His real name was William Henry Pratt, but "Billy Pratt" on a marquee wouldn't have scared anyone. "Karloff" - that's something else. It's a name, picked from a Russian ancestor on his mother's side, which would eventually send chills down spines while raising heart rates for nearly 40 years as he appeared in a stream of spook-infested films with titles such as The Ghoul, The Ape, The Terror, The Raven, The Black Cat, The Walking Dead, Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher and more than 150 equally blood-curdling others. On those rare times when he did appear in a light-natured film like 1947's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, he still played characters which were mad as a hatter (in Mitty, a phony psychiatrist who tries to push Danny Kaye out of a window).

It all began, of course, in 1931 when Karloff played the monster in Frankenstein, essaying a role originally scheduled for Bela Lugosi of Dracula fame. Thanks to Frankenstein, after 15 years of playing bits, mashers, Indians, prison wardens and revolutionaries in some 80 films, Karloff was suddenly an "overnight" sensation. One year later came The Mummy, which sealed his reputation forever as Hollywood's logical heir apparent to the late Lon Chaney, who had proven how popular (and profitable) scaring audiences could be. Did being typecast as a chill-inducer bother Boris? Not a bit. He once said, "I'm content to be the villain in every piece because I know it is expected of me." He added, "I've played a few straight parts in pictures but the audiences were sure I was going to do something terrible and I think they were sorry I didn't."

The ironic thing, of course, is that off-camera, minus the monstrous makeup and flashing an evil eye in some poor soul's direction, he was known by his friends and costars as the kindest and most modest of men, and a consummate professional. (He even sidestepped taking credit for that landmark Frankenstein performance by insisting, "It was really [makeup man] Jack Pierce who created the monster - I was merely the animation in the costume." This month we'll let you be the judge of who most deserved credit for the spine-tingling work of our Star of the Month. We have 24 Karloff movies we'll be showing during the four Tuesdays in October including that unmatched Frankenstein and two of its sequels (plus the original The Mummy) on October 7; also three of his teamings with Lugosi on October 28. One thing you won't be seeing is Karloff as Kris Kringle or Father Flanagan. Parts like that never came his way. He once said, "I'm sure I'd be damn good as Little Lord Fauntleroy but who would pay ten cents to see it?" We're eternally grateful for those roles he did inhabit. As Fu Manchu, General Wu Yen Fang, Gruesome, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Frankenstein's Monster and all the many other mad misfits he played, nobody could have chilled us or delighted us more.

by Robert Osborne