Did you know that a woman named Milicent Patrick designed "the Creature"—also known as Gill-man—the monster in the 1954 film The Creature from the Black Lagoon?
Her name and credit for her work were actively buried for decades, stolen by Milicent's boss Bud Westmore.
This whole thing about Milicent Patrick as the designer for the Creature is still controversial in some circles, even though there's abundant proof. After Bud Westmore died, Milicent came right out and said she designed the Creature. Chris Mueller, the artist who sculpted the Creature, and Ben Chapman, one of two actors who wore the costume, said publicly that Milicent created Gill-man.
Ben Chapman Interview with Classic-Horror.com
Jenn Dlugos: Now, who actually came up with the idea for the Gillman's costume?
Ben Chapman: Well, on paper, the artist was a woman named Milicent Patrick. She did the artwork. There's a gentleman named Chris Muller, who is the gentleman who sculpted my head. I give all the credit to supervising the costume to Jack Kevan. Jack has since passed on. But, he didn't get credit for it.
— Ben Chapman's website www.the-reelgillman.com
Bud Westmore was known for kicking his team out of the studio whenever a photographer was around so he could pose with others' work, but sometimes the visits were unexpected, like the one below.
Evidently, the first time Bob Westmore ever picked up a paintbrush. Let's watch as he pretends to paint while Chris Mueller is sculpting
And here's a photo of the design for the Creature before Milicent Patrick swooped in and saved the entire legacy of Universal Classic Monster
Here's Milicent Patrick's design that Chris Mueller sculpted for a quick comparison.
The film's entire cast are terrific actors, and I couldn't help but wonder how audiences would have reacted to the pollywog or any other design before Milicent Patrick came on board. I didn't have to wonder about it very long; some cursory research showed that Universal did a test shoot with the pollywog that was declared a disaster. However, a test shoot with Milicent's design gave the entire team precisely what they'd hoped for—a fearsome monster that audiences could still empathize with.
There are photos and first-hand accounts that Bud Westmore had nothing to do with the final creature design, and not only that, but he hated what Milicent Patrick created. Which one do you find more terrifying? Terrifying and well-designed clearly aren't the same thing here.
Artist: Milicent Patrick
Milicent was one of the first female animators to work at Disney Studios. She worked on Fantasia, and if you've ever seen it, you may remember this character.
As an aside, guess who pantomimed at Disney for the Chernabog animations?
From what I've gathered, Walt Disney himself personally picked out and hired Milicent, prior to her getting hired on at Universal by
The Jealous Thief: Bud Westmore
I've said enough about this guy already. I'll let the header on this section do most of the talking, but a few more points are worth mentioning.
A man named Jack Pierce designed many of the classic creatures we all know and love, like the 1931 Frankenstein played by Boris Karloff.
Jack Pierce was fired because of mafia-style pressure from the Westmore family to hire one of their own. After being fired, Jack Pierce only worked on low-budget indies, essentially blackballed from Hollywood. After a bit of Westmore infighting and a plot to make sure a Westmore with experience had a bad hangover the day of the interview, Bud ended up with the position.
So, how did Bud do? Well, you already saw the horror that was the pollywog. Think of those pictures of the pollywog you just saw. Now, watch this 2-minute video of Milicent Patrick's design in action. The mouth, jaw, and eyes all resemble a human enough that it seems like it could jump out of the screen. You can see the area of the gills actually moving, breathing.
That's not to say Bud necessarily had a hand in designing the pollywog—the history is a little unclear, and as we know, he was a credit thief—and the pollywog held true to producer William Alland's vision. Still, the pollywog didn't have the same realism as the rest of the Universal monsters. Bud, on his own, didn't have the skills to create anything worthy of being in the Universal Classic Monsters pantheon. He couldn't hack it. His background was in beauty make-up, and nothing he could ever do could compare to Jack Pierce, and he never stood a chance against the magnificent Milicent Patrick.
Obviously, the next best thing to having the actual skill and putting in the hard work to make something of your own is to pay someone else to do it and then steal it.
That's Bud's role in this story. A jealous thief with a powerful family. I've mentioned his name enough times already, and I won't do it again. He doesn't deserve it. If I need to refer to him again, I'll come up with a new alias each time, so I can do my part to ensure Mr. I Don't Know How to Hold a Paintbrush may eventually be forgotten by history.
0 Comments