Glenn Strange (August 16, 1899 - September 20, 1973) was an American actor who appeared mostly in Western films. He is best known for playing the Frankenstein Monster in three Universal films during the 1940's and for his role as Sam Noonan, the bartender on CBS' Gunsmoke television series. Strange was of Irish and Cherokee descent and was a cousin of the Western film star Rex Allen.
Strange was born some thirteen years prior to New Mexico statehood near Alamogordo in tiny Weed in Otero County west of El Paso. He was the fourth child of William Russell Strange and the former Sarah Eliza Byrd. He was a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Pocahontas and John Rolfe of Virginia.
Strange grew up in tiny Cross Cut (formerly known as Cross Out) in Brown County some fifty miles east of Abilene in west Texas. His father was a bartender and later a rancher. Strange learned by ear how to play the fiddle and guitar. By the time he was twelve, he was performing at cowboy dances. By 1928, he was on radio in El Paso. He was a young rancher, but in 1930, he came to Hollywood as a member of the radio singing group, Arizona Wranglers. Strange joined the singers after having appeared at a rodeo in Prescott in Yavapai County in central Arizona. His cousin, Taylor McPeters, known as Cactus Mack, was also part of the Wranglers.
Strange procured his first motion picture role in 1932 and literally appeared in hundreds of films during his lifetime. In the first Lone Ranger television series, he portrayed Butch Cavendish, who wiped out all of the Texas Rangers, but one, the role of Clayton Moore. He first appeared on Gunsmoke in 1959 and assumed several roles on the long-running program before he was cast as the bartender.
Frankenstein's Monster
Glenn Strange and Boris Karloff in House of Frankenstein. Make-up designed by Jack Pierce.
In 1942, he appeared in The Mad Monster for Producers Releasing Corporation. In 1944, Glenn was cast in Universal Studios House of Frankenstein as Frankenstein's Monster, a role created by Boris Karloff in the 1931 version of Frankenstein. Strange was coached by Boris Karloff for hours when they both appeared in 1944s House of Frankenstein. He recounted a personal anecdote in the documentary, Ted Newson's 100 Years of Horror (1996). On the movie set of Universal's House of Dracula (1944), Lon Chaney, Jr., got him extremely inebriated. In the climactic scene, Strange had to be stuck for hours in "deep quicksand" (which was actually cold mud) waiting for the cameras to roll. Chaney who had a day off recommended that alcohol would keep Strange warm as he wore the influencial Jack Pierce make-up for hours. Strange could barely get dressed after the days shooting. In the same documentary, Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner also recalled that House of Frankenstein and other black and white horror films kept Universal Studios financially afloat in the 1930s. Universal would have gone bankrupt without the various monster franchises, and thankfully for the Abbott and Costello films in the 1940s.
Strange went on to play the Frankenstein monster in two more Universal films, House of Dracula (1945) and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), with Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. He also played an ape-like monster in The Bowery Boys horror-comedy Master Minds in 1949, a film inspired by Abbott & Costello's hit of the previous year.
Boris Karoff's obituary in 1969 was run in newspapers with Glenn Strange's picture as Frankenstein's monster.
Gunsmoke (The Television Series): 1961-1973
Strange was 6 feet, 5 inches, and weighed 220 pounds. His first wife was the former Flora Hooper. He was married for thirty-six years (1937–1973) to his third wife, the former Minnie Thompson (1911–2004). The couple had two children, Harry Glenn Strange (born 1938) of Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Janine Laraine Strange. Strange died of lung cancer in Los Angeles just after declining health had compelled him to leave his role on Gunsmoke. Strange had from time to time collaborated on various tunes with western actor Eddie Dean, including the opening title song for Dean's Tumbleweed Trail (1942). Dean sang at Strange's funeral service as a final tribute to the actor. Glenn was interred at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery.
In 1975, two years after Strange's death, his Gunsmoke costar Buck Taylor named his third son "Cooper Glenn Taylor" after his friend Glenn Strange.
External links
Glenn Strange Biography and Filmography at the Internet Movie Database
Glenn Strange, the B western villain
TV.com biography
SSDI search information
Glenn Strange appears on Abbott and Costello's television program
Glenn Strange's Make-Up Recreated on You Tube
Persondata
NAME
Strange, Glenn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
Strange, George Glenn
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Actor
DATE OF BIRTH
Harry Glenn Strange (born 1938), Janine Laraine Strange
PLACE OF BIRTH
Weed in Otero County, New Mexico Territory, USA
DATE OF DEATH
1973-9-20
PLACE OF DEATH
Los Angeles, California, USA
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Strange"
Categories: American film actors | American television actors | Western film actors | 1899 births | 1973 deaths | Deaths from lung cancer | People from California | People from New Mexico | People from Brown County, Texas | American ranchers | American singers | American musicians
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