The Midnight Palace

Sara Karloff is the daughter of Hollywood legend Boris Karloff. Her father's contributions to not only the horror genre, but to cinema in general are disputed by none. As the head of "Karloff Enterprises", as well as the official Boris Karloff website, Sara enjoys hearing from her father's many fans from around the world. The growing website contains artwork, tributes, merchandise and just about everything related to Mr. Karloff. In his impressive career which goes all the way back to 1919, Mr. Karloff has played many characters. But in 1931, the star that we've come to know was born, with his portrayal of the Frankenstein monster. We recently had the opportunity to speak with his daughter Sara about her father, his credits and his life as a film icon. Sara has appeared in many documentaries and continues to participate in numerous events that showcase her father's work. You can click play on the player below to hear the audio stream from the interview, as well as read the transcription.

MP: I'm talking with Sara Karloff, who is the daughter of Hollywood icon Boris Karloff, who many people know as having played the Frankenstein monster, but whose career actually goes all the way back to the silent days. Sara, thank you very much for taking the time out to speak with me.

Sara: It?s my pleasure Gary.

MP: Your father's birth name is William Henry Pratt. When did he change his name to Boris Karloff and was there a specific reason he changed it?

Sara: Well the exact date that he changed his name I think is fairly cloudy. Nobody really knows exactly when but it was sometime during the years when he was doing repertory theater in British Columbia. The way he described the change was that "Karloff" came somewhere back in his mother's side of the family, way back, I've never been able actually to trace it, and he said that "Boris" simply came from thin air. It certainly turned out to be a very fortunate name for him, he didn't feel that "Pratt" was a suitable name for a marquee, for an actor to use.

MP: I understand that sometimes he was just credited as "Karloff"...

Sara: Once he reached a certain degree of fame or notoriety, he was billed simply by his last name and that really was an honor reserved for very very few actors at that time, and even today there are very few actors known just by their last name. It's quite an honor.

MP: It is very rare, I don't hear about it often.

Sara: No, and even at his time there weren't very many, Garbo of course being one of them. But if you look back in the history of film, there haven't been and there aren't today very many.

MP: He appeared in a few obscure silent films playing small, supporting roles, and roughly 80 films before his break in 1931 when he played the Frankenstein monster.

Sara: That's true. He did a great many obscure parts before he got his big break. He was a starving actor for many, many years. He spent ten years actually in British Columbia. He came across from England and sort of burgled his way in to a repertory theater group presenting himself as an experienced British actor, when in fact he'd only seen the plays he said that he had been in. He told the story on himself that when the curtain went up on his first performance, his salary was $30 a week and when the curtain came down on his first performance, his salary was $15 per week, because it was abundantly clear he'd never set foot on the stage before. But, at least he still had a job. But he learned his craft, they did three to five plays a week and he fortunately was a quick study, and he got excellent training in repertory theater in British Columbia for about ten years. Sometimes getting paid, sometimes not, he learned to drive a truck, dig ditches, worked for the British electric company, did anything it took to sustain himself while he was learning his chosen profession, Then he made his way down to the states and again did repertory theater, and eventually made his way down to Hollywood and he was in Hollywood as a starving actor doing bit parts, well first being an extra. Again, as he told on himself, he was the "fourth from the left in the third row" for many years, and eventually made his way up to doing bit parts - quite a step up from being an extra. Times again were still very very lean. After twenty years plus, he got his big break in his 81st film with "Frankenstein". It was a long, hard grind to become an over-night success.

MP: His roles after "Frankenstein" were also horror-related: "The Old Dark House", "The Mummy", "The Ghoul", "The Bride of Frankenstein", and he was in his 40's by this time. How did he feel about playing these kind of parts?

Sara: Well he was 44 when he made "Frankenstein", and he was 21 when he emigrated from England. But, he was passionate about his profession, he adored being an actor, he was a consummate professional, and he felt one of the questions he was most often asked was how he felt about being typecast. He felt that he was jolly-lucky to have developed a niche in his chosen profession. He felt it kept him a working actor, he felt that to be able to establish a trademark in his profession made him very, very lucky. His name and his face would come to mind when a role was available, a casting director would think of him when a role came up. That doesn't happen to all actors, there are many, many, many more actors then there are parts. So, if you have established yourself as a particular type of actor, you're really very lucky.

MP: I personally find it interesting that although "Frankenstein" was first made as a silent in 1910, your father has become the signature of that character. The original monster in the 1910 film looked nothing like the monster we know today, so in essence he "created" Frankenstein, just as Bela Lugosi created Dracula. Do you think your father had any idea that his Frankenstein character would become as iconic as it has?

Sara: Well actually Mary Shelley created the Frankenstein character and all those, including my father, that followed, are interpretations of her work. Kenneth Branagh and Robert Deniro's was an interpretation of it.

MP: In terms of resonating with the public the most...

Sara: Well, yeah I think my father's has the longest legs to stand on. It has become iconic. I think the reason my father made the decision to only play the character three times was that he felt that the scripts and the character had been developed as well as it could be, and anything that were to follow would be making the monster or the character, "the creature" as he referred to it, the brunt of bad scripts and bad jokes. He did not want to see that happen to the character, because the character had certainly been good to him. It certainly had made a pivotal difference in my father's life, both professionally and personally, and he did not want to be a party to its demise in to bad scripts and bad jokes. I think he was right. I think later films and later portrayals did in fact diminish the dignity of the character.

MP: What kind of off-screen camaraderie, if any, did your father have with the other horror icons of the day like Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr.?

Sara: Well, Bela and my father made, I think, seven films together and they had great professional respect for one another. They had different personal interests, of course Bela being Hungarian and my father being British, they had different off-screen personal interests but they had a great professional respect for one another. Lon Chaney, Jr. was that much younger than my father that they didn't socialize together and they didn't make that many films together. Lon Chaney, Sr. gave my father some very good advice. My father was a total unknown when Lon Chaney, Sr. was at the height of his career, but my father did have the opportunity to meet Lon Chaney, Sr. and he gave him some excellent advice, which was to find something you can do that nobody else can do, or nobody else is willing to do, and then do it better and leave your mark that way. I think that's exactly what my father was fortunate enough to be able to do when he was offered the role of Frankenstein, which of course would have been Lon Chaney, Sr.'s role had he not died so young, and had been offered to Bela and Bela turned it down. It fell to my father fortuitously and my father's portrayal did in fact become iconic.

MP: 1932's "Scarface" with Paul Muni, was a gangster film that your father had a part in, and he also played Master Sims in "Bedlam", 1946, and granted he played a heavy in that movie so to speak, but that one was set a few hundred years in the past. Did he approach these kinds of roles differently then he would say like a Frankenstein or a Mummy?

Sara: I don't think he approached the roles differently. As I said, my father was a very quick study and a consummate professional so he took his work very seriously. He was always on time on the set, he was willing to do whatever the role demanded, whatever the makeup demanded, and so I don't think he approached any role differently. I've read many, many articles about my father's work and its been written that no matter how weak a script might be, and I'm not referring to either of those films, but certainly later in his career some of the scripts were very weak, that his performance was always very strong. He always gave it his all. I don't think he approached any work any differently, one from the other.

MP: In the movie "Arsenic and Old Lace" from 1944, Raymond Massey's character Jonathan Brewster was a criminal who got surgery to change his appearance. More than a few times in the movie he was told "you look like Boris Karloff". Ironically, your father played the character of Jonathan Brewster on Broadway. Was that intentional?

Sara: Oh absolutely, that was a big joke, a big gimmick of the play. The writers Lindsay and Crouse approached my father to do that play, and my father said "Oh no no no no I could never do a Broadway play. I couldn't do that, I'd be scared to death, I couldn't do a Broadway play at all." They coaxed him and all but coerced him into at least going to rehearsal, and when they told him about the line, I think, in the play, he agreed at least to go to rehearsals and give it a shot. He said he was terrified. Here were these wonderful Broadway actors, and he was nothing but a Hollywood film star where you got take after take if need be. He said "oh he botched his lines, he botched his lines, and he was just awful in rehearsal." He was going to quit, he just couldn't do it and he took himself on a long walk. Everybody was wonderful and very patient with him during rehearsals, but he was just not doing it right at all, he felt, and he took himself on a long walk and talked to himself and he made the decision that he just absolutely could not let the other actors down like this. It was too good a play. So he went back and announced that he just wasn't going to do it, and they talked him into one more rehearsal, and he got through it. So he did do the play, and the wonderful joke in the play is that there he is doing that line on himself. The pity was that when the movie was going to be made, they wouldn't release him from the play. He was still under contract with the play, they wouldn't release him to do the film. So, that performance of my father doing that line on himself is lost.

MP: Now I know you said he approached all of his roles professionally and always gave it his all. Did he ever mention what film he enjoyed making the most?

Sara: No, not the most. I think at different times in his career, there were films for different reasons that he enjoyed tremendously. Obviously Frankenstein made such a difference in his life both, as I said before, personally and professionally. He had such respect and gratitude to that character. I know that he really enjoyed working with Val Lewton, on the three films he did with Val Lewton, certainly "The Body Snatcher", "Isle of the Dead" and "Bedlam". I know he thoroughly enjoyed doing "The Raven" and "The Comedy of Terrors" with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone because they had such a good time turning their boogeyman images around on themselves, spoofing their own boogeyman images. I'm sure they drove the director absolutely crazy with their antics on the set. I mean they just had the best time on the set, those men. Then of course "Targets", although it wasn't literally my father's last film, it certainly was his last film of merit. He enjoyed and admired Peter Bogdanovich, and enjoyed his creativity and enjoyed working with him and his monologue (or soliloquy) in that film, he gave it in one take and the whole crew stood up and applauded. What a wonderful exit line for my father, so that film meant a great deal to my father. I know "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", my father really enjoyed doing work with and for children, so that meant a great deal to him. So for different reasons, at different times in his career, he had things that meant a great deal to him professionally. "The Grinch" he won a Grammy for. When he was on Broadway, he loved doing "Peter Pan" and having the kids come back stage and try on his hook after each performance, from Captain Hook. He loved working with Julie Harris in "The Lark" and he was nominated for a Tony for that performance. So, although he's known iconically as Frankenstein and The Mummy, he did have a very varied career. He did a lot of Broadway, he did a huge body of work in radio, huge body of work on television with his series, and 170 films. That's an enormous body of film work. So, he was very, very fortunate to be able to work right up until the end in a profession that he adored, and then as he said, be "jolly well paid for it".

MP: Aside from his movies and all his professional work, how was Boris Karloff the father, the dad?

Sara: Oh he was a lovely, warm, funny, gentle, kind, articulate, well-educated, well-read human being. He was just a lovely man.

MP: I understand he was very quiet in real life.

Sara: Well, he was not boisterous, but he was a wonderful conversationalist and an even better listener.

MP: Did he ever take you on any sets with him while he was filming?

Sara: I visited several sets, yeah. But, his signature roles like "Frankenstein" and "The Mummy" were made before I was born. But I did get to visit several sets later on.

MP: You and your father both share the same birthday, November 23rd. What were those days like in terms of celebrating, was it a big family day?

Sara: No, not really because in his later years he'd moved back to England, because he was a British subject. But when I was a little girl, certainly.

MP: Is it true that he helped to found the Screen Actors Guild?

Sara: I think that probably was the work he was most proud of. He was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, his card number was number 9. Then he served on the board of directors for many years. He was very, very proud of those years working with the Screen Actors Guild. When the Screen Actors Guild was formed, it was really dangerous to the careers of those actors involved in the formation of it, because it was the formation of a union in opposition to the all-powerful studios. I can remember my mother telling me that they would hold meetings, the original members, and they'd park their cars blocks away from one another's houses and walk to the meetings. Then, at parties, couples would dance by one another on the dance floor and say "meeting Tuesday night at so-and-so's house" and dance on by. I mean it was all very hush-hush. But, that's over 75 years ago and SAG is as important today as it was then, and he was very, very involved with the formation of it and very proud of that work. My father was a very modest man, he never talked about himself, he didn't bring his work home, he certainly never talked about or criticized other actors. He just was a very, very self-evasing modest man.

MP: You mentioned that when they would hold their meetings, they would park their cars blocks away, and they would dance by each other and make mention of a meeting that was going to be held later. I also remember reading something that your father constantly carried a roll of dimes in his pocket.

Sara: I read that also.

MP: I believe it was to make phone calls pertaining to the Screen Actors Guild, because he thought maybe his home phone was tapped.

Sara: I've read that he carried a roll of dimes, but I don't think my father was paranoid.

MP: I think in today's Hollywood, it's safe to say that there are almost more remakes being made then there are original scripts. How would you feel about your father's movies being remade in present day?

Sara: Well, they've done remakes of "Frankenstein" and I think if it isn't broken, don't fix it. But at the same time, I think the real shame is that there are so many talented writers out there who have done some marvelous, original works and they never even get read by the people at the studios. They just do the remakes because they don't have to pay anybody, and I think there's so much untapped talent that never sees the light of day. I think it's a shame that the studios take the paths they take.

MP: I couldn't agree more.

Sara: There's just so much untapped talent and so many scripts that go unread, and to do these remakes, and I'm not criticizing the remakes, there was "Van Helsing", there's been remakes of "The Mummy", there's been the remakes of "Frankenstein" and I only speak of those because those are remakes of films I'm aware of. I'm not criticizing the remakes at all, or the quality of the remakes, but I just think there's just so much other material that will never be made, never be read, never be seen, so many opportunities that will never be given to today's creative genius. To remake things that are in the archives, they don't have to pay the same money, the studios don't, so I think that's a shame.

MP: Do you have any favorites among your father's lesser-known films that might have been overshadowed by the roles he's commonly associated with?

Sara: "Targets" is my favorite film, the one he made with Peter Bogdanovich, that was done in the late '60s.

MP: Now I know that you've also participated in a number of documentaries pertaining to your father, "100 Years of Horror", "The Frankenstein Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster", and you even had a part in the book "Children of Hollywood", written by Michelle Vogel. Do you enjoy having your hand in these types of projects?

Sara: Oh, I think it is such a compliment to the legacy that my father left. It has absolutely nothing to do with me, it is a compliment to my father's legacy and I gladly participate in it for that reason.

MP: I even believe the box set that came out a few years ago of "The Wolf Man", "Frankenstein", "Dracula", they even called them "The Legacy Collection".

Sara: Yes, and appropriately so.

MP: If you were asked to choose one thing that set your father apart, not only as a movie star, but as a person, what would you say?

Sara: Personal intregrity.

MP: That's actually become a rarity I would say, now.

Sara: Well I think we have dummied down on a great many fronts. We've lowered the common denominator and I think that's a great loss to humanity.

MP: As far as in entertainment, people sort of putting forth the bare minimum effort.

Sara: Well I think we've blurred the line between reality and entertainment.

MP: I would have to agree with you there. Would you actually consider the idea of a motion picture on your father's life story?

Sara: Oh I'd be delighted, but there's not a hook, there's no scandal, and people today need to be horrified, and my father was a gentleman.

MP: Do you have any personal or upcoming projects in the works?

Sara: My father had a line of comic books called "Boris Karloff Presents", there were 97 issues, and we are trying very much to find somebody to either re-publish them or to put them out in little story forms, or to add to them, or to do something with them, update them, digitize them, do something with them, and I hold the copyright to them. I'm working with an agent who is trying to help me find somebody to either do a compilation of them or an updating of them or an extension to them, anything modernizing them, additional stories for them using my father's name and likeness.

MP: You also run the official website.

Sara: I do, I have a website, it's www.karloff.com

MP: And that is part of a greater company that you run, Karloff Enterprises?

Sara: Karloff Enterprises essentially is to protect the legacy my father left. It's a licensing company, anybody who wants to use my father's persona, it needs to have the approval of the family simply to make sure that it's used appropriately.

MP: I think it's fantastic that his family controls that.

Sara: Well, it's appropriate, you know you don't want to see your family members' names on the bathroom walls. We'd love people to visit our website, we have a gift shop in there of licensed products, very often people send us their wonderful Karloff art and we post that in our "gallery" of artists, and many times I get wonderful letters about my father, his work or his influence on their lives and we post those in our "tribute" section. It's just a web page as a tribute to my father and to the fans.

MP: Once again, I'm talking with Sara Karloff, who is the daughter of Hollywood icon Boris Karloff, and Sara again, I'd really like to thank you for your time and wish you the best of luck in everything you do.

Sara: Thank you so much, it's been a great pleasure Gary and I thank the fans for their continued support and interest in my father and his legacy. The fans are just remarkable, if it weren't for them, there would not be this continued legacy of my father's, so I thank them very much. I'm going to be in San Francisco at the "WonderCon" the first weekend in March, and I'm going to be in Woodridge, Illinois the next to last weekend in October and at "Chiller Theatre" the last weekend in October, in New Jersey.

MP: I've been to Chiller Theatre a few times myself

Sara: Well it's a wonderful show and its run by Kevin Clement and it's a great show. So please visit our website and look under the "Appearance" section and that will tell where I'm going to be, when. I love to meet my father's fans.

MP: Again, that's www.karloff.com

Sara: Correct

I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to Sara Karloff for taking time out to speak with me. I'd also like to remind everyone to visit her official website and make sure to check out her upcoming appearances so you can meet Sara in person!