Jack Pierce - The Man Behind the Monsters (10 page)

One of Jack Pierce’s career highlights in this time was a guest appearance on Ralph Edwards’
This is Your Life
for Boris Karloff in 1957. The unsuspecting Karloff and Pierce — who had flown in from the set of a B-Western,
Bullwhip
— showed their obvious affection for each other in reminiscing about their work together a quarter of a century earlier. Though the pair had not collaborated since 1944’s
House of Frankenstein
— in which Karloff played the mad doctor, not the monster — the bond that they forged on the first three
Frankenstein
films and the numerous horror classics of the 1930s remains an unprecedented teaming of makeup artist and actor. In the TV segment, Pierce gave Karloff a momento of their time together: one of the electrodes that Karloff wore on his neck as the Monster.

Among the special makeup assignments that Pierce received in the late 1950s and early 1960s were creating the animalistic characters in
Teenage Monster
(above, 1957),
Giant from the Unknown
(opposite 1958), and
Beauty and the Beast
(right, 1963). With detailed hair work, teeth and noses, many of these films showcased Pierce’s abilities but were far inferior to his earlier creations. Other independent films that Pierce worked on in this period included
Beyond the Time Barrier
(1960) and
Creation of the Humanoids
(1963).

When Jack Pierce was facing unemployment in his early 70s, his old friend from Universal’s Abbott and Costello films, director Arthur Lubin, offered him what was to be his last job. In the early 1960s, Lubin was directing the TV show
Mr. Ed
(overleaf) and needed a staff makeup artist. Pierce obliged and ran the department from 1961-1964, mostly maintaining the “straight” makeup on the actors, and occasionally getting a special task, such as aging Alan Young’s Wilbur character so that he could play his own father (overleaf, inset). Sadly, Jack Pierce was inactive in the last few years of his life. He passed away on July 19, 1968 and was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Jack Pierce’s last victim, Alan Young (top), fondly looked back on working with the makeup master during his final years. “Jack was very conscientious,” Young recalled. “He was a dear little guy, always good-natured, but he was very serious about his business. He really loved his work.”