Happy Horror Birthday JACK P PIERCE born today 1889 (died 1968)…
The pictures above are….
1. Jack Pierce leading the concealer ‘Monster’ to the set of Frankenstein (1931)
2. Even the ‘Monster’ enjoys a nice cup of tea!!!
3. Karloff as The Mummy is socialising!
4. ‘Anyone need a hand?’ Pierce working on the hands of The Wolfman
5. A great shot on the set of ‘Son of Frankenstein’ Karloff, Lugosi & Basil Rathbone – celebrating Lugosi’s birthday!!!
At the dawn of the motion picture industry and in the following decades, make-up skills were being developed but these artists hardly received any attention or respect and were often left un-credited. The accomplishments of Jack P Pierce are simply too remarkable to go unnoticed.
He created some of cinema history’s most distinguishable screen characters. When anyone mentions Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, The Wolfman or the Mummy I just automatically think of his handy work!
He was born Janus Piccoulas in Greece 5 May 1889. Apparently he used to amuse his family and friends by creating effects with natural materials – he supposedly returned home one day sprouting goat horns & another time with his face covered with hair!!! Obviously he was talented from an early age. When he emigrated to the US as a teenager, he changed his name to Jack Pierce and he tried his hand at various careers from stuntman to assistant cameraman but it was the 1926 film ‘The Monkey Talks,’ that his make-up can be seen for the first time when he turned Jacque Lernier into a talking monkey and it was this creation that drew the attention of Universal Studios Carl Laemmle.
At that time Universal was a little studio in the San Fernando Valley, referred to as “Universal City” in 1915, after only three years in business. Lon Chaney was their leading actor at that time – using his own unique make-up to transform his entire face and body. In 1928, Chaney had left to freelance stardom, Universal made Pierce department head of makeup where he worked on the last of the silent films made at the studio. His fortune was cemented when Carl Laemmle made his son, Carl Laemmle, Jr., head of production as a 21st birthday present. He was called Junior by his peers and colleagues, Laemmle, Jr. decided to produce film versions of the classic horror novels, encouraged by Chaney’s huge successes with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera at Universal in the mid-’20s. His personal tastes couldn’t have been any better for Pierce who would go onto create some of cinema history’s most distinguishable screen characters.
It was only after the death of Lon Chaney Sr that Pierce cemented his career with Universal and he experienced his first disappointment when Bela Lugosi insisted on doing his own make up for Dracula. However, some hints of Pierce’s contributions remained including the lace widows peak Lugosi wore not only in the 1931 production but also the 1932 White Zombie
Lugosi later mused that Pierce got his revenge when he later designed and applied such torturous makeups as Ygor and even the Frankenstein Monster itself in later films!
Truly, it was his follow up to Dracula’s unused makeup that Pierce found his greatest success. The Monster in James Whale’s 1931 classic, Frankenstein was key in establishing Pierce as the make-up master. Whale supposedly sketched a few drawings on some napkins and presented these ideas to Jack Pierce for fleshing out.
Pierce designed the make up to mesh with Karloff’s gaunt anatomy and created every brow, every scar and every stitch over and over again almost talking 5 hours for the make-up application alone – then Karloff would act a full day only to have to endure several hours in the removal process.
The flat-top head is something of an interesting story…It was Pierce’s assumption that Dr. Frankenstein being a hasty physician, would simply cut the skull across the top and pull the skin back over the cranium like a tent flap.
The final result was, of course – that flat-topped, heavy lidded ‘Monster’ which is an icon of the 20th Century – it is extraordinary. Even today it is still unlike anything else.
Together with the boots, which weighed thirteen pounds each, Karloff’s costume totalled forty-eight pounds So for the 43 year old Karloff and 42 year old Pierce, this was a remarkable achievement a unique artist-performer relationship and they created one of cinema’s most phenomenal and recognizable monsters in movie history.
There is a rumour that Karloff ate and slept in the make up just to avoid this procedure each day. Karloff bore the scars of the neck bolts until the day he died.
Over the next few years Pierce’s work was incredible working with Karloff on ‘The Mummy’ he turned him into an perfectly aged and wrinkled Egyptian prince by using wrappings treated with flames and acid to age them.
In the Bride of Frankenstein – Pierce re-vamped his first version of the monster & created the famous make-up and designed the Nefertiti ‘electric’ hairstyle for Elsa Lanchester’s bride. Again Pierce had created an iconic movie ‘monster’ which is extraordinary, as the ‘Bride’ is hardly on screen at all!!!
For Bela Lugosi, with who Pierce had locked horns several years earlier on Dracula, he created Ygor in 1939’s Son of Frankenstein. Enduring up to four hour sessions, the actor was transformed with the application of yak hair, a rubber neck brace, a disheveled wig and crooked false teeth. Conceived as a man who couldn’t be hanged, the bearded, gnarled-toothed wretch became Lugosi’s most original character in years and put him back on the map.
In 1941 Pierce worked with Lon Chaney Jr. on The Wolf Man and they nearly came to blows as Lon Chaney, Jr. accused him of purposely burning him with the curling iron used to singe and curl the yak and crepe hair. Again Pierce excelled with his concept for the werewolf and used a design he had created for Karloff a decade earlier. However he had reluctantly begun to use latex to shorten the application process . Originally intended as a B movie, The Wolf Man was a true horror classic, and Pierce’s version of the character has been the model for the numerous werewolves that have since come to the screen.
The final, original Pierce makeup arrived in 1943 with a new Phantom of the Opera movie. Starring Claude Rains, it would be the only Jack Pierce monster movie shot in color. Though his treatment of Rains’ makeup-revealed only at the end of the film—was cut down at the request of the producers (Pierce’s original concept was considered too hideous!), it stands as another horror movie landmark.
After creating so many icons of horror, he was unceremoniously released and replaced by Bud Westmore as head of make up at Universal after being at the studios for some 30 years. He remained friends with Karloff and even appeared on an episode of This is Your Life, featuring the star.
Pierce ended his career working in low-budget independent films and television projects during the final 20 years of his life. His last project was working as makeup department head for the TV show Mr. Ed from 1961-1964.
This is the true MAN BEHIND THE MONSTERS……and you could ask any Hollywood special FX make-up artist their inspiration and most would name Jack Pierce in their top 3 but when he died in 1968 it was hardly noticed at all with few people attending the funeral.
To us the true lovers of horror classics and me especially, this man of movie monsters and creatures certainly lives on & when all is said & done the full credit for the creation of the classic Frankenstein image belongs squarely with Universal’s head makeup-up artist, that pioneer himself – Mr Jack P Pierce!!!!