In 1837, John Bellenden Ker Gawler published a book (with a 2nd-volume sequel in 1840) deriving the origin of the Mother Goose rhymes from Flemish ('Low Dutch') puns.^[17]

In music, Maurice Ravel wrote Ma mère l'oye, a suite for the piano, which he then orchestrated for a ballet. There is also a song called "Mother Goose" by progressive rock band Jethro Tull from their 1971 Aqualung album. The song seems to be unrelated to the figure of Mother Goose since she is only the first of many surreal images that the narrator encounters and describes through the lyrics.

"Old Mother Goose"[link]

Blanche Fisher Wright's cover artwork for the Rand McNally 1916 book The Real Mother Goose

Dan Leno as Mother Goose

The King of Hearts, from "The Queen of Hearts" poem for an edition of Mother Goose published 1901. Illustration by William Wallace Denslow.

In addition to being the purported authoress of nursery rhymes, Mother Goose is herself the title character of one such rhyme:

Old Mother Goose,

When she wanted to wander,

Would ride through the air

On a very fine gander.

Jack's mother came in,

And caught the goose soon,

And mounting its back,

Flew up to the moon.^[18]

Pantomime[link]

The transition from a shadowy generic figure to one with such concrete actions was effected at a pantomime Harlequin and Mother Goose: or, The Golden Egg in 1806-07, Ryoji Tsurumi has shown;^[19] The pantomime was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 29 December, and many times repeated in the new year. Harlequin and Mother Goose: or, The Golden Egg, starring the famous clown Joseph Grimaldi, was written by Thomas Dibdin, who invented the actions suitable for a Mother Goose brought to the stage, and recreated her as a witch-figure, Tsurumi notes: in the first scene the stage directions show her raising a storm and, for the very first time, flying a gander. The magical Mother Goose transformed the old miser into Pantaloon of the commedia dell'arte and the British pantomime tradition, and the young lovers Colin and Colinette, into Columbine and "Clown". Played en travesti by Samuel Simmons^[20]— a pantomime tradition that survives today— she also raises a ghost in a macabre churchyard scene.

Other examples[link]

• Books by L. Frank Baum and illustrator W.W. Denslow in the late 1890s featured Mother Goose and Father Goose.
• The Complete Mother Goose : nursery rhymes old and new, fully annotated edition by Daryl Leyland, with chapter decorations and illustrations by Max Van Doren, Wellman & Chaney publisher, 1938.
• Tales of Brother Goose by Brett Nicholas Moore, a book of short stories published in 2006, satirizes Mother Goose stories with modern dialogue and cynical humor.

List of Adaptations of Mother Goose[link]

The classic Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes revamped with a distinct motif by modern authors.

• Mother Goose in Prose by L. Frank Baum
• "Mother Goose and her Fabulous Puppet Friends" by Diane Ligon
• The Space Child's Mother Goose by Frederick Winsor: Mother Goose for scientific children.
• eNursery Rhymes by Mother Mouse: Mother Goose in the computer nursery.
• Nursery Rhymes Old and New: Mother Goose meets Mother Mouse face to face.
• Mother Goose Tells the Truth About Middle Age by Sydney Altman: Mother Goose for baby boomers.
• New Adventures Of Mother Goose by Bruce Lansky: Mother Goose with the violence abridged.
• Christian Mother Goose by Marjorie Ainsborough Decker: Mother Goose gets religion.
• Mother Goose Rhymes, 1938 WPA mural by Elba Lightfoot at Harlem Hospital, New York, NY
• The Inner City Mother Goose by Eve Merriam: Urban Mother Goose.
• Black Mother Goose Book by Elizabeth Murphy Oliver: Ethnic Mother Goose.
• Mother Goosed - Brighton Gay Panto, by the Pure Corn Company 2010.
• Monster Goose by Judy Sierra illustrated by Jack E. Davis. Harcourt, 2001.

Regionally flavored Mother Geese.

• The Alaska Mother Goose: North Country Nursery Rhymes by Shelley Gill
• An Appalachian Mother Goose by James Still
• Tutu Nene: The Hawaiian Mother Goose Rhymes by Debra Ryll
• Texas Mother Goose by David Davis
• Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes Texas Style by Vicki Nichols
• Deep in the Desert by Rhonda Lucas Donald, illustrated by Sherry Neidigh

See also[link]

Children's literature portal

• List of children's songs
• List of children's stories
• Luis van Rooten, Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames (1967).
• Mother Goose and Grimm, a comic strip

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• 1904 Facsimile of earliest American compilation, John Newberry's Mother Goose's Melody, 1791 edition
• "Who was Mother goose?"
• The Real Mother Goose
• At Project Gutenberg:
  • The Tales of Mother Goose by Charles Perrault translated by Charles Welsh
  • The Real Mother Goose illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright
  • The Only True Mother Goose Melodies (Anonymous)
  • Mother Goose in Prose by L. Frank Baum
• Mother Goose Clip Art Public domain illustrations of Mother Goose rhymes
• Collection of Mother Goose verses
• Verses with artwork and audio recordings
• Play and education with Mother Goose nursery rhymes

A black sheep stands out from the flock

The Black Sheep, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose by William Wallace Denslow.

A black sheep (Hebridean)

In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family. The term has typically been given negative implications, implying waywardness.^[1] It derived from the atypical and unwanted presence of other black individuals in flocks of white sheep.

In psychology, the black sheep effect refers to the tendency of group members to judge likeable ingroup members more positively and deviant ingroup member more negatively than comparable outgroup members.^[2]

Idiomatic usage[link]

The term originated from the occasional black sheep which are born into a flock of white sheep due to a genetic process of recessive traits. Black wool was considered commercially undesirable because it could not be dyed.^[1] In 18th and 19th century England, the black color of the sheep was seen as the mark of the devil.^[3] In modern usage, the expression has lost some of its negative connotations, though the term is usually given to the member of a group who has certain characteristics or lack thereof deemed undesirable by that group.^[4]

The idiom is also found in other languages, e.g., French, Serbian, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Portuguese, Bosnian, Greek, Turkish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Romanian and Polish. The same concept is illustrated in some other languages by the phrase "white crow": for example belaya vorona (белая ворона) in Russian and kalag-e sefid (کلاغ سفید) in Persian. A variant form of black sheep, "the red sheep of the family", was used by Jessica Mitford to describe herself, a communist in a family of aristocratic fascists.^[5]

Biological origin[link]

In sheep, a white fleece is not albinism but a dominant gene that actively switches color production off, thus obscuring any other color that may be present.^{[citation needed]} As a result, a black fleece in most sheep is recessive, so if a white ram and a white ewe are each heterozygous for black, in about 25% of cases they will produce a black lamb. In fact in most white sheep breeds only a few white sheep are heterozygous for black, so black lambs are usually much rarer than this. Some breeds of sheep (such as the Hebridean, Ouessant, Black Welsh Mountain and Karakul) are normally black.

Black sheep effect (Psychology)[link]

Overview[link]

In 1988, Marques, Yzerbyt and Leyens^[2] conducted an experiment where Belgian students rated the following groups according to trait-descriptors (e.g., sociable, polite, violent, cold): unlikeable Belgian students, unlikeable North African students, likeable Belgian students, and likeable North African students. The results provided support that the favourability is the highest for likeable ingroup members and the lowest for unlikeable ingroup members, whereas the favourability of unlikeable and likeable outgroup members is between the both former ones. These extreme judgements of likeable and unlikeable (i.e., deviant) ingroup members, relatively to comparable outgroup members is called “black sheep effect”. This effect has been shown in various intergroup contexts and under a variety of conditions, and in many experiments manipulating likeability and norm deviance (e.g., Branscombe, Wann, Noel, & Coleman, 1993;^[6] Coull, Yzerbyt, Castano, Paladino, & Leemans, 2001;^[7] Khan & Lambert, 1998;^[8] Pinto, Marques, Levine, & Abrams, 2010).^[9]

Explanations[link]

A prominent explanation of the black sheep effect derives from the social identity approach (see social identity theory, Tajfel & Turner, 1979;^[10] and self-categorization theory, Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987).^[11] Group members are motivated to sustain a positive and distinctice social identity and, as a consequence, group members emphasize likeable members and evaluate them more positve than outgroup members, bolstering the positive image of their ingroup (see ingroup bias). Furthermore, the positive social identity may be threatened by group members who deviate from a relevant group norm. To protect the positive group image, ingroup members derogate ingroup deviants more harshly than deviants of an outgroup (Marques, Abrams, Páez, & Hogg, 2001).^[12] In addition, Eidelman and Biernat (2003)^[13] have shown that personal identities are also threatened through deviant ingroup members. They argue that devaluation of deviant members is an individual response of interpersonal differentiation. Khan and Lambert (1998)^[8] suggest that cognitive processes like assimilation and contrast, which may underline the effect, should be examined.

Limitations[link]

Even though there is widely support for the black sheep effect, the opposite pattern has been found, for example, that White participants judge unqualified Black targets more negative than comparable White targets (e.g., Feldman, 1972;^[14] Linville & Jones, 1980).^[15] Consequentely, there are several factors which influence the black sheep effect. For instance, the higher the identification with the ingroup, and the higher the entitativity of the ingroup, the more the black sheep effect emerges (e.g., Castano, Paladino, Coull, & Yzerbyt, 2002;^[16] Lewis & Sherman, 2010).^[17] Even situational factors explaining the deviance have an influence whether the black sheep effect occurs (De Cremer & Vanbeselaere, 1999).^[18]

See also[link]

Look up black sheep in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Black swan theory
• Glossary of sheep husbandry: see entry for "black wool".
• Scapegoat
• The Ugly Duckling

References[link]

External links[link]

• Exploration of the etymology of the phrase "black sheep of the family"
• "The black sheep effect: Judgmental extremity towards ingroup members in inter-and intra-group situations". European Journal of Social Psychology (Science Direct) 18 (3): 287–292. DOI:10.1002/ejsp.2420180308. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00221031. Retrieved 2008-01-04. 

Cyril Ritchard (1 December 1897 – 18 December 1977) was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is probably best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of Peter Pan.

Life and career[link]

He was born Cyril Trimnell-Ritchard in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia, to Sydney-born parents, Herbert Trimnell-Ritchard, a Protestant grocer, and his wife Marguerite, a devout Roman Catholic who ensured her son was raised as a Roman Catholic. Educated by the Jesuits at St Aloysius' College, Cyril was a life-long devout Catholic who attended Sunday Mass wherever he happened to be.

Early in his career, Ritchard played in numerous musical comedies, including Yes, Uncle! and Going Up, both in 1918 with actress Madge Elliott (who later became his wife).

He achieved star status in 1954 as Captain Hook in the Broadway production of Peter Pan co-starring Mary Martin, with whom he shared the same birthday (1 December). For his work in the show, Ritchard received a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Musical.^[1] Both Ritchard and Martin reprised their roles in the NBC television productions of the musical, beginning with a live color telecast in 1955. In 1959 he won second Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for "The Pleasure of His Company"

He appeared onstage in Sugar (1972), and The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd (1965), with Anthony Newley.^[2] He was also a director, directing on Broadway The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) (in which he also appeared), Roar Like a Dove (1964)^[3][4]and The Irregular Verb to Love (1963), in which he also appeared.^[5]

His film appearances include a villainous role in Alfred Hitchcock's early talkie Blackmail (1929) and much later in the Tommy Steele vehicle Half a Sixpence (1967).

Ritchard's wedding photo, 1935.

Ritchard also appeared regularly on a variety of television programs in the late 1950s and 1960s. For example, he did a stint as one the What's My Line? mystery guests on the 22 December 1957, episode of the popular Sunday night CBS-TV program.^[6] Later Ritchard served as a guest panelist on that quiz show, where he was, perhaps comically, referred to as 'Sir Cyril'. However, Ritchard was never knighted.

A memorable television out-take features Ritchard saying 'Goodnight' to an audience, before spinning a ball on a roulette wheel. Ritchard watches as the ball rattles around the wheel, seemingly interminably, before it finally bounces off the wheel, hits the spindle and flies off-screen.^[7]

Shortly before he died, Ritchard performed as the voice of Elrond in the Rankin/Bass television production of The Hobbit.^[8] Ritchard lived at the famed Dakota apartment house in New York City. He suffered a heart attack on 25 November 1977, aged 79, while appearing as the narrator in the Chicago touring company of Side by Side by Sondheim. He died a month later in Chicago, aged 80, and was buried at Saint Mary's Cemetery in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where he had long resided in his rural home. His funeral Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He survived his wife, Madge, who died in 1955, and a baby boy who died in infancy in 1939.

Label[link]

• Wonderland Records

Selected filmography[link]

• Just for a Song (1930)
• Danny Boy (1934)
• Dangerous Medicine (1938)
• I See Ice (1938)
• The Winslow Boy (1948)
• The Daydreamer (1966)

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Cyril Ritchard at Find a Grave
• Cyril Ritchard at the Internet Broadway Database
• Cyril Ritchard at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography of Ritchard

Boris Karloff
Born	William Henry Pratt (1887-11-23)23 November 1887 Honor Oak, London, England, UK
Died	2 February 1969(1969-02-02) (aged 81) Midhurst, Sussex, England, UK
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1909–69
Spouse	Grace Harding (1910-1913; divorced) Olive de Wilton (1915; divorced) Montana Laurena Williams (1920; divorced) Helene Vivian Soule (1924-1928; divorced) Dorothy Stine (1928-1946; divorced) Evelyn Hope Helmore (1946-1969; his death)

William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.^[1]

Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). His popularity following Frankenstein was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or "Karloff the Uncanny." His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch, as well as the narrator, in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966).

Early years[link]

Karloff was born at 36 Forest Hill Road, Honor Oak, London, England, where a blue plaque can now be seen. His parents were Edward John Pratt, Jr. and Eliza Sarah Millard. His paternal grandparents were Edward John Pratt, an Anglo-Indian,^{[citation needed]} and Eliza Julia (Edwards) Pratt, a sister of Anna Leonowens (whose tales about life in the royal court of Siam [now Thailand] were the basis of the musical The King and I). The two sisters were also of Anglo-Indian heritage.^[2]

Karloff grew up in Enfield. He was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother's death was brought up by his elder siblings. He later attended Enfield Grammar School before moving to Uppingham School and Merchant Taylors' School, and went on to attend King's College London where he studied to go into the consular service. He dropped out in 1909 and worked as a farm labourer and did various odd jobs until he happened into acting.^[3] His brother, Sir John Thomas Pratt, became a distinguished British diplomat.^[4] Karloff was bow-legged, had a lisp, and stuttered as a young boy.^[5] He conquered his stutter, but not his lisp, which was noticeable all through his career.

Career[link]

In 1909, Pratt travelled to Canada and began appearing in stage shows throughout the country; and some time later changed his professional name to "Boris Karloff". Some have theorized that he took the stage name from a mad scientist character in the novel The Drums of Jeopardy called "Boris Karlov". However, the novel was not published until 1920, at least eight years after Karloff had been using the name on stage and in silent films (Warner Oland played "Boris Karlov" in a movie version in 1931). Another possible influence was thought to be a character in the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy novel H. R. H. The Rider which features a "Prince Boris of Karlova", but as the novel was not published until 1915, the influence may be backward, that Burroughs saw Karloff in a play and adapted the name for the character. Karloff always claimed he chose the first 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 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.

Karloff joined the Jeanne Russell Co. in 1911 and performed in towns like Kamloops, British Columbia and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. After the devastating Regina, Saskatchewan, Regina Cyclone of 30 June 1912, Karloff and other performers helped with cleanup efforts.^[6] He later took a job as a railway baggage handler and joined the Harry St. Clair Co., that performed in Minot, North Dakota for a year, in an opera house above a hardware store.

Due to the years of difficult manual labour in Canada and the U.S. while trying to establish his acting career, he suffered back problems for the rest of his life. Because of his health, he did not fight in World War I.

Hollywood[link]

Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Once Karloff arrived in Hollywood, he made dozens of silent films, but work was sporadic, and he often had to take up manual labour such as digging ditches or delivering construction plaster to earn a living. A number of his early major roles were in film serials, such as The Masked Rider (1919), in Chapter 2 of which he can be glimpsed onscreen for the first time, The Hope Diamond Mystery (1920) and King of the Wild (1930). In these early roles he was often cast as an exotic Arabian or Indian villain. A key film which brought Karloff recognition was The Criminal Code (1931), a prison drama in which he reprised a dramatic part he had played on stage. Another significant role in the fall of 1931 saw Karloff play a key supporting part as an unethical newspaper reporter in Five Star Final, a harshly critical film about tabloid journalism which was nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture of 1931-32.

Stardom[link]

The role of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931) made Karloff a star. The bulky costume with four inch platform boots made it an arduous role but the costume and torturously administered makeup produced the classic image. The costume was a job in its self for Karloff with the shoes weighing 13 pounds each, and Karloff having to sleep in between two books in order for him to not ruin his monster makeup. Universal Studios now owns the copyright to the makeup designed by Jack Pierce. Boris was lucky to get the part, as it had supposedly been offered to Bela Lugosi, who declined it. A year later, Karloff played another iconic character, Imhotep in The Mummy. The Old Dark House (with Charles Laughton) and the starring role in The Mask of Fu Manchu quickly followed. These films all confirmed Karloff's newfound stardom.

The 5'11" (1.80 m) brown-eyed Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in the 1932 film Scarface. He played a religious World War I soldier in the 1934 John Ford epic The Lost Patrol.

However, horror remained Karloff's primary genre, and he gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal horror films, including several with Lugosi, his main rival as heir to Lon Chaney, Sr.'s status as the top horror film star. After earning fame in Frankenstein, Karloff played Frankenstein's monster in two other films, Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), with the latter also featuring Lugosi. Karloff would revisit the Frankenstein mythos in several later films as well, starring with the role of the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (1944), in which the Monster was played by Glenn Strange.

Karloff returned to the role of the "mad scientist" in 1958's Frankenstein 1970, as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original inventor. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his own face (i.e. Karloff's) to the Monster. The actor appeared at a celebrity baseball game as the Monster in 1940, hitting a gag home run and making catcher Buster Keaton fall into an acrobatic dead faint as the Monster stomped into home plate. Norman Z. McLeod filmed a sequence in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Karloff in the Monster make-up, but it was deleted. Karloff donned the headpiece and neck bolts for the final time in 1962 for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66, but the episode featured Karloff playing himself, who, within the story, was playing "the Monster".

While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close mutual friendship (though their legendary "feud" was just an act for publicity), it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat. Follow-ups included Gift of Gab (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Black Friday (1940), You'll Find Out (also 1940), and The Body Snatcher (1945). During this period, he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (1939).

From 1945 to 1946, Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam. In a 1946 interview with Louis Berg of the Los Angeles Times, Karloff discussed his three-picture deal with RKO, his reasons for leaving Universal Pictures and working with producer Lewton. Karloff left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. The latest installment was what he called a "'monster clambake,' with everything thrown in — Frankenstein, Dracula, a hunchback and a 'man-beast' that howled in the night. It was too much. Karloff thought it was ridiculous and said so." Berg continues, "Mr. Karloff has great love and respect for Mr. Lewton as the man who rescued him from the living dead and restored, so to speak, his soul."^[7]

During this period, Karloff was also a frequent guest on radio programmes, whether it was starring in Arch Oboler's Chicago-based Lights Out productions (most notably the episode "Cat Wife") or spoofing his horror image with Fred Allen or Jack Benny.

An enthusiastic performer, he returned to the Broadway stage in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace in 1941, in which he played a homicidal gangster enraged to be frequently mistaken for Karloff. Although Frank Capra cast Raymond Massey in the 1944 film, which was shot in 1941, while Karloff was still appearing in the role on Broadway, Karloff reprised the role on television with Tony Randall and Tom Bosley in a 1962 production on the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Somewhat less successful was his work in J. B. Priestley's play The Linden Tree. He also appeared as Captain Hook in the play Peter Pan with Jean Arthur. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his work opposite Julie Harris in The Lark, by the French playwright Jean Anouilh about Joan of Arc, which was also reprised on Hallmark Hall of Fame.

In later years, Karloff hosted and acted in a number of television series, most notably Thriller, Out of This World, and The Veil, the last of which was never broadcast and only came to light in the 1990s. In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including The Comedy of Terrors, The Raven, and The Terror. the latter two directed by Roger Corman, and Die, Monster, Die!. He also featured in Michael Reeves' second feature film The Sorcerers (1966).

During the 1950s Karloff appeared on British TV in the series Colonel March of Scotland Yard, in which he portrayed John Dickson Carr's fictional detective Colonel March who was known for solving apparently impossible crimes.

Karloff, along with H. V. Kaltenborn, was a regular panelist on the NBC game show, Who Said That?, which aired between 1948 and 1955. Later, as a guest on NBC's The Gisele MacKenzie Show, Karloff sang "Those Were the Good Old Days" from Damn Yankees, while Gisele MacKenzie performed the solo, "Give Me the Simple Life". On The Red Skelton Show, Karloff guest starred along with horror actor Vincent Price in a parody of Frankenstein, with Red Skelton as the monster "Klem Kadiddle Monster." In 1966, Karloff also appeared with Robert Vaughn and Stefanie Powers in the spy series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., in the episode "The Mother Muffin Affair." Karloff performed in drag as the titular Mother Muffin. That same year he also played an Indian Maharajah on the adventure series The Wild Wild West ("The Night of the Golden Cobra"). In 1967, he played an eccentric Spanish professor who thinks he's Don Quixote in a whimsical episode of I Spy ("Mainly on the Plains").

In the mid-1960s, Karloff gained a late-career surge of American popularity when he narrated the made-for-television animated film of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and also provided the voice of the Grinch, although the song, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was sung by American voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft. The film first broadcast in 1966. Karloff later received a Grammy Award in the spoken word category after the story was released as a record. Because Ravenscroft was uncredited for his contribution to How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, his performance of the song was often mistakenly attributed to Karloff.

In 1968 he starred in Targets, a film directed by Peter Bogdanovich about a young man who embarks on a spree of killings carried out with handguns and high powered rifles. The film starred Karloff as retired horror film actor, Byron Orlok, a thinly disguised version of himself—facing an end of life crisis, resolved through a confrontation with the gunman.

Karloff ended his career by appearing in four low-budget Mexican horror films: The Snake People, The Incredible Invasion, The Fear Chamber, and House of Evil. This was a package deal with Mexican producer Luis Vergara. Karloff's scenes were directed by Jack Hill and shot back to back in Los Angeles in the spring of 1968. The films were then completed in Mexico. All four were released posthumously, with the last, The Incredible Invasion, not released until 1971, two years after Karloff's death.

Cauldron of Blood, shot in Spain in 1967 and starring Karloff and Viveca Lindfors, was also released after Karloff's death.

Spoken word[link]

Karloff recorded the title role of Shakespeare's Cymbeline for the Shakespeare Recording Society (Caedmon Audio). The recording was originally published in 1962. It is very rare today, although a download of it is available from audible.com.

Karloff is also heard as the narrator of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra under Mario Rossi. The performance from the LP era is still available as a CD.

Records Karloff made for the children's market included Three Little Pigs and Other Fairy Stories, Tales of the Frightened (volume 1 and 2), Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and, with Cyril Ritchard and Celeste Holm, Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes,^[8] and Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark.^[9]

In 1968 he played occult expert Prof. Marsh in The Crimson Cult (Curse of the Crimson Altar).

Personal life[link]

Although he played many sinister characters on screen, Karloff was known in real life as a very kind gentleman who gave generously, especially to children's charities. Beginning in 1940, Karloff dressed up as Father Christmas every Christmas to hand out presents to physically disabled children in a Baltimore hospital.^[10]

Despite living and working in the United States for many years, Karloff never became a naturalised American citizen, and he never legally changed his name to "Boris Karloff." He signed official documents "William H. Pratt, a.k.a. Boris Karloff."

Karloff was a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild, and was especially outspoken regarding working conditions on sets that actors were expected to deal with in the mid-1930s, some of which were extremely hazardous. In 1931, Boris Karloff took out insurance against premature aging that might be caused by his fright make-up.^[11]

He married six times and had one child, daughter Sara Karloff, by his fifth wife.

Death[link]

Boris Karloff lived out his final years in England at his cottage, 'Roundabout,' in the Hampshire village of Bramshott. After a long battle with arthritis and emphysema, he contracted pneumonia, succumbing to it in King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, Sussex on 2 February 1969. He was cremated, following a requested low-key service, at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, where he is commemorated by a plaque in the Garden of Remembrance. A memorial service was held at St Paul's, Covent Garden (the Actors' Church), London, where there is also a plaque.^[12]

However, even death could not put an immediate halt to Karloff's media career. Four Mexican films for which Karloff shot his scenes in Los Angeles were released over a two-year period after he had died. They were dismissed, by critics and fans alike, as undistinguished efforts. Also, during the run of Thriller, Karloff lent his name and likeness to a comic book for Gold Key Comics based upon the series. After Thriller was cancelled, the comic was retitled Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery. An illustrated likeness of Karloff continued to introduce each issue of this publication for nearly a decade after the real Karloff died; the comic lasted until the early 1980s.

Legacy[link]

For his contribution to film and television, Boris Karloff was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1737 Vine Street for motion pictures, and 6664 Hollywood Boulevard for television.^[13]

Karloff was featured by the U.S. Postal Service as Frankenstein's Monster and the Mummy in its series "Classic Monster Movie Stamps" issued in September 1997.^[14]

In 2010, writer and actor Mark Gatiss interviewed Sara Karloff about her father's career for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror.^[15]

On 24 January 2011 a new, authorised, biography – Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster by Stephen Jacobs – was published in the UK by Tomahawk Press. The book was published in Canada and the U.S. on 14 March 2011. In April 2012 it was announced as the winner of the 2012 Rondo Award for 'Book of the Year'.

The Batman villain Clayface (aka Basil Karlo) was inspired by Boris Karloff and his career.^[16]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Boris Karloff

• Boris Karloff at the Internet Broadway Database
• Boris Karloff at the Internet Movie Database
• Karloff's birthplace
• Boris Karloff at Find a Grave
• Vertlieb's Views: Boris Karloff
• Literature on Boris Karloff

Celeste Holm
Holm in All About Eve (1950)
Born	(1917-04-29) April 29, 1917 (age 95) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1937–present
Spouse	Ralph Nelson (1936-39; divorced) Francis Davies (1940-45; divorced) A. Schuyler Dunning (1946-52; divorced) Wesley Addy (1961-96; until his death) Frank Basile (2004-present)
Website
Celeste Holm Official Website

Celeste Holm (born April 29, 1917) is an American stage, film, and television actress, known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), as well as for her Oscar-nominated performances in Come to the Stable (1949) and All About Eve (1950). In 2011, despite health ailments, she completed filming the comedy feature film, College Debts, directed by Dexter Warr and Joshua Zilm.

Early life[link]

Born and raised in New York City, Holm grew up as an only child. Her mother, Jean Parke, was an American portrait artist and author; her father, Theodor Holm, was a Norwegian businessman whose company provided marine adjustment services for Lloyd's of London. Because of her parents' occupations, she traveled often during her youth and attended various schools in Holland, France and the United States. She graduated from University High School for Girls in Chicago, where she performed in many school stage productions. She then studied drama at the University of Chicago before becoming a stage actress in the late 1930s.

Career[link]

Accepting her Academy Award for Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Holm's first professional theatrical role was in a production of Hamlet starring Leslie Howard. Holm's first major Broadway part was as Mary L. in William Saroyan's 1940 revival of The Time of Your Life co-starring fellow newcomer Gene Kelly (her first role on Broadway was a small part in 1938 comedy Gloriana, which lasted five performances). The role that got her the most recognition from critics and audiences was as Ado Annie in the flagship Broadway production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! in 1943.

After she starred in the Broadway production of Bloomer Girl, 20th Century Fox signed Holm to a movie contract in 1946, and in 1947 she won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in Gentleman's Agreement. After her performance in All About Eve, however, Holm realized she preferred live theater to movie work, and only accepted a few select film roles over the following decade. The most successful of these were the comedy The Tender Trap (1955) and the musical High Society (1956), both of which co-starred Frank Sinatra. She starred as a professor-turned-reporter in New York City in the CBS television series Honestly, Celeste! (fall 1954) and was thereafter a panelist on Who Pays? (1959). She also appeared several times on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom.^{[citation needed]}

In 1958, she starred as a reporter in an unsold television pilot called The Celeste Holm Show, based on the book No Facilities for Women. Holm also starred in the musical The Utter Glory of Morrissey Hall. In 1965, she played the Fairy Godmother alongside Lesley Ann Warren in the CBS production of Cinderella. In 1970-71, she was featured on the NBC sitcom Nancy, with Renne Jarrett, John Fink, and Robert F. Simon. In the story line, Holm played Abby Townsend, the press secretary of the First Lady of the United States and the chaperon of Jarrett's character, Nancy Smith, the President's daughter.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Holm did more screen acting, with roles in films such as Tom Sawyer and Three Men and a Baby, and in television series (often as a guest star) such as Columbo, The Eleventh Hour, Archie Bunker's Place and Falcon Crest. In 1979, she played the role of First Lady Florence Harding in the television mini-series, Backstairs at the White House. She was a regular on the ABC soap opera Loving, appearing first in 1986 in the role of Lydia Woodhouse and again as Isabelle Dwyer Alden #2 from 1991-92. She last appeared on television in the CBS television series Promised Land (1996–99).

Honors[link]

Holm has received numerous honors during her lifetime, including the 1968 Sarah Siddons Award for distinguished achievement in Chicago theatre; she was appointed to the National Arts Council by then-President Ronald Reagan, knighted by King Olav of Norway, and inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1992. She remains active for social causes as a spokesperson for UNICEF, and for occasional professional engagements. Since 1995 she has been Chairman of the Board of Arts Horizons, a not-for-profit arts-in-education organization.

In 2006, Holm was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the SunDeis Film Festival at Brandeis University.^[1]

Holm was a guest at the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in Aberdeen, Maryland. Some of the movies in which she appeared were screened at the festival, and the un-aired television pilot for Meet Me in St. Louis was shown. She received an honorary award during the dinner banquet at the close of the event.

Personal life[link]

Attending the Academy Awards in 1988

• Holm's first marriage was to Ralph Nelson in 1936.^[2] Their son, Internet pioneer and sociologist Ted Nelson (né Theodor Holm Nelson; born 1937), was raised by his maternal grandparents. The marriage ended in 1939. In his 2010 memoir, Possiplex, her son, credited with coining the term “hypertext”, described this and other choices as “entirely the right decisions”. He reportedly did not name his mother in the book.^[3]

• Holm married Francis Emerson Harding Davies, an English auditor, on January 7, 1940. Davies was a Roman Catholic, and she was received into the Roman Catholic Church for the purposes of their 1940 wedding; the marriage was dissolved on May 8, 1945.^[4]

• From 1946-52, Holm was married to airline public relations executive A. Schuyler Dunning, with whom she had a second son, businessman Daniel Dunning.^[5]

• From 1961-96 she was married to fellow thespian Wesley Addy (1913-1996), until his death at age 83 in 1996.

• On April 29, 2004, her 87th birthday, Holm married opera singer Frank Basile, age 41.^[6] The couple met in October 1999 at a fund-raiser at which Basile was hired to sing. Soon after their marriage, Holm and Basile sued to overturn the irrevocable trust that was created in 2002 by Daniel Dunning, Holm's younger son. The trust was ostensibly set up to shelter Holm's financial assets from taxes, although Basile contended the real purpose of the trust was to keep him away from her money. The lawsuit began a five-year battle with her sons which cost millions of dollars, and has, according to an article in The New York Times left Holm and her husband with a fragile hold on their home, which Holm purchased for $10,000 cash in 1953 from her film earnings, and which is now believed to be worth at least $2,000,000. According to her husband, Holm has been treated for memory loss since 2002, has battled skin cancer and bleeding ulcers, and has had a collapsed lung, hip replacements, and pacemakers.^[3][7]

Filmography[link]

• Three Little Girls in Blue (1946)
• Carnival in Costa Rica (1947)
• Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
• Road House (1948)
• The Snake Pit (1948)
• Chicken Every Sunday (1949)
• A Letter to Three Wives (1949) (voiceover as "Addie Ross")
• Come to the Stable (1949)
• Everybody Does It (1949)
• Champagne for Caesar (1950)
• All About Eve (1950)
• The Tender Trap (1955)
• High Society (1956)
• Bachelor Flat (1962)
• Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (1965)
• Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! (1967)
• Tom Sawyer (1973)
• Bittersweet Love (1976)
• The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)
• Backstairs at the White House (1979)
• The Shady Hill Kidnapping (1982) (teleplay by John Cheever)
• Three Men and a Baby (1987)
• Once You Meet a Stranger (1996)
• Still Breathing (1997)
• Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
• Alchemy (2005)
• Driving Me Crazy (2012)
• College Debts (2013)

TV appearances[link]

• The Fugitive (1965-1967)
• "Columbo" Old Fashioned Murder (1976)
• Falcon Crest (1984-1985)
• Polly (1989)
• Polly: Comin' Home! (1990)
• Promised Land (1996-1999)

References[link]

1. ^ "SunDeis 2006". SunDeis Film Festival web site. Archived from the original on 2006-09-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20060910155056/http://www.brandeis.edu/sundeis/welcome.html. Retrieved 2007-10-29. 
2. ^ Celeste Holm profile at www.superiorpics.com
3. ^ ^{a b} Leland, John (2011-07-02). "Love and Inheritance: A Family Feud". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/nyregion/love-and-inheritance-celeste-holms-family-feud.html. Retrieved 2011-07-04. 
4. ^ Holm profile at www.superiorpics.com
5. ^ Staff writers (1952-05-12). "Births, deaths, marriages, divorces". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,806408,00.html. Retrieved 2008-05-15. 
6. ^ Jones, Kenneth (2004-04-30). "December Bride: Shocking Guests, Celeste Holm Marries Beau at 85th Birthday Party". Playbill. http://www.playbill.com/news/article/85931.html. 
7. ^ Leland, John (2011-07-02). "Love and Inheritance - Celeste Holm's Family Feud". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/nyregion/love-and-inheritance-celeste-holms-family-feud.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Celeste Holm

• Celeste Holm at the Internet Broadway Database
• Celeste Holm at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Celeste Holm at the Internet Movie Database
• Celeste Holm at the TCM Movie Database
• Portrait of Celeste Holm and Wesley Addy by Margaret Holland Sargent