Boris Karloff:
Not So Nasty...

In 1941 He Was on
Broadway Performing in
'Arsenic and Old Lace'

from Collier's Magazine, 1941

Illustrated with pictures of the famous actor/monster mowing his lawn and kissing his wife, this COLLIER'S MAGAZINE article tells the story of how an English boy named William Henry Pratt (b. 1887) became a famous Hollywood actor named Boris Karloff (d. 1969). This piece was originally conceived in order to promote the actor's appearance on Broadway in the roll of "Jonathan" in "Arsenic and Old Lace". The writer makes it quite clear to all that the show-biz career did not in any way come easily to Karloff and involved years of truck driving and traveling about performing in summer-stock theaters throughout the whole of North America before he was able to make a name for himself as a bit actor in the silent films of Hollywood.