"Creature From The Black Lagoon" actor dead at 79

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by jpm-boston, Feb 29, 2008.

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  1. jpm-boston

    jpm-boston Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Ben Chapman; became part of Hollywood lore in 'Lagoon'
    By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times | February 29, 2008

    LOS ANGELES - As an actor, Ben Chapman never landed a star-making role. Far from it. He had small parts in only a few films, including an uncredited bit part in "Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki."

    But Mr. Chapman nevertheless achieved a degree of movie immortality - and he did it without uttering a word of dialogue or even showing his face.

    The 6-foot-5 former Tahitian entertainer and former Marine war hero played the title character in "Creature from the Black Lagoon," the classic 1954 3-D monster movie that developed an enduring cult following.

    Mr. Chapman, a retired Honolulu real estate salesman, died Feb. 21 of congestive heart failure at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, said his longtime companion, Merrilee Kazarian. He was 79.

    For Mr. Chapman, playing the so-called Gill Man in "Creature from the Black Lagoon" was the role of a lifetime.

    "In the big picture, he achieved a small amount of success as an actor, but for baby-boomer 'monster kids,' he was the bomb," Tom Weaver, author of the 1992 book "Creature from the Black Lagoon," said in an interview.

    Mr. Chapman, who was briefly a contract player at Universal in the early '50s, always said landing the Creature role was "a matter of being in the right place at the right time."

    He was on the studio lot one day, when he was called into a casting director's office.

    "They were looking for an imposing creature, and at 6-feet-5, I filled the bill," he told the Palm Beach Post in 2003.

    In the film, which stars Richard Carlson and Julie Adams, a scientific expedition venturing along the Amazon River in search of fossils of a legendary prehistoric man-fish unexpectedly encounters a live specimen, who terrorizes them but falls for the expedition's only female (played by Adams).

    "The creature suit was a one-piece outfit that zipped down the back with dorsal fins, hands that were gloves, feet that were like boots," Mr. Chapman told the Honolulu Observer several years ago.

    "They had me lay on a table, take a complete plaster of Paris mold of my body, then design this costume. I couldn't lose or gain weight, or it wouldn't fit right. The whole experience was like climbing into a large body stocking with creases."

    Mr. Chapman told Weaver that he got so hot on the sound stage wearing the costume, which included a large helmetlike head, that someone had to stand by with a water hose to cool him off.

    When they were shooting on the back lot, Mr. Chapman said, "I would just stay in the lake to keep cool."

    The movie proved to be so successful that Universal made two sequels - "Revenge of the Creature" (1955) and "The Creature Walks Among Us" (1956).

    Mr. Chapman, however, did not return to the Creature role in either film.

    Mr. Chapman was born in Oakland, Calif., while his Tahitian parents temporarily were living in the United States. After growing up in Tahiti, he returned to California in 1940 and went to school in San Francisco.

    A cousin of actor Jon Hall, Mr. Chapman was working as a Tahitian dancer in nightclubs when he was hired to play a bit part in the 1950 MGM musical romance "Pagan Love Song."

    Mr. Chapman served in the Marines in the Korean War and received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts.
     
  2. JohnG

    JohnG PROG now in Dolby ATMOS!

    Location:
    Long Island NY
    Who can forget that face!

    [​IMG]

    RIP Ben! :)

    [​IMG]
     
  3. Tone

    Tone Senior Member

    Wow..... He doesn't look that much different with or without the mask!! :eek:

    Loved his role and the movie..... RIP Ben.


    ..

    P.S.......... When I was a kid, this was my favorite 'Horror' film, and I was absolutely in Love with "Julie Adams" .... and those swimming scenes. :love:
     

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  4. xman

    xman Active Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    One of my personal faves. RIP
     

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  5. andy749

    andy749 Senior Member

  6. -Alan

    -Alan Senior Member

    Location:
    Connecticut, USA
    Prime nightmare material for little kids back in the day of "Creature Features."

    Here is Ben Chapman home page with lots more information. RIP.
     
  7. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    R.I.P...

    a role that will last a lifetime and beyond...

    hey, didn't he make an appearance on the Munsters as an Uncle?. ;)
     
  8. Johnny66

    Johnny66 Laird of Boleskine

    Location:
    Australia.
    Wow. What a guy!

    Rest In Peace, Mr. Chapman.
     
  9. theoxrox

    theoxrox Forum Resident

    Location:
    central Wisconsin
    This will seem off-topic at first, but bear with me..........

    Back in the 1987 TV season there was a show on ABC called Our World. It was documentary material revisited from a modern perspective, and had Ray Gandalf and Linda Ellerbee as its hosts.

    They'd choose a date or perhaps a month or a season from a year in the past and revisit the events of that period by using documentary footage and then a modern perspective, frequently featuring the people involved in the original material.

    OK, so now I'll tie this in..........

    They were doing a segment on the nuclear testing of the 1950s and the sci-fi movies which had giant creatures whose existence stemmed from radiation exposure. One of the scenes in the segment utilized footage from The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

    The person who co-ordinated the background music to the visual material had a wicked sense of humor. In the scene, the babe from the movie is in the tent, and through a slit in the tent the Creature's webbed hand is sliding in.....

    The musical accompaniment? Tony Bennett singing, "Take my hand, I'm a stranger in paradise......."

    I think I missed the next 2 or 3 minutes rolling on the floor, laughing my posterior off!
     
  10. If I'm not mistaken Rico Browning played the role of the Creature during the extensive underwater segments and Chapman played the Creature during the other ones. Ricou eventually took on the role completely for all the sequences both in the water and out for the remaining two films. He was never credited in the films to the best of my knowledge. He eventually ended up becoming a film director with "Flipper" and other shows.

    Browning is still alive and is 95 this year.
     
  11. JohnG

    JohnG PROG now in Dolby ATMOS!

    Location:
    Long Island NY
    On The Munsters he was Uncle Gilbert. :D

    [​IMG]

    A very nappy dresser.
     
  12. Don_S

    Don_S New Member

    Location:
    Sacramento, CA
    I remember a neighbor walking a bunch of us kids to a special matinée showing. It was a current release at the time. I remember holding a dime tightly in my fist the whole way there. We sat in the balcony. Funny how I still remember that day. It might have been my first movie. I can't remember any others as a child. Maybe there weren't any others or at least they didn't scare the bejeebies out of me. :yikes:

    Thank you Ben.
     
  13. Steve D.

    Steve D. Forum Resident

    RIP Ben Chapman....I know Julie Adams. She is as lovely today as ever. Julie acted in dozens of films and tv shows and played opposite many well known leading men. But, perhaps, she will forever be best known for her role opposite her reptillian co-star. Julie is still active and has recently completed a part in the "Lost" tv series.

    -Steve D.
     
  14. ceddy10165

    ceddy10165 My life was saved by rock n roll

    Location:
    Avon, CT
    R.I.P. Ben. Thanks for the fun times and memories via The Creature.
     
  15. Skip Reynolds

    Skip Reynolds Legend In His Own Mind

    Location:
    Moscow, Idaho
    And he could hold his breath for how long? More than 2 minutes?


    Speaking of which, have you ever noticed the scene where The Creature has captured the succulent young maiden, and is carrying her down deep to his underwater cave? They're getting pretty deep, and the hapless heroine calmly puts a hand to her face, obviously pinching her nostrils so she can open her Eustachean Tubes. That's how it looks to me, anyway.
     
  16. From IMDB: Rico Browning was a professional diver and swimmer, was required to hold his breath for up to 4 minutes at a time for his underwater role as the "Gill Man." The director's logic was that the air would have to travel through the monster's gills and thus not reveal air bubbles from his mouth or nose. Thus, the costume was designed without an air tank. In the subsequent films, this detail was ignored and air can be seen emanating from the top of the creature's head.
     
  17. Bogey

    Bogey Spy Vinyl User

    Location:
    Colorado
    RIP Mr. Chapman.
     
  18. Bogey

    Bogey Spy Vinyl User

    Location:
    Colorado
    Though I believe Jack Pierce had already left the Universal lot, the folks there still did an incredible job with the Creature's design. Definitely an iconic monster.
     
  19. andy749

    andy749 Senior Member

    The Creature was designed by a woman, but I can't think of her name right now.

    I looked it up...Millicent Patrick.

    This is out of Wikipedia:

    The designer of the Gill-man was Disney animator Millicent Patrick, though her role was deliberately downplayed by make-up artist Bud Westmore, who for half a century would receive sole credit for the creature's conception.
     

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  20. Bogey

    Bogey Spy Vinyl User

    Location:
    Colorado
    Thanks for the foot work Andy. Appreciated.
     
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