Glenn Strange
an actor’s story
I was watching an episode of MST3K featuring the film “The Mad Monster (1942)“, and although the film was a pretty bad wolf-man knock-off, I thought the actor playing the monster was good. I looked him up and was truly surprised.
His name was Glenn Strange (1899-1973), and his life and acting career are a testament to hard work and success. By all accounts, he also seemed to be a very nice guy as well.
He’s got 314 credits on IMDB from 1930 to 1973, but his portrayal of The Frankenstein Monster was his most iconic. He appeared in a number of films and TV shows including “House of Frankenstein“, “House of Dracula” and “Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein“. His nickname was “Pee Wee”, but at 6′ 6″ he never needed any lifts to play Frankenstein. His image as the monster was so iconic that the studios used it in many of their promotional materials. In fact, when Boris Karloff passed away in 1969, many newspapers actually ran Glenn Strange’s picture as Frankenstein along with Karloff’s obituary.
His career spanned many genres from westerns to horror to comedy, but he also had been a rancher, deputy sheriff, played the fiddle and guitar, and was an avid cook.
Sometimes when you dig a bit deeper into a person’s life, you find a treasure of inspiration. Perhaps this is a fitting legacy to this very interesting man’s career and life.
If you’d like more information on Glenn Strange, please visit his IMDB page or Google the many articles written about him online.
Get inspired!
Joe
All content written and voiced by Joe J Thomas online at: JoeActor.com
