Sara Karloff

Thank you very much for having me.

Heavens, no. My father was... my father was the antithesis of the roles he played. He was an English gentleman, he was very funny, he was very, um, soft-spoken, he was very kind, he was... just could not have been more different than the roles he played. He did 20-some-odd, um, children's recordings: uh, Hans Christian Andersen, Rudyard Kipling, um, Just So Stories, all sorts of wonderful children's, um, albums. He was on Broadway in Peter Pan—hardly a monster, uh, although he did play Captain Hook.

Um, children loved to come backstage during, um, that play and try on his hook. Um, he... when he was in Frankenstein—uh, which, by the way, uh, was before I was born, thank you very much—um, he, he said the children got it. They understood that the monster or the creature was the victim and not the perpetrator.

And that all the mail he got, uh, during those years—well, all the mail he got from children, um, verified that. That they were not afraid of the creature, they understood him, they felt sorry for him, and throughout the years that I have been, uh, working to protect and, uh, really to extend my father's legacy, um, that's what I also have understood from fans. The children are not afraid, they understood that, that, that the creature was the victim. And so, no—my, the longest answer to your very, um, short question was, no, my, my childhood friends were, were in love with my father, as were all his fans later years.

He was indeed.

Um, uh, no and yes. Um, he said, um, that—and I, I've heard him in interviews, um, say that any actor who is lucky enough to be typecast is a very lucky actor. Um, he said, and most actors are indeed typecast in one way or another, if you're a, um, uh, dancing actor, if you're a romantic actor, if you're a comedian—no matter what you do in the theater or in film, you are in one way or another typecast. He said it was his bread and butter, although his, his career was very, very broad. He did, uh, comedy, he did, uh, Broadway, he did, um, much more than just Frankenstein and The Mummy, which of course were his two iconic roles. But, no, he did—he was grateful for being typecast, and he really felt that he was very lucky to be so.

Um, uh, Frankenstein was his 81st film.

And, and he said hardly anyone saw the first 80.

That's right. My father was not invited to the premiere, and of course Colin Clive was, um, intended to be the star of the film, and, um, uh, it was, everybody, to everybody's surprise that the, the creature or the monster turned out to be the star. And, um, of course nobody knew what my father looked like, uh, behind all that magnificent, uh, makeup of Jack Pierce's. And so, when he... he hadn't seen the film in its entirety, of course, because he was busy getting the makeup removed when they would run the, run the, the daily shots. So he hadn't seen it, and, um, while it was, of course, running all over the country, my mother and he, uh, went up to San Francisco, and it was playing there. And they, uh, my mother was a graduate of UC Berkeley, and so they were meet—meeting a friend of, um, sorority sister of my mother's up there at the time. And my mother's name was Dorothy and her nickname was Dot. And so they walked into this theater, of course unrecognized, and they sat there, and when the scene played when my father turns around in the, in the doorway, her, her sorority sister, my mother's sorority sister, screamed out, "Oh my god, Dot, how could you possibly live with such a creature?" whereupon they were escorted out of the theater. So even then, that he didn't get a chance to see the whole film. And because of course nobody knew who he was when he was escorted out of the theater.

Yes.

Well, you know, I'm not quite sure what creaking means. Um, or what, that's why I wrote—

I know. I know.

I know. And I'm so anxious to see it.

Well, I think there are a lot of messages in this film. Kindness over, um, viciousness or—

—cruelty.

Um, but I think the biggest message is, um, man playing God—

—is a mistake.

Um, I think that is the biggest message from the film—

—um, the one that one carries away from, after seeing the film. But I think there... I think there are individual messages that people carry away: personal messages, um, love messages, fear messages. I've been asked, um, why people enjoy being frightened, and I'm still struggling with an answer to that question.

Um, I don't... I don't have an answer to that. But I think that's one of the messages that this film asks of people: why do you enjoy being frightened? And this in part is a frightening film. A frightening concept of man playing God. Um, why do people enjoy this?

And it is a huge question to be answered.

Well, I look forward to doing this in person.

Good. I look forward to it, and thank you for having me on.