Jack Pierce and the Creation of Frankenstein's Monster

The word "Frankenstein" conjures up in most people's mind the image of Dr. Frankenstein's creation, his pastiche of bodily parts that he gave life to. We picture him as a huge fearsome man with a flat head, bolts protruding from his neck, scars on his face, long arms, and wearing tightly fitted clothes and giant heavy boots. This image is often credited to Mary Shelley, the author of the original novel "Frankenstein", published in 1818. But is this creature really her creation or Jack Pierce's, the make-up artist who re-imagined Frankenstein for the 1931 Universal horror picture?

As Mary Shelley describes Dr. Frankenstein's creation, he seems to have been intended as quite a handsome fellow but what resulted was not what the doctor had ordered: 

"His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips."

Black flowing hair, watery white eyes, a shriveled complexion, and black lips.....quite a horrible sight, indeed! 

Charles Stanton Ogle as the "monster" ( 1910 )

The first illustrations for the book - steel engravings dating from the 1831 edition - display the size of the creature, his thin skin covering, and his long black hair ( see illustration above ). Other drawings show him wearing a cloak, a toga-like covering. 

For the first film adaptation, made in 1910 by Edison Studios, the monster had a grotesque face hidden under mounds of unruly strands of hair and long deformed fingers. As you can see in the close-up, he was beastly. In 1920, an Italian silent film Il mostro di Frankenstein - now considered lost - portrayed him as a bald giant with facial features not unlike the Deutsch vampire Nosferatu. 

It was eleven years later that the monster returned to the screen, this time in the Universal Pictures film Frankenstein ( 1931 ). Jack Pierce, an extraordinary make-up artist heralding from Greece, was assigned to create the monster, portrayed by the fabulous Boris Karloff. 

In 1926, Pierce had helped director Raoul Walsh create the right look for actor Jacques Lerner who played a man impersonating a primate in the film The Monkey Talks. His make-up work was so richly detailed that it caught the attention of Carl Laemmle, then head of Universal Studios. He hired Pierce for a full-time position as a makeup artist and promptly put him to work in The Man Who Laughs, where he created the iconic look of Conrad Veidt's character Gwynplain, which in turn inspired Bob Kane's character of The Joker in his "Batman" comic book series. 

His most important work prior to Frankenstein was undoubtedly that of creating Bela Lugosi's ghostly pale Count Dracula in Dracula ( 1930 ). After the resounding success of this film, Universal Studios decided to adapt other classic horror novels into films, selecting Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" as their next project. It was Pierce's task to take Dr. Frankenstein's monster from the pages of her book and transform him into a monster that could walk on-screen.

As James L. Neibar describes in his book "The Monster Movies of Universal Studios" : 

"Make-up artist Jack Pierce is responsible for creating the iconic makeup for the monster. Collaborating with Karloff, it was Pierce who designed the rectangular shape of the head with the flat top, the protruding brow, and the electrodes on either side of the monster's neck, while Karloff removed his partial dental plate, causing his face to indent......Pierce's vision of the Frankenstein monster has since become the most noted representation of the character. "

Envisioning what kind of creation a doctor from that period of time could have assembled took Pierce nearly six months of research. Before tests were undertaken on Karloff, Pierce had created a clay model of what he hoped to achieve. Jack Pierce describes this process...

“It was a lot of hard work, trying to find ways and means, what can you do? Frankenstein wasn’t a doctor; he was a scientist, so he had to take the head and open it, and he took wires to rivet the head. I had to add the electrical outlets to connect electricity in here on the neck. I made it out of clay and put hair on it and took it in to Junior Laemmle’s office. He said, ‘you mean you can do this on a human being?’ I said, ‘positively’. He said, ‘all right we will go to the limit.’"

Boris Karloff spent four hours each morning in the makeup chair, letting Pierce apply heavy putty to his eyelids, thick grey makeup all over his face, and heavy electrodes to his neck....makeup which in addition took nearly an hour each day to remove.

When Frankenstein was released in theatres, it was an immediate box-office hit. This imagining of Mary Shelley's character became so famous that within four years the monster had to be resurrected from his untimely death to return to frighten other villagers, this time in The Bride of Frankenstein. He would also return in Son of Frankenstein ( 1939 ), and The Ghost of Frankenstein ( 1942 )...the first film that Jack Pierce received screen-credit for his work on the monster. 

That is perhaps the saddest foot-note of all; that viewers at the time did not know and could not know who was the real inventor of the monster that they loved to watch onscreen - Jack Pierce. During the 1930s, make-up artists were often not given credit for their work, but Pierce certainly deserved screen-credit for this creation since it was so imaginative and so unlike Mary Shelley's description of the creature. 

Thankfully, today most film fans recognize the name of Jack Pierce and know his body of work. But to help educate others, the next time you dress up as the monster or see him at a Halloween costume party, be sure to call him by his proper name - Dr. Pierce's Monster. 

To read more about Jack Pierce and his work in Hollywood check out our article The Faces of Jack Pierce.

The Faces of Jack Pierce

Jack Pierce himself only had one face, one which wasn't particularly liked in Hollywood, but - as a makeup artist - Pierce created many faces. So many that the few we will highlight in this post will only scratch the grease-painted surface of this man's talent. 

These days Pierce is best remembered for his work in the creation of the "look" of the Universal monsters with the exception of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It is for this work that he - posthumously - earned a lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Make-Up Artist and Hairstyle Guild. 

Jack Pierce was born in Greece in 1889 ( he was christened Janus Piccoulas by birth ) and came to America with his parents in the early 1900s. He started in the film industry working as a projectionist and then a stuntman before becoming an actor. Between 1915 and 1925 he played in twelve different films, usually being cast as a villain.

Pierce often applied his own makeup while being an actor and he enjoyed creating different effects to detract from his shortness ( he was 5' 5" ). He got his first chance at applying makeup to other actors when he stepped in to transform actor Jacques Lernier into a speaking simian for his role in Raoul Walsh's The Monkey Talks ( 1926 ). This work was observed by Carl Laemmle who hired him full-time at Universal, where one of his very first assignments was applying the makeup for Conrad Viedt in The Man Who Laughs ( 1928 ). 

In 1930, Pierce was assigned to work on Dracula and created a special color greasepaint for the sanguinary count, portrayed by Bela Lugosi. However, Lugosi had always applied his own makeup ( a common practice for stage actors ) and so he refused to let Jack Pierce do his makeup. Lugosi reflected later that Pierce got his revenge on him when he designed such torturous makeup as Ygor and the Frankenstein for him to wear. 

The 1930s 

Frankenstein ( 1931 )

It was during the 1930s that Pierce rose to fame beginning with his work on The Monster in Carl Laemle Jr.'s Frankentstein. Mary Shelley wasn't all too specific about the Monster's appearance in her 1818 novel, and so Pierce let his imagination run free and decided to give the pastiched character a flat-topped head with very heavy eyelids. A nice sleepy look. Unfortunately for Karloff, the makeup application was a six hour process involving the attachment of a skullpiece for the black hair, then a layer of cotton and spirit gum for the forehead, followed by a glob of specially designed putty around the eyes, a nice dirty scar, some electrifying bolts, and a topping of green-grey greasepaint. Karloff personally contributed the sunken cheekbones by having a dental bridge removed. 

Murders in the Rue Morgue ( 1932 )

This juicy horror flick gave Pierce a chance to paint Bela Lugosi an entirely different face. The bushy eyebrows of the Count can be seen again, but now they are connected with a bridge of hair, making Dr. Mirakle look like he has one giant eyebrow. 

White Zombie ( 1932 ) 

Once again Bela got to sit in the makeup chair, with Jack Pierce transforming him this time into the devilish voodoo master, Murder Legendre. With curling beard strands, heavy dark eyebrows and a very low widow's peak, Murder was a character guaranteed to frighten women and children out of the theatres. 

The Mummy ( 1932 ) 

Karloff thought the Monster was an elaborate makeup process, but The Mummy offered him a chance to really test his patience. It was complete head-to-toe makeup application. The wrappings of the mummy were treated with flames and acid to age it properly then dipped in collodion ( a strong smelling liquid plastic ) and stretched over Boris Karloff's face. Pierce applied Fuller's Earth over the wrappings after it was dried to give it an "arid" look. Check out this great article on the mummifying process, originally printed in Mechanix magazine. 

The Invisible Man ( 1933 ) 

There really wasn't much monster makeup involved in The Invisible Man, but the coloring applied to all of the supporting players really enhanced the look of the film. This scene doesn't display any of Pierce's skill, just Una O'Connor's facial expression was so good we had to include it. 

The Bride of Frankenstein ( 1935 ) 

One of the reasons that Jack Pierce was not very much loved in the Hollywood circle was because he was such a demanding make-up artist. Film Historian Greg Mank interviewed Elsa Lanchester at one time and this is what she had to say about the Bride's makeup process, " [Pierce] took ages to make a scar that hardly shows under my chin. For a whole hour he would draw two lines of glue, put a red line down the middle, then start making up the white edges of the scar - meticulously done. Well, frankly, I'm sure he could have bought such a scar for ten cents in a joke shop.....After the scar came the eyebrows, and the hair. It's my own hair. I had it lifted up from my face, all the way around; then they placed a cage on my head and combed my own hair over that cage. Then they put the gray-streak hairpieces in afterwards."

The Werewolf of London ( 1935 ) 

This was the first of the Universal "wolf man" films, even though it often gets overlooked in favor of the Lon Chaney version. Henry Hull, who was cast in the title role, objected to Pierce's original concept of how Wolfie should look, claiming that it obscured his features. The final design pleased both Pierce and Hull even though it left barely a resemblance to the actor.
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In addition to all of these monster classics, Jack Pierce was kept busy working as the makeup artist for Great Expectations ( 1934 ), Diamond Jim ( 1935 ), Magnificent Obsession ( 1935 ), Show Boat ( 1936 ), and Three Smart Girls ( 1936 ), to name a few. 

The 1940s 

The 1940s was Pierce's busiest decade and he worked on all of the Mummy sequels ( regardless of Chaney's personal dislike for him ), the Frankenstein sequels, and the Dracula sequels. He also created some menacing new faces in films like Man Made Monster ( 1941 ) The Phantom of the Opera ( 1943 ), The Mad Ghoul ( 1943 ) and Cobra Woman ( 1944 ).

The Wolf Man ( 1941 ) 

For Universal's second venture into lycanthrope land, Pierce created an entirely different look for the "wolf man", adding much more hair around the cheekbones and a bushy head of hair. Chaney reportedly hated working with Pierce due to the tedious transformation process he made him undergo, which included having yak hair glued to his face. 

The Scarlet Claw ( 1944 )

This film was the eighth entry in the popular Universal Sherlock Holmes series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The detective duo set out to the backwoods of Canada to capture a criminal who was once a former actor ( and a makeup artist himself ) and this fellow uses his skill to create different identities for himself, one of which is a fleeting glowing shadow in the marshland. Holmes got to try out some disguises himself and in this scene he is seeing if Watson can recognize him as a messenger. We can't even recognize him as being Rathbone.

In addition to working on The Scarlet Claw, Pierce also designed the makeup for four other Sherlock Holmes films. By the mid-1940s however, mystery and horror films were beginning to wane with the public taste. Pierce found himself doing the work of an everyday Hollywood makeup artist and applying cakes of powder and rouge to celebrities such as Deanna Durbin ( Because of Him, I'll Be Yours ), Susan Hayward ( Canyon Passage, Smash Up: The Story of a Woman ) and Abbott and Costello ( Little Giant and The Time of Their Lives ).

The 1940s brought about unwanted change for a traditionalist like Jack Pierce. Younger makeup artists were dropping the "out of the kit" techniques in favor of the quicker and more comfortable latex forms. Studio heads at Universal were in favor of these techniques because they saved time and cost during the making of a film. Pierce held on to his style and was eventually let go from Universal in 1946. 

Jack Pierce turned to doing television work in the early 1950s and when budget monster classics became the rage in the latter years of the decade he once again took to creating monsters. Some of these included the Beast ( Beauty and the Beast ), The Amazing Transparent Man, and burly conquistador in The Giant from the Unknown. His final work was on Mister Ed, where he was the show's regular makeup artist.