John Carradine

Future father of siblings who will experience various artistic successes (Chris Carradine, David Carradine, Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine), John Carradine was undoubtedly one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood. With nearly 300 films on the clock in more than sixty years of career, even surpassing his contemporary Christopher Lee and his some 200 films, John Carradine has shot everything, accepted everything, or almost. Marked by an industrial quantity of nanards and other shady Z series productions for the big and small screen, his career is nonetheless punctuated with several absolute masterpieces, shot with some of the greatest Hollywood directors of the time.

Born February 5, 1905 in New York, John Carradine -Richmond Reed Carradine of his real name- grew up in a wealthy household. Her father, William Carradine, is a correspondent for the Associated Press ; his mother, Geneviève Richmond, is a surgeon. At that time, few women had access to such a profession and level of responsibility. Growing up on the homestead in Poughkeepsie, John soon revealed his artistic inclinations. He studied painting and sculpture at the Episcopal Academy of Graphic Arts in Merion, Pennsylvania. In the early 1920s, he began to earn a living traveling the southern United States to sell his drawings. In 1925, he debuted on the boards in New Orleans, under the name of Peter Richmond, in "La Dame aux camélias", after Alexandre Dumas Fils. Moving to Los Angeles in 1927, he first worked in a small local theater. Then decides to respond to an advertisement for a job as a stage decorator for Cecil B. DeMille, who does not accept his candidacy. In 1930, he managed to take his first steps in cinema in front of Michael Curtiz's camera, playing a reporter (not credited in the credits) in Brights Lights .

For fifteen years, he went on to act as an extra and small roles in several dozen films, sometimes under the direction of important directors. Let us quote in this respect Cecil B. DeMille (The Sign of the Cross, Cleopatra); James Whale, for whom he stars in The Invisible Man and The Bride of Frankenstein; or Henry Hathaway in To the Last Man, in 1933. In 1935, he definitively took on John Carradine as his stage name. He proves, notably under the direction of the great John Ford, that he is far from being confined to the roles of foil; and this from 1936 with Marie Stuart. It is also the beginning of a rich collaboration between him and the director, which not only will flourish on eleven feature films until Cheyennes, in 1964, but will give birth almost every time of masterpieces. work: I do"Ford was a strange man" he would recall years later; "You had to know what to do with him. The actors were terrified with him, because he liked to terrify them. He was a sadist . "

With his slender figure (he measures 1m86), his aquiline nose, his emaciated face, his piercing gaze that he knows how to make disturbing, he does wonders in the fantastic films he has started to shoot since The Invisible Man by James Whale , in 1933. A genre to which he will remain attached, with more or less success, throughout his career. Until his final contribution to the big screen, in the very forgettable Buried Alive (1990) by Gérard Kikoïne, who had made a detour via the X box at the end of the 70s and 80s. With The House of Dracula in 1945, Carradine thus becomes the first actor to don the clothes of the count after the illustrious Bela Lugosi, and long before Christopher Lee. We can also mention other productions such as The House of Frankenstein, Revenge of the Invisible Man, The Mummy's ghost… In the same period, far from the Universal Monsters , he finds powerful roles in films which, if they can be taxed as works of propaganda because they were shot in the middle of the war, remain masterpieces. First with Fritz Lang, in the extraordinary Man Hunt (1941), where he gives the answer to Walter Pidgeon and George Sanders. Then at Douglas Sirk, where he plays the terrifying Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's right-hand man in Hitler's Madman (1943).

In the post-war years, he moved away from film sets to devote himself to his theatrical activities, which led him to Broadway, with plays like "Galileo" (1947) by Bertolt Brecht, " Volpone " (1948) by Ben Johnson,"La folle de Chaillot" (1950) by Jean Giraudoux or "The time of your life" (1955) by William Soroyan. In the following three decades, he alternated with more or less success the roles for the small and especially the big screen. He runs in all genres, from western (The Kentucky Man, by and with Burt Lancaster; Johnny Guitar by Nicholas Ray) to Peplum (The Ten Commandments) through dramas (Bertha Boxcar by Martin Scorsese; The Last Nabob Elia Kazan), the horror with the effective Howls, considered one of the best werewolf films; not to mention the comedy at Woody Allen (Everything you always wanted to know about sex ... but never dared to ask).

Good films, which unfortunately float in an ocean of uncertain artistic choices, where he runs the stamp in productions such as this Commando of the living dead; Star warriors, Bigfoot and other Nocturna. In 1982, he lent his voice to the character of the Great Owl in the superb animated film Brisby and the secret of Nimh, signed Don Bluth. It is Francis Ford Coppola who will offer him one of his last appearances at the cinema, in Peggy Sue got married, in 1986. The actor died of old age, on November 27, 1988, in Milan, at the age of 82 years .

Author: Olivier Pallaruelo