WEBVTT - Dwight Frye 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.080 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:13.440 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.400 I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Today's show 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.520 continues our tradition of Halloween Time episodes, where each year 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.800 we pick a classic horror actor to talk about. Uh 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:27.200 spoiler alert, though, I feel like it's fair to say 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.360 this one goes down a fairly sad path. Uh So, 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.720 just if you're not ready for that, maybe save this 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.879 one for later. But it is about one of the 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.479 lesser known horror actors that really helped make the genre 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.640 universal's great and money making success of the nineteen thirties, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.200 and I wanted to give him a little bit more 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.839 time in the spotlight because not many people know about him. 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:51.800 We are talking today about Dwight Fry, and if you 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.440 don't know his name, I think only people who are 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.600 really into old school horror might just know it off hand. 0:00:57.720 --> 0:00:59.640 So it's no shame in that game if you don't 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.040 know it, but you have probably seen at least one 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.400 or two of his performances. Yeah, I did not know 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.280 his name off hand when you sent this outline over 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:09.640 to me, but then when I went to look for 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.800 artwork for it. I was like, oh yeah, that guy, yes, 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.600 which I think is what most people do. So, uh, yeah, 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.720 he's he's due for a little more attention. So Dwight 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:24.280 Fry was born on February eighteen at ninety nine and Selena, Kansas. 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.880 He was the only child of Charles and Ella Fry. 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:30.880 They were farmers, and the Fries soon moved to Denver, Colorado. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.000 At this point. The family name was spelled f r 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.800 Y with no E at the end, and Dwight's mother, Ello, 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.440 was a devout Christian scientist, so Dwight followed in her 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.960 spiritual beliefs. He remained deeply religious throughout his life, and 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.640 Dwight was really artistic. As a child, he played the 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.480 piano and he's sang and at the age of nine 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.640 he envisioned a future for himself as a concert pianist, 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.000 and that really looked for a while like it would 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.160 indeed be his path in life. He was lauded by 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.960 teachers and audiences who attended his recitals as a genius 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:06.520 at the keys. Uh he really was. I think if 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.679 you would ask most people in Denver at the time, yes, 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:11.240 he was going to grow up to be a great, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:15.200 famous musician, but eventually he also began to give orations, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.320 something else he was quite skilled at. But then, once 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.040 he appeared in his high school's production of the stage 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:25.680 play The Honeymoon in June nineteen seventeen, acting became his 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.760 one true love as a performer, and by the time 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.440 he graduated from West Side High School in Denver, he 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.600 knew he was going to become an actor. This really 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.880 wasn't a very welcome shift in his interests, at least 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.560 in the view of Dwight's parents, because, as we said, 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.720 the family were very religious. They were kind of suspicious 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.280 of the potential depravity and debauchery that could be involved 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.200 in a career in acting. But even more than that, 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.839 acting just wasn't a career that had a high success rate, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.200 and the Fries really wanted their son to have a 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:00.200 stable life. So to soothe his parents fears, Dwight took 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.560 an administrative position with a business firm in Denver, but 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.240 at the same time he also took acting lessons from 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.160 Douglas Fairbank's former teacher, Margaret Feelely, and it was not 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.320 long before Feeley connected her pupil, Dwight with the manager 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.960 of an acting company who offered the aspiring actor a job. 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.399 The company was the Denims Stock Company and they operated 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.000 in a theater in Denver from nineteen thirteen and nineteen 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.440 thirty two. Every week, the troop put on a new play, 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:30.840 and their offerings ranged from religious holiday fair to melodrama 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.120 to straight comedy, and really everything in between. They did 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.960 ten performances every week and an evening show every night 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.480 of the week, with Mattenee's on Wednesday's, Saturdays, and Sundays. 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.680 Dwight made his debut at the Denim on June sixteenth, 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.840 nineteen eighteen, in a play called The Man from Mexico. 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.920 But while this may have seemed like an auspicious start 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.040 for an aspiring young actor, things really did not quite 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.320 go as Dwight Fry had hoped. He started out only 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.480 getting small, minor roles, which was to be expected, but 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.640 then he realized that as the company was fully staffed, 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.080 he wasn't likely to move into anything juicier, so he 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.280 quit and he enrolled in business school at the University 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.800 of Colorado. But he told the head of the company 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.240 that he would go back to their theater troop if 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.080 something better opened up, and something better did open up. 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.560 Just two months into his studies in business, one of 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.159 the other actors from the Denom left the troop to 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.279 fight in World War One. Dwight accepted the offer to 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.320 replace him, and when he rejoined the company, he started 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.080 using the f R y E spelling of his name, 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.080 basically because he thought it looked better in Brent than 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.600 the three letter version. Yeah, we don't know much about 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:42.479 the logic of it other than that, like why he 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.320 thought four letters in the laste was better than three, 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:47.480 But he did, and that was how his name was 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.560 spelled for the rest of his life. Reviews of Dwight's 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.560 acting were not exactly a bulliant. Initially, he was described 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.359 as forced and as having an unnatural eagerness on stage, 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.640 but it was also noted critics as the season went 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.359 on that he got better and better throughout it. I 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.960 understand this criticism. I feel like that could describe my 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:12.680 acting as a teenager just the same. The man who 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.919 had been running the Denim Company, O. D. Woodward, took 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.360 the entire theater company to Spokane, Washington, and he brought 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.480 Dwight along as the company juvenile. That meant that he 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.640 would play all of the young man roles in the 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.760 troops plays. This group actually debuted in Spokane just after 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.120 the World War One armistice, in the middle of the 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.920 flu pandemic, and initially they had to delay their opening 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.320 because they were quarantined to make sure that all the 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:41.839 players were, as Woodward promised, in the best of health. Yeah, 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.960 during that pandemic, people were encouraged not to be traveling about, 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:50.240 not not to be um, you know, in large crowded places. 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.080 So there was concern that these actors had just derived 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:55.839 from another place, and what if they were sick and 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:57.800 we all went to their play and everybody got really 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.680 potentially mortally ill. So they had a wait for several 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.919 weeks and just hang out in Spokane. But in Spokane, 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.560 Dwight was very well received, with one critic writing that 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.120 quote his heart and soul are in his work. He 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.719 acted in eighteen of the twenty one place that the 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.279 troupe put on that season, and even tapped into his 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.359 piano playing skills for some of his roles. But the 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:21.680 group actually splintered in the middle of the season due 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.799 to disagreements between Woodward and the theater's business manager. After 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.719 this run and Spokane Dwight made his way to Chicago 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.320 on the way to his ultimate goal of New York 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.800 and Broadway. He appeared in one play in Chicago, it 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.840 was The Dangerous Age, before he moved on to New York. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.520 Dwight's first work in New York was as a Vaude billion, 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.840 So he was touring various theaters on the circuit from 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:49.760 Montreal to Texas and very lighthearted sketches and musical numbers. Yeah, 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.320 he kind of felt like, that's fine, I'll pay my 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.400 dues before I get a big Broadway gig. I can 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.599 do vaudeville for a little while. His first leading role 0:06:57.600 --> 0:06:59.600 on the vaudeville circuit was in a play called La 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.640 La Lucille, which featured a couple who were in love 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.080 but would have to divorce so that the husband could 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.000 inherit his fortune. That's because the aunt who was leaving 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.680 him this money did not approve of his wife. This 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.080 is a musical comedy filled with wacky, mistaken identities and 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.200 cockamami schemes, but the start of the run was abysmal. 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.040 Dwight had been cast in the role without a lot 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:22.920 of time to repair, and that was true of the 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.840 other performers as well. Many of them just didn't know 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.400 their lines. One critic even called it ha ha Lucille, 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.400 and almost all of the early reviews panned the production. 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.119 Things did get better as the tour went on, though, 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:37.760 and it ran for ten weeks. Yeah, there are lots 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:41.520 of stories about how you could actually hear the script 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.160 people in the wings saying more of the lines than 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.720 the actors on stage, so they were trying to stage 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.800 whisper all their lines to them and it was echoing 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.320 throughout the theater. But it did get much better. Uh. 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.600 Dwight next signed on with the Merkel Harder Repertory Company, 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:01.200 which kept a really grueling tour schedule. The group got 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.880 Sundays off from performing, which was not the case with 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.800 a lot of touring companies, but they did two shows 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:08.880 a day every other day of the week, so they 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.840 were still doing twelve shows a week. But soon in 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.480 Mae Dwight took a job with a non touring stock 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:19.040 company in Massachusetts. So we've talked on the show before 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.880 about how really demanding the schedules of these kinds of 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.720 jobs can be. And in the case of fries Troop, 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.000 the Colonial players, they rehearsed in the mornings, a lunch 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.320 if they had time to, then went into makeup to 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.200 prep for a matinee, followed by the evening show. And 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.720 every week they opened a new play. Yeah so, uh, 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.640 I know we've talked about this before, but it always 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.480 is just a little bit frightening and leaves me in 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:44.640 awe to think about the idea that you're rehearsing a 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.240 new play every week as you're adding it to the 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:52.480 place you're performing in the evenings. It's exhausting. Uh. Dwight 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.440 was next lured back to Spokane by his former employer Woodward, 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.920 and his return was warmly received by theater goers. They 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.400 had actually really missed him. I mentioned earlier. He had 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.680 been really popular when he was there the first time, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.040 even though at that point a couple of years had 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.520 gone by. He was surprised at how warmly the audience 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.080 greeted him on his return. While Dwight enjoyed getting to 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.720 be the beloved returning actor, he still saw this as 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:21.240 a detour from his ultimate goal of Broadway. But he 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.480 also met a woman named Laura may Boulevard stage name 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.719 Laura Lee. In his second run in Spokane. Laura and 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.920 dwighte were cast as each other's romantic interests, and later 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.920 Dwight would comment that they basically got paid to fall 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.400 in love and they were very happy to oblige, but 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.839 they didn't stay together. They were both hustling to get 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.600 their acting careers started, so neither of them felt they 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.600 could really be tied down. Yeah, they called it quits 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.280 at the end of the season. So before we get 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:49.280 to the next stage of Dewyte's career, we're going to 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:50.920 take a quick break and hear from one of the 0:09:51.000 --> 0:10:02.280 sponsors that keeps this show going. After that second run 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:07.000 in Spokane, acting opportunities weren't exactly falling at Dwight Fry's feet, 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.320 so he decided to return to Denver briefly to visit 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:12.800 his parents and think things through, and he actually considered 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.640 quitting the theater and going back to business in a 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:17.839 surprising move. His parents were like, no, no, this is 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.160 your dream, do it, even though they hadn't been super 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.000 thrilled about acting initially, and before he could get to 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.240 attached to the idea of becoming a businessman, he went 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:28.960 back to Massachusetts and he joined the Colonial Players for 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.560 their ninety two summer season, and that proved to be 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.679 a very smart decision. One of Dwight's fans in Massachusetts 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.320 asked a connection from Broadway to come and see a 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:43.480 Colonial Players show and scout Dwight Fry, and the producer, 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:46.400 Brock Pemberton, was impressed with what he saw, so much 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.040 so that he signed Fry to a contract after seeing 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:53.120 him in exactly one play. Dwight finished the summer season 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.520 with the Colonial Players and then headed to Broadway to 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.680 appear in a play called The Plot Thickens. Dwight made 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.720 his Broadway debut on September five, and while the play 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.800 itself didn't get good reviews, Dwight did. The Plot Thickens 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.480 only ran for fifteen shows, but right after Dwight immediately 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.319 started a new play, The Absurdist Six Characters in Search 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.839 of an Author. The show had two test stagings, one 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.400 in Scarborough and Hudson and one for the incarcerated population 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.520 of sings In Correctional Facility. Then it opened on Broadway 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.800 on October and Fry got good reviews. The play ran 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.400 for a hundred and thirty seven shows, which was way 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.120 beyond its planned four a week run. Yeah, that was 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.160 not really a common practice to um go to a 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.679 prison and run a potential Broadway play as a test audience. 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.959 But brock Pemberton was a little bit outside the box 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.040 in his thinking. He was like, well, there are no 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.440 critics there, so we don't have to worry about that, 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:50.920 and I will see what an audience who actually wants 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.080 to be entertained thinks of this play, which is pretty 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.079 interesting in terms of like a thought process. Laura Boulevant, 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.200 Dwight's girlfriend from Spokane, had also made her way to 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.360 New York and she was working as a dancing girl. 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.440 Late nineteen twenty two was a great time for Dwight 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.560 Fry because his career was taking off. They were back together, 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.680 and he was in love. After six Characters in search 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.440 of an author, Dwight moved on to a comedy called 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.560 Rita Coventry, where he played one of the titular characters, 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.320 romantic Interests, who was also a musician. The play opened 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.480 at the Bijou Theater on February ninety three, and it 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.400 put Fry on the map. Reviews talked about how the 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:31.720 show dragged until Fry showed up, and then it became delightful. 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.120 The next morning, Dwight and Laura read the reviews together 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.920 over Breakfast, and based on the success of Rita Coventry, 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.120 brock Pemberton signed twenty four year old Dwight Fry to 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:46.160 a five year contract. From then, his career continued with 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:50.200 a series of other well received performances. He also returned 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.640 as a featured guest to the Colonial Players in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:55.720 in the summer of nineteen twenty three, and he was 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.480 the darling of that summer season. He even reprised his 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.760 role in read A Coventry with that stock company. The 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.400 musical comedy Sitting Pretty debuted on Broadway on April eighth, 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.440 nineteen four, and as the start Dwight delighted critics and audiences. 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.160 It was during this time that powerful critic Charles A. 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:18.360 Collins lauded Fry as the next John Barrymore. Yeah. At 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.080 one point he was actually put on the list of 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.480 like the the ten best Stars of Broadway, which was 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.680 pretty huge at the time. Uh In the melodrama Puppets, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.400 Dwight played a villain, a white slaver named Frank Mohacks. 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:33.400 This was a departure from the roles that he had 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.000 been playing up to that point because he had done 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:36.760 a lot of musicals and a lot of comedy and 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.760 light fare, and the critics and audiences adored him in 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.760 this villainous role. This was followed by the show A 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.840 Man's Man in nineteen five, which is a story about 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.439 a married couple who yearns for more in the ways 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.239 that their desires are twisted by others for their own designs. 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.360 While Dwight Fry had been lauded and praised for his 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.080 work up to that point, A Man's Man truly made 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.760 him a star there of views were all praise, and 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.000 Dwight called it one of his favorite roles. A Man's 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.640 Man ran for a hundred and twenties shows, and Dwight's 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.800 co star in the play, Josephine Hutchinson, later talked about 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.760 how immersed Fry would become in the role, and as 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:15.960 since he was method acting before that was a common 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.880 technique of actors. She once told writer Gregory William mank 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.680 quote Dwight would come into the theater and so hypnotize 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.280 himself into his role every night that I was afraid 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.600 he'd kill me. Yeah, he was. He was an immersion 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.560 actor all the way, beginning at the end of ninety 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:37.680 six and running well into Dwight was in a comedy play, 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.840 the title of which utterly charms me. It was The 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:45.400 Devil in the Cheese. This play a plot as nutty 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.520 as one might expect, with an Egyptian god appearing to 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.120 grant one of the characters a wish after that man 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.240 eats a piece of mummified two thousand year old cheese. 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:56.720 I feel like this is a cautionary tale about our 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:02.080 unearthed episode. In the cast, along with Dwight, Fry, was 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:04.800 also a foreign born actor whose career would end up 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.640 tied to Dwight's down the road, and that was Baila Lugosi. 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.720 Both Lugosi and Fry got the best reviews of the cast, 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.840 but they didn't become friends. After The Devil and the 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.800 Cheese ended its successful run, Lugosi went on to start 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.400 in the Broadway production of Dracula, and Dwight Fry went 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:22.440 on to a whole string of jobs, some successful and 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.920 some not, but he was consistently reviewed positively. Yeah, he 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:27.680 was one of those actors that even if the play 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:29.320 was a clunker, they would always go. But Dwight Fry 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.080 was great, Like he was kind of the saving grace 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.080 of a lot of shows in Dwight had great success 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.160 in Mima, this time as another villain, a very cruel 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.960 pimp with the nickname Alphonse the Spider. And the reviews 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.480 of that play, which was set in Hell and had 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.200 a constant swirl of rumors about how the entire cast 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.120 nearly had nervous breakdowns from the way that the rehearsals 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.120 had been run. We're Not Good I was not well 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.360 reviewed at all, but the dark nature of the material 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.320 and the spectacle of the production, it was one of 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.960 those shows where the sets were really lavish and expensive, 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.600 continued to draw audiences. It made a ton of money 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.480 and was a huge success, and it ran for a 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:11.920 hundred and eighty shows. On August first night, Dwight and 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.840 Laura got married, they honeymooned in Bermuda. Her career was 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.520 also really blossoming, and during the run of Mima, she 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.920 was in rehearsals and opening a Broadway show called Congratulations 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.520 that opened in April nine and it ran for thirty 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.920 nine shows. After a very successful in NY nine season 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.520 for dwightt in New York, he opted to once again 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.760 returned to the Colonial Players in July of nineteen twenty 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.880 nine for another guest engagement there, and at the end 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.680 of nineteen twenty nine, Dwight's Broadway career was undeniably successful, 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.680 but as the Wall Street Crash through New York into 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.880 a tailspin because a lot of the people that were 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:52.440 paying for Broadway tickets were suddenly without money, Hollywood beckoned 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.520 to a lot of theater actors. Dwight and Laura moved 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.160 to Los Angeles, and Dwight started acting in l a plays, 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:01.200 starting with Ropes And which was based on a nine 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.720 murder case. And just as he had in New York, 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.560 Fry received praise for his work and soon was making 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.480 a name for himself as a character actor. He also 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.479 appeared in a revival of A Man's Man. All that 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:17.119 positive critical attention that he was getting on stage paid 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.439 off when Dwight started getting his first film roles. He 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.760 first played a gangster in The Doorway to Hell in 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.760 nineteen thirty, followed by a larger role in Man to 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.240 Man later that same year. As nineteen thirty came to 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.680 an end, dwight fries life had two big events unfolding. One, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.080 he and Laura were expecting a child, and two he 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:42.280 was cast as Renfield in Universal's Dracula. Draculus started shooting 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:47.040 on September twenty ninety, and, just as with any other role, 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:51.000 Dwight really threw himself into it and the Bram Stoker novel, 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.280 the stage play and film were adapted from. Renfield is 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.480 described in the fictional Journal of Dr Seward in the 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:02.399 following way quote sanguine temperament, rate, physical strength, morbidly excitable, 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.000 periods of gloom ending in some fixed idea which I 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:10.000 cannot make out. And Fry's portrayal of Renfield is a 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.800 roller coaster of madness, from these really quiet and heartbreaking 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.720 weeping moments to wide eyed delirium driven by being in 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.919 this role of Lugosi's very seductive vampire. Fry in this 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.440 part always reminds me of kind of a clenched jaw, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.320 and I've always described it that way, and then I 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.080 was rewatching it prepping for this, and I realized it's 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.280 because he has this posture where he leans slightly forward 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:34.560 from his upper body and he is sort of like 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:38.159 clenching his jawn, pushing it forward. But he does that 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.399 physicality in such a way that that's just how the 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.720 whole role feels to me Laura traveled back to Spokane, 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.800 Washington to give birth, while Dwight stayed in Hollywood for 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:48.840 any reshoots that would be required at the end of 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.240 Dracula's production. Their son, Dwight David Fry, was born the 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.679 day after Christmas, December. Laura and the baby stayed in 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.720 Spokane for six weeks before heading back to Los Angeles 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.840 so that Dwight could meet his new son, who they 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.600 nicknamed Buddy. Yeah, she had been in Spokane because her 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.760 family was there, and because of shooting. She knew Dwight 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.119 would not necessarily be able to help her out a 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.080 lot and wait on her as she might need in 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.720 her recovery, So that's why she was in Spokane's for 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.280 so long. And we're going to talk about the release 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.920 of Dracula and the films that Fry worked on after 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.119 it in just a moment, But first we're gonna pause 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:35.120 for a little sponsor break. When Dracula was wide released 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.280 on Valentine's Day of it was an instant hit. It 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.879 sold out show after show across the country, and it 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:45.159 made Baila Legosi a star. And for Dwight Fry, it 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.240 got the attention of casting directors. He was cast in 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.040 supporting roles after it in The Black Camel and The 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:57.960 Maltese Falcon. Immediately following Dracula's opening success, then there was Frankenstein. Initially, 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.200 there was something of a false start. Dwight was called 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:05.160 in for a test by writer director Robert Floury Legosi 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.399 was in the same test as Dr Frankenstein's monster. Fry 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:11.680 was auditioning for the role of Fritz, who was a 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.159 hunchback dwarf who didn't appear in the original novel but 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.119 was added for the stage adaptation. Yeah, and then he 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:20.760 was included when that stage adaptation was adapted for film. 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.439 Flory's test for Frankenstein is something of a controversy in 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.800 film history. Floory always claimed that the test went great, 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:32.399 but stories have persisted that in fact, it was a 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.240 big problem. It was unintentionally comedic, and Lugosi was super 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:38.440 angry about the whole thing and felt that the role, 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.000 at least as it was written for that test sequence, 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.439 was beneath him, and so the movie fell through for 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.600 a variety of reasons. Dwight, in the meantime, had to 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.160 mortgage his car to make ends meet. But then former 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:54.280 podcast subject James Whale decided to take on Frankenstein. He 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.480 reworked the project, cast Boris Karloff as the monster, and 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:02.200 started shooting in August one. Fry remained in the role 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.439 of Fritz, stealing a brain for Dr Frankenstein's project and 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.800 then later taunting the monster mercilessly. As he had done 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.840 on previous roles. Dwight would not drop out of character 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:15.359 once he was in makeup, so he often frightened the 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:20.040 cast and crew just by sort of lurking around the set. UH. 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.240 This was in contrast to Boris Karlov, who if you 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:25.960 look around online for very long, you will find pictures 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:27.960 of this. But he took tea and he smoked, and 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.800 he played with animals in between takes, all in that 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:35.600 full monster makeup UH, and filming wrapped on October three, 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.199