‘Darn Lucky' To Be Type-Cast As A Monster—Karloff

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30712, 30 March 1965, Page 13

‘Darn Lucky' To Be Type-Cast As A Monster—Karloff

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, March 29. Filmland’s elder statesman of terror, 78-year-old Boris Karloff, emerged from a cold, mist-filled graveyard expressing deep misgivings about the word “horror.”

Using a cane to support a weak knee, the white-haired actor flashed a grateful smile to a script assistant who handed him a mug of hot coffee. . He sat back in his car, out of the chilly wind, to await the next scene in “The House at the End of the World,” his one hundred and thirtieth film. “I rebel against that word ‘horror’,” said Karloff. “It spells revulsion. “The idea of terror is to

make their hair, stand on end, not to make them lose their breakfast.”

He prefers to call his films “fairy stories rooted in legend,” in which he plays the role of an involuntary villain of circumstance rather than a monster. Karloff born William Pratt—has played villain and monster roles since the turn of the century. He is now one of the industry’s biggest box-office attractions, with horror epic films such as “Frankenstein,” “The Mummy,” "The Body Snatchers,” and “Corridors of Blood.”

On the set Karloff plays a fanatic who rears hideous monsters in the cob-webbed basement of his sinister mansion.

Off the set he switches from Mr Hyde to an urbane, witty and rather modest Dr. Jekyll.

“I’ve been darn lucky. Being type-cast is the best

thing that could happen .to an actor.

“I’ve had a good life and I intend to die with my boots—and all this make-up—on. "I’m quite content with what I’m doing.” A long exposure to Hollywood has not made Karloff any less British. Clad in baggy tweeds, he is an inveterate cricket addict.

He once played with a Hollywood team against a touring Australian eleven (“they hid me in the slips”). He lives with his second wife in a quaint London flat, where he collects antique furniture and dabbles in gardening. Other hobbies? “I do the dishes.”

The door to the car opened and the script assistant said they were ready for the next shooting. The musing Jekyll became a Hyde once more. An army of assistants ar-

ranged plastic flowers, and got smoke machines belching their mist effect over the graveyard. Karloff got into an ornate wheelchair by a newly-dug grave. The camera rolled. “A curse has been set upon this house,” he said in a half-crazed whisper. Another “fairy story” was under way.