"Turkey good! Football good! Lip-synching in Macy's Parade bad!" There's lots to say about arts and entertainment over the next few days. Let's start at the top, with Boris Karloff, born November 23, 1887 . The erstwhile William Henry Pratt labored as a truck driver, farmhand, and occasional character actor until 1931, when he landed the role of the monster in "Frankenstein." Even though he went unbilled in the original release of the movie, he became an instant star whose name was linked with horror until his death in 1969. In a nice coincidence, Forrest J. Ackerman, the man who became one of Karloff's best friends and biggest boosters was born a day later (albeit in 1916). Ackerman was the longtime editor of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine, and cultivated a love for monsters and psychological horror in a million youngsters in the 1950s and '60s. But we've only scratched the surface when it comes to entertainment. For example, in 1889, the first jukebox went into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. (We'll add that "juke" was slang for ... well, a "house of ill repute," and leave it at that.) This distant ancestor to the iPod contained a tinfoil phonograph with four listening tubes and a coin slot for each tube. So popular was it that it took in $1,000 in the first six months - a nickel at a time. Musical entertainment has evolved significantly in the century since. On Wednesday, we'll note the 142nd birthday of composer Scott Joplin. Joplin didn't invent ragtime music, but was one of its foremost composers, his "Maple Leaf Rag" virtually defined the era. Joplin isn't the only great artist who's an exemplar of his chosen genre. On Wednesday evening, PBS will broadcast an all-star concert celebrating the 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist for some of the best - and most important - musicals in theatre history. And on November 25, 1949, Robert May and Johnny Marks'  "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" made its debut/ Gene Autry's recording of the tune eventually sold more than 25 million records. If those are the heights musical genres can reach, we note what some might consider the nadir, represented by tonight's episodes of "Glee" (featuring Carol Burnett) and the (tainted?) finale of "Dancing with the Stars." (And we mention the 1871 founding of the National Rifle Association purely in passing here - in case someone wants to emulate Steven Cowan.) Music can have an effect even in the world of science. Wednesday is the 36th anniversary of Donald Johanson and Tom Gray's discovery of the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton that they named "Lucy," after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." The fine arts are also represented this week. Tuesday is the 118th birthday of Romain de Tirtoff, who, under the name Erté (taken from the French pronunciation of his initials) virtually defined the Art Deco style of the early 20th century, and Wednesday is the 146th birthday of French illustrator Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec captured the lives of the Parisian demimonde of the late 19th century. And while it's not exactly "art," the first issue of "Life" magazine was published in 1936. Over the next 36 years, the photojournalism magazine featured some of the finest photography in the world - though none of its photographers could have used a zoom lens until it was invented this week in 1948. In performing arts, Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play "The Mousetrap" opened in London's West End in 1952, and has been running ever since, making it the longest continuously-running play in history. (There was even a recent controversy over whether the surprise ending should be revealed on Wikipedia. It was, so if you go over there, consider yourself warned.). Pity movie producer John Woolf, who bought the movie rights to the play, on the condition that he not film it until it closed. Woolf died in 1999, but the play runs on. It sounds like a disaster almost profound enough to be filmed by producer Irwin Allen, king of such disaster movies as "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno," and whose 94th birthday would have been Wednesday. It could be a disaster, but not a cosmic mystery suitable for solving by Doctor Who, the venerable BBC television series that began broadcasting this week in 1963. Crime and criminals also figure into this week (like every week, probably). On November 24, 1971, D.B. Cooper skyjacked a Boeing 727, collected $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted out over southern Washington state, never to be seen again. We mention an odd birthday coincidence in passing. Wednesday is the 122nd birthday of motivational author Dale Carnegie, and Thursday is the 175th birthday of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Dale (whose last name was originally spelled "Carnagey") wrote the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (which is still a best-seller on the self-help charts, nearly 75 years after it was published). Andrew made his fortune in the steel business and ended up giving most of it away, endowing libraries, schools, universities, along with numerous charities and foundations. By 1919, he had given away over $350 million (about $4.3 billion in 2010 dollars), with the remaining $30 million distributed after his death that year. In animal events, President Obama is scheduled to give an executive pardon to a turkey on Wednesday, and Thursday (in addition to everything else) is the National Dog Show in Philadelphia. Lastly, we mention what is, for many, the most notable event of the week: Thanksgiving, with its attendant gorging, football. T-Day also brings us the Macy's Parade, which gives television viewers across the country the chance to watch b-list actors and singers lip synch to lousy music, and this year will feature such traditional holiday entertainers as Jessica Simpson, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots, and Kanye West. Truly a Thanksgiving smorgasbord! Suggested Sites... Karloff.com - the Master of Horror -- and the nicest guy in Hollywood, by all accounts. Biography of Scott Joplin - the King of Sedalia, Missouri. The Discovery of Lucy - and we don't mean Mrs. Ricardo. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - the complete works. Top 10 Disaster Movies - the more stuff blows up, the more we love 'em!

Directory categories: Movie Genres, Ragtime Musicians, TV Series, Paleontology, Thanksgiving Recipes

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Jack Pierce makes up Karloff as the Frankenstein monster (Photo by Jhayne) When I was growing up, I loved horror movies -- especially monster movies. I don't mean the gorefests that populate the screen today; the ones that substitute shock for real psychological terror. No, I loved the Universal monster movies that featured the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, Dracula, and, most of all, Frankenstein’s monster (or just "Frankenstein," as we called him in those days). Most of the reason for that love was Boris Karloff. In spite of how many people he murdered, tortured, or terrorized on camera, it was obvious that, behind the character, there was a decent and funny man who projected a real humanity. Karloff was born on November 23, 1887, as William Henry Pratt. As a child, it was expected he'd follow his brother into the British Foreign Service, but he developed a love of acting that took him first to Canada, then finally to Hollywood, where between gigs acting in silent films, he worked as a ditch digger and truck driver to pay the bills. When sound films came along in the late 1920s, his stage training (and British accent) helped him make the transition to talkies, but he was still mired in supporting roles like "Rev. T. Vernon Isopod" or "Sport Williams." Finally, in 1931, the role of a lifetime -- the Frankenstein monster -- came along, and even though he was unbilled at the time (the credits showed the Monster as being played by "?"), he had achieved screen immortality, becoming one of the few actors to be so well known as to be billed with just one name: "Karloff." It took Universal a bit of time to realize what an asset they had in Karloff. They lent him out to Warner Bros. for a memorable turn as a cadaverous gangster in the original "Scarface" and to MGM to star in the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. But once the box-office returns came in ($12,000,000 -- nearly $200 million today... that's before adjusting for the 25 cents audiences paid in 1931!), they took full advantage of him in such classics as "The Old Dark House," "The Mummy," "The Black Cat," and (best of all) "The Bride of Frankenstein" -- some 42 features over the next ten years. In 1941, Karloff left Hollywood to appear on Broadway in the comedy "Arsenic and Old Lace," playing another homicidal maniac -- one who’d had plastic surgery and now looked like -- Boris Karloff. Over the next three decades, Karloff alternated between stage, screen, radio, and television, shifting easily between comedy and drama. His integrity and talent were such that, even after the many times he had kidded his "horror star" image, he was still utterly believable when he did a straight role that would scare the pants off audiences. When he died at the age of 81 in 1967, his name was still the gold standard for the genre, (an accomplishment that no one else -- in any film genre -- has ever matched) and for some of us, it still is. Suggested Sites... Karloff.com - official site of the Karloff family, dedicated to the memory of the Master of Horror. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" - excerpt from one of Karloff's last great roles, narrating and playing the Grinch. Celebrating Boris Karloff, the Monster and the Man - introduction to a retrospective of Karloff's film career. Universal Studios Monster Movies - overview of the studio's horror films of the 1930s. Frankenstein Films: The Universal Pictures Series - reviews and synopses of the series that rocketed Karloff to stardom.

Directory categories: Boris Karloff, Horror Movies, Classi Hollywood Actors, Frankenstein, Actors

Archived under: 1930s, 1940s, Actors, Biographies, Birthdays, Boris Karloff, Celebrities, Entertainment, Horror, Horror Films, In Character, Monsters and Creatures, Movies

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