Jack Pierce (born Yiannis Pikoulas; May 5, 1889 – July 19, 1968) was a Hollywood make-up artist known for creating the makeup worn by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (1931), along with various other classic monster make-ups for Universal Studios.

Early career

After emigrating to the United States from his native Greece as a teenager, Pierce tried his hand at several careers, including a stint as an amateur baseball player.

In the 1920s, Pierce embarked on a series of jobs in cinema—cinema manager, stuntman, actor, even assistant director—which would eventually lead to his mastery of the field of makeup. The small-statured Pierce was never a "leading man" type, and he put his performing career aside to specialize in make-up for other performers. In 1915 he was hired to work on crews for the studio's productions. On the 1926 set of The Monkey Talks, Jack Pierce created the makeup for actor Jacques Lernier Pierce was then hired full-time by Universal Pictures motion picture studio. The death of Lon Chaney—who throughout the 1920s had made a name for himself by creating grotesque and often painful horror make-ups—opened a niche for Pierce and Universal, Chaney's films provided audiences with the deformed, monstrous faces that Pierce and moviegoers of the time enjoyed.

Universal's first "talkie" horror film, Dracula (1931), eschewed elaborate horror make-up. Pierce designed a special color greasepaint for Bela Lugosi for his vampire character, but Lugosi insisted on applying his own make-up. For all film appearances of the character thereafter, Pierce instituted a different look entirely, recasting Dracula as a man with graying hair and a mustache. The most significant creation during Pierce's time at the studio was Frankenstein (1931), with Lugosi originally cast as the Monster. The preliminary design (from contemporary newspaper accounts and a recollection of the screen test by actor Edward Van Sloan) was similar to Paul Wegener's German film of The Golem (1920); this is not a surprising idea, since studio head Carl Laemmle Jr. and director Robert Florey were both familiar with German Expressionist films. However, there is some evidence that the Golem look was not actually used in a screen test Florey shot with Lugosi. Both Florey and Paul Ivano, his cameraman for the test, remembered that the makeup was not that different from what Boris Karloff would later wear. Florey's original script shows a sketch that is said to support this idea, along with Florey's handwritten notation that the monster should have electrical bolts on the side of the neck. However, there is no guarantee that the sketch and notes were really made at the same time as the screen test. Whether any aspects of the monster's look were based on other people's suggestions, it is clear that Pierce came up with a design which was horrific as well as logical in the context of the story. So, where Henry Frankenstein has accessed the brain cavity, there is a scar and a seal, and the now famous "bolts" on the neck are actually electrodes: carriers for the electricity used to revive the stitched-up corpse. How much input director James Whale had into the initial concept remains controversial.

Though Lugosi did not appear in Pierce's most famous film, the two would work together in future: they collaborated on the look of his devilish character in the film White Zombie (1932), for which Universal loaned out Pierce.

Collaboration with Boris Karloff

Pierce had a reputation for being bad-tempered, or at least extremely stern, but he had a good relationship with Bo. They both cooperated on the design of the make-up, with Karloff removing a dental plate to create an indentation on one side of the Monster's face. and Tom Savini. Jack Pierce was an innovator in the world of screen entertainment and material design. In 2003, Pierce was recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Make-up Artist and Hair Stylist Guild.

On May 15, 2008, a petition was launched to give Pierce a Hollywood Boulevard star for his work.

On May 30, 2013, Cinema Makeup School in Los Angeles dedicated a memorial gallery in honor of Pierce.

References

  • Relevant article on Jack Pierce
  • Frankenstein Monster Makeup video
  • Jack Pierce: The Man Behind the Monsters; Scott Essman article
  • John Stevenson's article on the make-up artist
  • Relevant article on Pierce's make-up creations
  • Jack Pierce article by James Bowles
  • Pierce's make-up transformations on Chaney Jr.

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