Creature Feature

Ben Chapman as The Creature with Julie Adams
Ben Chapman as The Creature with Julie Adams

Ben Chapman wore the gill-man suit in Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) for all of the scenes filmed on land, while Ricou Browning portrayed the Creature in all the underwater scenes. In fact, Ricou Browning did the underwater scenes for all three Creature movies. In Revenge of the Creature (1955), Tom Hennesy played the Creature on land. Finally, in The Creature Walks (1956), Don Megowen was the creature on land.

Here’s a web site dedicated to Ben Chapman, with a tribute by Julie Adams, who starred in the original 1954 classic along with Richard Carlson.  Adams begins the tribute with:

Hard to believe that on February 21st, 2013, Ben Chapman will have been gone for five years. Ben was a kind and generous man, with whom I had the good fortune to work with on Creature from the Black Lagoon. I remember the first time I saw him in the Creature costume, I was terrified. But as the production wore on I gradually became used to him as the Gill Man. By the middle of the production I would greet him in the morning with a friendly pat on his rubber cheek and say, “Good Morning, Beastie.” Working on the film together became part of a lifelong friendship that many years later took us to horror conventions all over the country: Chiller in New Jersey, Monster Bash in Pittsburgh, Monster Mania in Philadelphia, too many to remember.

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One response to “Creature Feature”

  1. Lovely post, I love this kind of detail and sounds a wonderful movie, that I will check out.

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