Poster Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff in 1965
Larry Eliis

Flicks in Five: Boris Karloff

Flicks in Five: Boris Karloff

Does the name William Henry Pratt strike terror in your heart?

Probably not. That name does not sound nearly as mysteriously menacing as the Boris Karloff.

Karloff was born in London in 1887, the youngest of nine children. At first, he went to school at King's College London, where he had planned on going into the consular service, but he dropped out in 1909, working for about a year as a farm laborer until getting into acting.

In late 1909, he went to Canada, and appeared in various stage productions throughout the country. Sometime later that year, he changed his professional name to Boris Karloff.

Karloff is widely known for his roles in horror films, especially in the Frankenstein trilogy of movies — Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein. On this week's Flicks in Five, we'll hear some of Franz Waxman's score from the second film of the trilogy, The Bride of Frankenstein.

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