Glenn Strange

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Glenn Strange

an actor’s story

Glenn Strange: Headshot

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.

Glenn Strange: The Mad Monster
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.

Glenn Strange: Frankenstein
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.

Glenn Strange: Cowboy
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

 

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Price of Horror

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Price of Horror

Vincent Price

Every fall, auditions for Halloween and Christmas voices are certain to stream in. Although I’ve got solid impersonations of Karloff, Lorre, and Lugosi, Vincent Price’s voice had eluded me. This year, I’ve decided to pay homage to the “Master of the Macabre” by imitating his voice from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.

I’d had the privilege of seeing Vincent Price in person when I was a teen. He was in the Cleveland area to attend a Sherlock Holmes film festival (featuring Basil Rathbone). After the film, Mr Price did a reading of Poe’s “The Raven”. What an amazing voice and delivery… I was awestruck.

To approach such a unique and memorable voice, I took the time to listen to his original recording of “Thriller” (hear it at the bottom of this post). The audio reveals the many complexities of his voice. Pacing, accent, enunciation, delivery and musicality of the phrases. Add to this his baritone/tenor range, age and the effects of smoking and you’ll begin to hear the many layers involved.

After a few hours of analysis and trial mimicry takes, I felt ready to make my own mix…

Here is my homage to Vincent Price’s voice from “Thriller”:

      JoeActor_VincentPrice_Impression_Thriller

… And here are Vincent Price and Michael Jackson from the original vo recording session, with a bonus verse in the middle:

      Thriller Voice-Over Session (1982) Vincent Price!

Now it’s your turn!

What voices do you do during the holidays? Maybe it’s Santa, elves, or Scrooge. Perhaps some of the Haunted Mansion vo, the Grinch or Charlie Brown.

Let me know in the comments below…

 

All content written and voiced by Joe J Thomas online at: JoeActor.com

 

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