Benjamin F. Chapman

 Benjamin F. Chapman, Jr. (October 29, 1928 – February 21, 2008)

He was an actor best known as playing the Gill-man on land in the 1954 horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon. Chapman was selected as the Gill Man due to his large size at 6'5". His famous suit was made out of a foam-rubber body suit and a large-lipped headpiece. He cited horror film predecessors Lon Chaney Sr. in The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the 1920s, Bela Lugosi in Dracula and Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and The Mummy in the 1930s, and Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolf Man in the 1940s as inspirations to his character. In a 1993 interview, Chapman explained that there were really two actors who played the Gill Man. He was the creature on land; Ricou Browning was the actor in water sequences. After his movie days, he sold real estate in Hawaii. Over the last decade, he appeared at fan conventions and Hollywood memorabilia and autograph shows and was a fan favorite Ben Chapman died shortly after midnight on February 21, 2008 at the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was 79 years old.