Jack P. Pierce

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Jack P. Pierce , actually Janus Piccoulas (born May 5, 1889 in Valdetsyou , Greece , † July 19, 1968 in Hollywood , California ) was a Greek-American make- up artist in the US film industry from the 1930s to 1960s. He is famous as the creator of the classic horror film characters from Universal Studios , such as Frankenstein's Monster or The Mummy .

Life

Pierce's family emigrated with him from their native Greece to the United States at the turn of the century, they lived successively in the cities of New York City , Chicago and San Francisco , which they left for Los Angeles after the earthquake of 1906 . A short time later he fell out with his family, changed his name and began to hide his Greek origins.

In the 1910s and 1920s Pierce worked for various studios as a stuntman , cameraman and later, increasingly, as an actor in numerous silent films, in the 1920s also as a makeup artist. Then in 1928 he became head makeup artist for Universal Pictures. A short time later, the studio began filming classic Schauer novels. In the first film Dracula , he only designed the masks for the supporting roles, as the lead actor Bela Lugosi insisted on doing his own make-up.

The great success of Dracula resulted in Frankenstein 's direct successor , for the main actor Boris Karloff he designed the make-up of Dr. Frankenstein created monster. Pierce was to remain Karloff's masked artist until the 1940s and created, among other things, the Im-Ho-Tep mask for The Mummy . He was always responsible for the mask in the numerous sequels of the Dracula , Frankenstein and Mummy films in the 1930s and 1940s. He also developed the make-up design for the actors in the 1940 film drama The House of the Seven Gables in 1943 . The actors had to age significantly during the film. Pierce developed the Phantom's Mask for the horror film Phantom of the Opera , the only color film of its time at Universal, which is considered a further milestone in monster make-up.

Some time later, in 1947, Universal Studios separated from Pierce because no more horror films were to be produced there.

As a result, Pierce worked mainly for television and low-budget films , his last major work was the management of the make-up artist of the series Mr. Ed 1961-1964, before he died in 1968 almost forgotten.

In total, Pierce has worked as a make-up artist in well over 100 films, and his work received late recognition in 2002 with the documentary Jack Pierce: The Man Behind the Monsters .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Entry on Pierce on hollywood.com ( [1] , as of February 13, 2007, English ).
  2. ↑ a b c Biography Pierce 'in the IMDb ( [2] , as of February 13, 2007, English ).
  3. ^ Entry on Pierce in Gary Westfahl's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Film ( [3] , as of February 13, 2007, English ).
personal data
SURNAME Pierce, Jack P.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Piccoulas, Janus (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek-American makeup artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Valdetsyou , Greece
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1968
Place of death Hollywood , California