Jack Pierce

 Jack Pierce, born Janus Piccoula (May 5, 1889 – July 19, 1968)

Pierce was a Hollywood makeup artist best remembered for creating the iconic makeup worn by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (1931), along with various other classic monster make-ups for Universal Studios. Universal's first "talkie" horror film, Dracula (1931), eschewed elaborate horror make-up. Pierce designed a special color greasepaint for Bela Lugosi for his vampire character, but Lugosi insisted on applying his own make-up. For all film appearances of the character thereafter, Pierce instituted a different look entirely, recasting Dracula as a man with graying hair and a mustache. The most significant creation during Pierce's time at the studio was Frankenstein (1931), with Lugosi originally cast as the Monster. Pierce came up with a design which was horrific as well as logical in the context of the story. So, where Henry Frankenstein has accessed the brain cavity, there is a scar and a seal, and the now famous "bolts" on the neck are actually electrodes: carriers for the electricity used to revive the stitched-up corpse.

As the head of Universal's make-up department, Pierce is credited with designing and creating the iconic make-ups for films like Frankenstein, The Mummy (1932), The Wolf Man (1941), and their various sequels associated with the characters. Pierce eventually started using latex appliances, most notably a rubber nose for Lon Chaney, Jr. in The Wolf Man (1941) (the edges of the appliance are clearly visible through most of the film), and a rubber head piece for Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). Jack Pierce was unceremoniously fired from Universal in 1946, after twenty years of service. One theory for this is that Pierce resisted using the new technique of foam latex for make-ups, which was developed in the late 1930s. Occasionally Jack Pierce would land a job on a major production such as Joan of Arc (1948) or the Danny Kaye version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, for which he made up Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster for a daydream sequence, cut from the film. Pierce died in 1968 from uremia, at age 79. He is buried at Forest Lawn in Glendale.