October 29: Mini Post on Some Makeup Men

 

We all know Lon Chaney as "the man of a thousand faces" for his many roles that required either heavy makeup or prosthetics of some sort in the 1920's. Many people also know that Chaney was his own makeup artist, what is not as widely known is that Chaney was just one of a long line of actors that were also very accomplished makeup artists. Two actors to appear in horror before him that stand out are Charles Ogle and King Baggot. They both created their monstrous looks that have in many ways become iconic today.

Charles Ogle was the star of Edison's 1910 adaptation of Frankenstein, the film is only 16 minutes long, but it is memorable for it's creature. Ogle created the complete look himself and makes an unforgettable entrance in the film, emerging from a "creation chamber." His visage is as monstrous as the creature has ever been in film. With wild hair and deformed hands, he appears more a wholly supernatural monster, than a deformed human created wholly by science. Long thought lost until the mid-1970's; the film has been restored multiple times, most recently by our own Library of Congress. 

King Baggot was cast in the dual role of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the 1913  IMP/Universal adaptation of the Stevenson work.  Not the very first adaptation of the work, it was the first for Universal, making Baggot really the first "Universal Monsters." He was responsible for creating the visage of the wild and insane Hyde.  What is interesting about Baggot's Hyde is that it is a look that apparently influenced the 1941 MGM production starring Spencer Tracy.  Originally released in the two parts, the film in total runs close to half and hour. Both are available to stream online and are well worth a view. 

Born Today June 5: Charles Ogle

1865-1940

Giant of the early silver screen Charles Stanton Ogle was born on this day in Steubenville, Ohio, the son of a minister.  Ogle, of course, was a stage actor before acting in film and he made his successful Broadway debut in 1905. Ogle made his film debut in 1908, when he went to work for the Edison Manufacturing Company under contract--one of the first actors to sign such a contract with a studio (the first studio, no less).  The Boston Tea Party, a short historical drama, was released in July of that year and directed by Edwin S. Porter.  Under this contract he would assay a number of well know roles from works of literature.  Probably the most famous is that of Frankenstein's Monster in the very first film of that book.  Frankenstein dates from 1910 and was directed by J.Serle Dawley.  The film featured some truly impressive special effects for the day; Ogle created the makeup for the role himself--and he did a great job (!)--a tradition that was still going strong in the 1920's (see, for example, the many photos of Lon Chaney Sr. [an actor Ogle would later work with] and his portable make-up kit).

Ogle as The Monster

That same year, Ogle would go on to play the meek, hardworking, rather pathetic Bob Cratchit from Charles Dickens immortal Christmas classic A Christmas Carol  ; he played opposite Marc McDermott's Scrooge (McDermott was actually a much younger actor than Ogle).  He had no shortage of work at Edison!  By 1912, he found himself the star of What Happened To Mary, the first serial ever produced.  With the serial turning out to be a great marketing plan to the public (Edison quickly noticed that they were quite addictive), a larger serial thriller was planned and executed in 1914 with The Man Who Disappeared, both Ogle and McDermott [who was the star] appeared in it.  The last film that he made for Edison was also in 1914, he played Ragnarr in The Viking Queen.  After this, he and his frequent co-star Mary Fuller--who he had been working with since the beginning of his film career--absconded to Victor Film. The company had a distribution deal with Universal, and indeed, the first film that they made for the studio--The Witch Girl (1914)--was distributed by Universal.  By 1917, he was with Jesse L Lasky's company.  The first confirmed feature length film that he is known to have acted in was A Romance Of The Redwood (1917), a Mary Pickford film directed by Cecil B. DeMille; the film is 1 hour 10 minutes long.  In 1920, he appeared as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, a film which also featured Chaney Sr.  Throughout the 1920's he fell easily into character acting; with the last film that he appeared in coming in 1926 with The Flaming Forest.  With his retirement in 1926, in all he had appeared in more than 300 films.  Ogle lived a further 14 years in Long Beach, California, where he died from arteriosclerosis on the 11th of October in 1940.  He is buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

For More:

IMDb

Leave Virtual Flowers @ Find A Grave

One Of My Favorite Horror Stills!

From the very first filmed production of Frankenstein dating from 1910, produced by the Edison Company and directed by J. Searle Dawley ans starring Charles Ogle as the above pictured Monster.