About Boris Karloff
Boris
Karloff (1887–1969), born William Henry Pratt in England, adopted the stage
name of Boris Karloff when he joined a touring company in Canada. When he ended
up short of cash in Hollywood, he secured acting work in silent films,
beginning in 1920. He appeared in eighty films before his big break came in
1931 when cast as the monster in Universal Pictures’ production of Frankenstein. On Broadway, he appeared
as the murderous Brewster brother in the hit Arsenic and Old Lace, and a decade later he enjoyed a long run in Peter Pan, perfectly cast as Captain
Hook. He was an actor also known for his voice work. He was the biggest star to
lend his voice to a sound effect: Universal added his anguished scream over the
dead Ygor from Son of Frankenstein
(1939) to its stock sound effects library and used it for subsequent films,
including House of Frankenstein
(1944) as the cry when Daniel the hunchback falls from the roof. He provided the
voice of the Grinch in the original 1966 animated film version of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas,
and his voice was the basis for Tony the Tiger commercials by Kellogg’s. He
also narrated many successful recordings of children’s stories. He won the
AudioFile Earphones Award for his reading of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, praised for his eloquent
locution and full repertoire of creature voices delivered in his “inimitable
style” And Library Journal says the
stories are “read to perfection by Boris Karloff.”