Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Today's show
Speaker 1: continues our tradition of Halloween Time episodes, where each year
Speaker 1: we pick a classic horror actor to talk about. Uh
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, though, I feel like it's fair to say
Speaker 1: this one goes down a fairly sad path. Uh So,
Speaker 1: just if you're not ready for that, maybe save this
Speaker 1: one for later. But it is about one of the
Speaker 1: lesser known horror actors that really helped make the genre
Speaker 1: universal's great and money making success of the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to give him a little bit more
Speaker 1: time in the spotlight because not many people know about him.
Speaker 1: We are talking today about Dwight Fry, and if you
Speaker 1: don't know his name, I think only people who are
Speaker 1: really into old school horror might just know it off hand.
Speaker 1: So it's no shame in that game if you don't
Speaker 1: know it, but you have probably seen at least one
Speaker 1: or two of his performances. Yeah, I did not know
Speaker 1: his name off hand when you sent this outline over
Speaker 1: to me, but then when I went to look for
Speaker 1: artwork for it. I was like, oh yeah, that guy, yes,
Speaker 1: which I think is what most people do. So, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's due for a little more attention. So Dwight
Speaker 1: Fry was born on February eighteen at ninety nine and Selena, Kansas.
Speaker 1: He was the only child of Charles and Ella Fry.
Speaker 1: They were farmers, and the Fries soon moved to Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1: At this point. The family name was spelled f r
Speaker 1: Y with no E at the end, and Dwight's mother, Ello,
Speaker 1: was a devout Christian scientist, so Dwight followed in her
Speaker 1: spiritual beliefs. He remained deeply religious throughout his life, and
Speaker 1: Dwight was really artistic. As a child, he played the
Speaker 1: piano and he's sang and at the age of nine
Speaker 1: he envisioned a future for himself as a concert pianist,
Speaker 1: and that really looked for a while like it would
Speaker 1: indeed be his path in life. He was lauded by
Speaker 1: teachers and audiences who attended his recitals as a genius
Speaker 1: at the keys. Uh he really was. I think if
Speaker 1: you would ask most people in Denver at the time, yes,
Speaker 1: he was going to grow up to be a great,
Speaker 1: famous musician, but eventually he also began to give orations,
Speaker 1: something else he was quite skilled at. But then, once
Speaker 1: he appeared in his high school's production of the stage
Speaker 1: play The Honeymoon in June nineteen seventeen, acting became his
Speaker 1: one true love as a performer, and by the time
Speaker 1: he graduated from West Side High School in Denver, he
Speaker 1: knew he was going to become an actor. This really
Speaker 1: wasn't a very welcome shift in his interests, at least
Speaker 1: in the view of Dwight's parents, because, as we said,
Speaker 1: the family were very religious. They were kind of suspicious
Speaker 1: of the potential depravity and debauchery that could be involved
Speaker 1: in a career in acting. But even more than that,
Speaker 1: acting just wasn't a career that had a high success rate,
Speaker 1: and the Fries really wanted their son to have a
Speaker 1: stable life. So to soothe his parents fears, Dwight took
Speaker 1: an administrative position with a business firm in Denver, but
Speaker 1: at the same time he also took acting lessons from
Speaker 1: Douglas Fairbank's former teacher, Margaret Feelely, and it was not
Speaker 1: long before Feeley connected her pupil, Dwight with the manager
Speaker 1: of an acting company who offered the aspiring actor a job.
Speaker 1: The company was the Denims Stock Company and they operated
Speaker 1: in a theater in Denver from nineteen thirteen and nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two. Every week, the troop put on a new play,
Speaker 1: and their offerings ranged from religious holiday fair to melodrama
Speaker 1: to straight comedy, and really everything in between. They did
Speaker 1: ten performances every week and an evening show every night
Speaker 1: of the week, with Mattenee's on Wednesday's, Saturdays, and Sundays.
Speaker 1: Dwight made his debut at the Denim on June sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, in a play called The Man from Mexico.
Speaker 1: But while this may have seemed like an auspicious start
Speaker 1: for an aspiring young actor, things really did not quite
Speaker 1: go as Dwight Fry had hoped. He started out only
Speaker 1: getting small, minor roles, which was to be expected, but
Speaker 1: then he realized that as the company was fully staffed,
Speaker 1: he wasn't likely to move into anything juicier, so he
Speaker 1: quit and he enrolled in business school at the University
Speaker 1: of Colorado. But he told the head of the company
Speaker 1: that he would go back to their theater troop if
Speaker 1: something better opened up, and something better did open up.
Speaker 1: Just two months into his studies in business, one of
Speaker 1: the other actors from the Denom left the troop to
Speaker 1: fight in World War One. Dwight accepted the offer to
Speaker 1: replace him, and when he rejoined the company, he started
Speaker 1: using the f R y E spelling of his name,
Speaker 1: basically because he thought it looked better in Brent than
Speaker 1: the three letter version. Yeah, we don't know much about
Speaker 1: the logic of it other than that, like why he
Speaker 1: thought four letters in the laste was better than three,
Speaker 1: But he did, and that was how his name was
Speaker 1: spelled for the rest of his life. Reviews of Dwight's
Speaker 1: acting were not exactly a bulliant. Initially, he was described
Speaker 1: as forced and as having an unnatural eagerness on stage,
Speaker 1: but it was also noted critics as the season went
Speaker 1: on that he got better and better throughout it. I
Speaker 1: understand this criticism. I feel like that could describe my
Speaker 1: acting as a teenager just the same. The man who
Speaker 1: had been running the Denim Company, O. D. Woodward, took
Speaker 1: the entire theater company to Spokane, Washington, and he brought
Speaker 1: Dwight along as the company juvenile. That meant that he
Speaker 1: would play all of the young man roles in the
Speaker 1: troops plays. This group actually debuted in Spokane just after
Speaker 1: the World War One armistice, in the middle of the
Speaker 1: flu pandemic, and initially they had to delay their opening
Speaker 1: because they were quarantined to make sure that all the
Speaker 1: players were, as Woodward promised, in the best of health. Yeah,
Speaker 1: during that pandemic, people were encouraged not to be traveling about,
Speaker 1: not not to be um, you know, in large crowded places.
Speaker 1: So there was concern that these actors had just derived
Speaker 1: from another place, and what if they were sick and
Speaker 1: we all went to their play and everybody got really
Speaker 1: potentially mortally ill. So they had a wait for several
Speaker 1: weeks and just hang out in Spokane. But in Spokane,
Speaker 1: Dwight was very well received, with one critic writing that
Speaker 1: quote his heart and soul are in his work. He
Speaker 1: acted in eighteen of the twenty one place that the
Speaker 1: troupe put on that season, and even tapped into his
Speaker 1: piano playing skills for some of his roles. But the
Speaker 1: group actually splintered in the middle of the season due
Speaker 1: to disagreements between Woodward and the theater's business manager. After
Speaker 1: this run and Spokane Dwight made his way to Chicago
Speaker 1: on the way to his ultimate goal of New York
Speaker 1: and Broadway. He appeared in one play in Chicago, it
Speaker 1: was The Dangerous Age, before he moved on to New York.
Speaker 1: Dwight's first work in New York was as a Vaude billion,
Speaker 1: So he was touring various theaters on the circuit from
Speaker 1: Montreal to Texas and very lighthearted sketches and musical numbers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he kind of felt like, that's fine, I'll pay my
Speaker 1: dues before I get a big Broadway gig. I can
Speaker 1: do vaudeville for a little while. His first leading role
Speaker 1: on the vaudeville circuit was in a play called La
Speaker 1: La Lucille, which featured a couple who were in love
Speaker 1: but would have to divorce so that the husband could
Speaker 1: inherit his fortune. That's because the aunt who was leaving
Speaker 1: him this money did not approve of his wife. This
Speaker 1: is a musical comedy filled with wacky, mistaken identities and
Speaker 1: cockamami schemes, but the start of the run was abysmal.
Speaker 1: Dwight had been cast in the role without a lot
Speaker 1: of time to repair, and that was true of the
Speaker 1: other performers as well. Many of them just didn't know
Speaker 1: their lines. One critic even called it ha ha Lucille,
Speaker 1: and almost all of the early reviews panned the production.
Speaker 1: Things did get better as the tour went on, though,
Speaker 1: and it ran for ten weeks. Yeah, there are lots
Speaker 1: of stories about how you could actually hear the script
Speaker 1: people in the wings saying more of the lines than
Speaker 1: the actors on stage, so they were trying to stage
Speaker 1: whisper all their lines to them and it was echoing
Speaker 1: throughout the theater. But it did get much better. Uh.
Speaker 1: Dwight next signed on with the Merkel Harder Repertory Company,
Speaker 1: which kept a really grueling tour schedule. The group got
Speaker 1: Sundays off from performing, which was not the case with
Speaker 1: a lot of touring companies, but they did two shows
Speaker 1: a day every other day of the week, so they
Speaker 1: were still doing twelve shows a week. But soon in
Speaker 1: Mae Dwight took a job with a non touring stock
Speaker 1: company in Massachusetts. So we've talked on the show before
Speaker 1: about how really demanding the schedules of these kinds of
Speaker 1: jobs can be. And in the case of fries Troop,
Speaker 1: the Colonial players, they rehearsed in the mornings, a lunch
Speaker 1: if they had time to, then went into makeup to
Speaker 1: prep for a matinee, followed by the evening show. And
Speaker 1: every week they opened a new play. Yeah so, uh,
Speaker 1: I know we've talked about this before, but it always
Speaker 1: is just a little bit frightening and leaves me in
Speaker 1: awe to think about the idea that you're rehearsing a
Speaker 1: new play every week as you're adding it to the
Speaker 1: place you're performing in the evenings. It's exhausting. Uh. Dwight
Speaker 1: was next lured back to Spokane by his former employer Woodward,
Speaker 1: and his return was warmly received by theater goers. They
Speaker 1: had actually really missed him. I mentioned earlier. He had
Speaker 1: been really popular when he was there the first time,
Speaker 1: even though at that point a couple of years had
Speaker 1: gone by. He was surprised at how warmly the audience
Speaker 1: greeted him on his return. While Dwight enjoyed getting to
Speaker 1: be the beloved returning actor, he still saw this as
Speaker 1: a detour from his ultimate goal of Broadway. But he
Speaker 1: also met a woman named Laura may Boulevard stage name
Speaker 1: Laura Lee. In his second run in Spokane. Laura and
Speaker 1: dwighte were cast as each other's romantic interests, and later
Speaker 1: Dwight would comment that they basically got paid to fall
Speaker 1: in love and they were very happy to oblige, but
Speaker 1: they didn't stay together. They were both hustling to get
Speaker 1: their acting careers started, so neither of them felt they
Speaker 1: could really be tied down. Yeah, they called it quits
Speaker 1: at the end of the season. So before we get
Speaker 1: to the next stage of Dewyte's career, we're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break and hear from one of the
Speaker 1: sponsors that keeps this show going. After that second run
Speaker 1: in Spokane, acting opportunities weren't exactly falling at Dwight Fry's feet,
Speaker 1: so he decided to return to Denver briefly to visit
Speaker 1: his parents and think things through, and he actually considered
Speaker 1: quitting the theater and going back to business in a
Speaker 1: surprising move. His parents were like, no, no, this is
Speaker 1: your dream, do it, even though they hadn't been super
Speaker 1: thrilled about acting initially, and before he could get to
Speaker 1: attached to the idea of becoming a businessman, he went
Speaker 1: back to Massachusetts and he joined the Colonial Players for
Speaker 1: their ninety two summer season, and that proved to be
Speaker 1: a very smart decision. One of Dwight's fans in Massachusetts
Speaker 1: asked a connection from Broadway to come and see a
Speaker 1: Colonial Players show and scout Dwight Fry, and the producer,
Speaker 1: Brock Pemberton, was impressed with what he saw, so much
Speaker 1: so that he signed Fry to a contract after seeing
Speaker 1: him in exactly one play. Dwight finished the summer season
Speaker 1: with the Colonial Players and then headed to Broadway to
Speaker 1: appear in a play called The Plot Thickens. Dwight made
Speaker 1: his Broadway debut on September five, and while the play
Speaker 1: itself didn't get good reviews, Dwight did. The Plot Thickens
Speaker 1: only ran for fifteen shows, but right after Dwight immediately
Speaker 1: started a new play, The Absurdist Six Characters in Search
Speaker 1: of an Author. The show had two test stagings, one
Speaker 1: in Scarborough and Hudson and one for the incarcerated population
Speaker 1: of sings In Correctional Facility. Then it opened on Broadway
Speaker 1: on October and Fry got good reviews. The play ran
Speaker 1: for a hundred and thirty seven shows, which was way
Speaker 1: beyond its planned four a week run. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: not really a common practice to um go to a
Speaker 1: prison and run a potential Broadway play as a test audience.
Speaker 1: But brock Pemberton was a little bit outside the box
Speaker 1: in his thinking. He was like, well, there are no
Speaker 1: critics there, so we don't have to worry about that,
Speaker 1: and I will see what an audience who actually wants
Speaker 1: to be entertained thinks of this play, which is pretty
Speaker 1: interesting in terms of like a thought process. Laura Boulevant,
Speaker 1: Dwight's girlfriend from Spokane, had also made her way to
Speaker 1: New York and she was working as a dancing girl.
Speaker 1: Late nineteen twenty two was a great time for Dwight
Speaker 1: Fry because his career was taking off. They were back together,
Speaker 1: and he was in love. After six Characters in search
Speaker 1: of an author, Dwight moved on to a comedy called
Speaker 1: Rita Coventry, where he played one of the titular characters,
Speaker 1: romantic Interests, who was also a musician. The play opened
Speaker 1: at the Bijou Theater on February ninety three, and it
Speaker 1: put Fry on the map. Reviews talked about how the
Speaker 1: show dragged until Fry showed up, and then it became delightful.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Dwight and Laura read the reviews together
Speaker 1: over Breakfast, and based on the success of Rita Coventry,
Speaker 1: brock Pemberton signed twenty four year old Dwight Fry to
Speaker 1: a five year contract. From then, his career continued with
Speaker 1: a series of other well received performances. He also returned
Speaker 1: as a featured guest to the Colonial Players in Pittsfield, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen twenty three, and he was
Speaker 1: the darling of that summer season. He even reprised his
Speaker 1: role in read A Coventry with that stock company. The
Speaker 1: musical comedy Sitting Pretty debuted on Broadway on April eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen four, and as the start Dwight delighted critics and audiences.
Speaker 1: It was during this time that powerful critic Charles A.
Speaker 1: Collins lauded Fry as the next John Barrymore. Yeah. At
Speaker 1: one point he was actually put on the list of
Speaker 1: like the the ten best Stars of Broadway, which was
Speaker 1: pretty huge at the time. Uh In the melodrama Puppets,
Speaker 1: Dwight played a villain, a white slaver named Frank Mohacks.
Speaker 1: This was a departure from the roles that he had
Speaker 1: been playing up to that point because he had done
Speaker 1: a lot of musicals and a lot of comedy and
Speaker 1: light fare, and the critics and audiences adored him in
Speaker 1: this villainous role. This was followed by the show A
Speaker 1: Man's Man in nineteen five, which is a story about
Speaker 1: a married couple who yearns for more in the ways
Speaker 1: that their desires are twisted by others for their own designs.
Speaker 1: While Dwight Fry had been lauded and praised for his
Speaker 1: work up to that point, A Man's Man truly made
Speaker 1: him a star there of views were all praise, and
Speaker 1: Dwight called it one of his favorite roles. A Man's
Speaker 1: Man ran for a hundred and twenties shows, and Dwight's
Speaker 1: co star in the play, Josephine Hutchinson, later talked about
Speaker 1: how immersed Fry would become in the role, and as
Speaker 1: since he was method acting before that was a common
Speaker 1: technique of actors. She once told writer Gregory William mank
Speaker 1: quote Dwight would come into the theater and so hypnotize
Speaker 1: himself into his role every night that I was afraid
Speaker 1: he'd kill me. Yeah, he was. He was an immersion
Speaker 1: actor all the way, beginning at the end of ninety
Speaker 1: six and running well into Dwight was in a comedy play,
Speaker 1: the title of which utterly charms me. It was The
Speaker 1: Devil in the Cheese. This play a plot as nutty
Speaker 1: as one might expect, with an Egyptian god appearing to
Speaker 1: grant one of the characters a wish after that man
Speaker 1: eats a piece of mummified two thousand year old cheese.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is a cautionary tale about our
Speaker 1: unearthed episode. In the cast, along with Dwight, Fry, was
Speaker 1: also a foreign born actor whose career would end up
Speaker 1: tied to Dwight's down the road, and that was Baila Lugosi.
Speaker 1: Both Lugosi and Fry got the best reviews of the cast,
Speaker 1: but they didn't become friends. After The Devil and the
Speaker 1: Cheese ended its successful run, Lugosi went on to start
Speaker 1: in the Broadway production of Dracula, and Dwight Fry went
Speaker 1: on to a whole string of jobs, some successful and
Speaker 1: some not, but he was consistently reviewed positively. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was one of those actors that even if the play
Speaker 1: was a clunker, they would always go. But Dwight Fry
Speaker 1: was great, Like he was kind of the saving grace
Speaker 1: of a lot of shows in Dwight had great success
Speaker 1: in Mima, this time as another villain, a very cruel
Speaker 1: pimp with the nickname Alphonse the Spider. And the reviews
Speaker 1: of that play, which was set in Hell and had
Speaker 1: a constant swirl of rumors about how the entire cast
Speaker 1: nearly had nervous breakdowns from the way that the rehearsals
Speaker 1: had been run. We're Not Good I was not well
Speaker 1: reviewed at all, but the dark nature of the material
Speaker 1: and the spectacle of the production, it was one of
Speaker 1: those shows where the sets were really lavish and expensive,
Speaker 1: continued to draw audiences. It made a ton of money
Speaker 1: and was a huge success, and it ran for a
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty shows. On August first night, Dwight and
Speaker 1: Laura got married, they honeymooned in Bermuda. Her career was
Speaker 1: also really blossoming, and during the run of Mima, she
Speaker 1: was in rehearsals and opening a Broadway show called Congratulations
Speaker 1: that opened in April nine and it ran for thirty
Speaker 1: nine shows. After a very successful in NY nine season
Speaker 1: for dwightt in New York, he opted to once again
Speaker 1: returned to the Colonial Players in July of nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: nine for another guest engagement there, and at the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen twenty nine, Dwight's Broadway career was undeniably successful,
Speaker 1: but as the Wall Street Crash through New York into
Speaker 1: a tailspin because a lot of the people that were
Speaker 1: paying for Broadway tickets were suddenly without money, Hollywood beckoned
Speaker 1: to a lot of theater actors. Dwight and Laura moved
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles, and Dwight started acting in l a plays,
Speaker 1: starting with Ropes And which was based on a nine
Speaker 1: murder case. And just as he had in New York,
Speaker 1: Fry received praise for his work and soon was making
Speaker 1: a name for himself as a character actor. He also
Speaker 1: appeared in a revival of A Man's Man. All that
Speaker 1: positive critical attention that he was getting on stage paid
Speaker 1: off when Dwight started getting his first film roles. He
Speaker 1: first played a gangster in The Doorway to Hell in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty, followed by a larger role in Man to
Speaker 1: Man later that same year. As nineteen thirty came to
Speaker 1: an end, dwight fries life had two big events unfolding. One,
Speaker 1: he and Laura were expecting a child, and two he
Speaker 1: was cast as Renfield in Universal's Dracula. Draculus started shooting
Speaker 1: on September twenty ninety, and, just as with any other role,
Speaker 1: Dwight really threw himself into it and the Bram Stoker novel,
Speaker 1: the stage play and film were adapted from. Renfield is
Speaker 1: described in the fictional Journal of Dr Seward in the
Speaker 1: following way quote sanguine temperament, rate, physical strength, morbidly excitable,
Speaker 1: periods of gloom ending in some fixed idea which I
Speaker 1: cannot make out. And Fry's portrayal of Renfield is a
Speaker 1: roller coaster of madness, from these really quiet and heartbreaking
Speaker 1: weeping moments to wide eyed delirium driven by being in
Speaker 1: this role of Lugosi's very seductive vampire. Fry in this
Speaker 1: part always reminds me of kind of a clenched jaw,
Speaker 1: and I've always described it that way, and then I
Speaker 1: was rewatching it prepping for this, and I realized it's
Speaker 1: because he has this posture where he leans slightly forward
Speaker 1: from his upper body and he is sort of like
Speaker 1: clenching his jawn, pushing it forward. But he does that
Speaker 1: physicality in such a way that that's just how the
Speaker 1: whole role feels to me Laura traveled back to Spokane,
Speaker 1: Washington to give birth, while Dwight stayed in Hollywood for
Speaker 1: any reshoots that would be required at the end of
Speaker 1: Dracula's production. Their son, Dwight David Fry, was born the
Speaker 1: day after Christmas, December. Laura and the baby stayed in
Speaker 1: Spokane for six weeks before heading back to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: so that Dwight could meet his new son, who they
Speaker 1: nicknamed Buddy. Yeah, she had been in Spokane because her
Speaker 1: family was there, and because of shooting. She knew Dwight
Speaker 1: would not necessarily be able to help her out a
Speaker 1: lot and wait on her as she might need in
Speaker 1: her recovery, So that's why she was in Spokane's for
Speaker 1: so long. And we're going to talk about the release
Speaker 1: of Dracula and the films that Fry worked on after
Speaker 1: it in just a moment, But first we're gonna pause
Speaker 1: for a little sponsor break. When Dracula was wide released
Speaker 1: on Valentine's Day of it was an instant hit. It
Speaker 1: sold out show after show across the country, and it
Speaker 1: made Baila Legosi a star. And for Dwight Fry, it
Speaker 1: got the attention of casting directors. He was cast in
Speaker 1: supporting roles after it in The Black Camel and The
Speaker 1: Maltese Falcon. Immediately following Dracula's opening success, then there was Frankenstein. Initially,
Speaker 1: there was something of a false start. Dwight was called
Speaker 1: in for a test by writer director Robert Floury Legosi
Speaker 1: was in the same test as Dr Frankenstein's monster. Fry
Speaker 1: was auditioning for the role of Fritz, who was a
Speaker 1: hunchback dwarf who didn't appear in the original novel but
Speaker 1: was added for the stage adaptation. Yeah, and then he
Speaker 1: was included when that stage adaptation was adapted for film.
Speaker 1: Flory's test for Frankenstein is something of a controversy in
Speaker 1: film history. Floory always claimed that the test went great,
Speaker 1: but stories have persisted that in fact, it was a
Speaker 1: big problem. It was unintentionally comedic, and Lugosi was super
Speaker 1: angry about the whole thing and felt that the role,
Speaker 1: at least as it was written for that test sequence,
Speaker 1: was beneath him, and so the movie fell through for
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons. Dwight, in the meantime, had to
Speaker 1: mortgage his car to make ends meet. But then former
Speaker 1: podcast subject James Whale decided to take on Frankenstein. He
Speaker 1: reworked the project, cast Boris Karloff as the monster, and
Speaker 1: started shooting in August one. Fry remained in the role
Speaker 1: of Fritz, stealing a brain for Dr Frankenstein's project and
Speaker 1: then later taunting the monster mercilessly. As he had done
Speaker 1: on previous roles. Dwight would not drop out of character
Speaker 1: once he was in makeup, so he often frightened the
Speaker 1: cast and crew just by sort of lurking around the set. UH.
Speaker 1: This was in contrast to Boris Karlov, who if you
Speaker 1: look around online for very long, you will find pictures
Speaker 1: of this. But he took tea and he smoked, and
Speaker 1: he played with animals in between takes, all in that
Speaker 1: full monster makeup UH, and filming wrapped on October three,
Speaker 1: November twenty the film premiere through a series of soft
Speaker 1: openings before moving to the larger New York and l
Speaker 1: A markets, and that was done because Universal was actually
Speaker 1: concerned that it might be too frightening, and they wanted
Speaker 1: to see how it played in small release first. They
Speaker 1: didn't need to worry, though. Frankenstein was an even bigger
Speaker 1: hit than Dracula had been. But at this point, audiences
Speaker 1: who had never seen Dwight Fry a year earlier had
Speaker 1: now seen him in two horror films, both times playing
Speaker 1: mad men back to back. He might have been able
Speaker 1: to do it all on stage for musical theater to
Speaker 1: serious drama, but some movie goers he was only the
Speaker 1: sort of creepy madman henchman type person. Yeah, kind of
Speaker 1: bit him on the tail. Being as good as he was,
Speaker 1: Dwight had mounting pressure as a provider at home. His
Speaker 1: father had died and his mother moved to California to
Speaker 1: live with his family in the Hollywood Hills. And he
Speaker 1: did get work. He had a series of bit parts
Speaker 1: in medium success films, but he was already suffering from typecasting.
Speaker 1: In Threes The Vampire Bat he played a simpleton named
Speaker 1: Herman who kept bats as pets. Uh and Herman is
Speaker 1: wrongfully scapegoaded in the plot for a series of murders.
Speaker 1: It's very charming. I really love them The Vampire Bat
Speaker 1: Um And there is one of the best um shock
Speaker 1: takes in that movie ever by one of the actresses
Speaker 1: in a scene with Dwight Fry, in my opinion, and
Speaker 1: it is a parent from this movie that already Hollywood
Speaker 1: saw this multi talented and musically skilled actor, Dwight Fry
Speaker 1: in just the one way. He really missed getting to
Speaker 1: play different characters, so he started stage acting again. He
Speaker 1: started living something of a by Coast of life, traveling
Speaker 1: back and forth from l A to New York, touring
Speaker 1: plays and still working in film, although his film roles
Speaker 1: continued to generally be these creepy, weirdo characters. In a way,
Speaker 1: he was living two lives in the early nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: in l A. He had a typecast movie career, and
Speaker 1: then back on Broadway and in tours of the East Coast.
Speaker 1: He continued to impress theater goers with his range, but
Speaker 1: somehow he could never get these two worlds to intersect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so strange because he was so talented in so
Speaker 1: many ways, and it really come up doing comedy. So
Speaker 1: to then only get the one type of role over
Speaker 1: and over and over in Hollywood was really frustrating. But
Speaker 1: then he got offered a role as a good guy.
Speaker 1: It was still in a horror movie that's still fresh.
Speaker 1: Genre was all the rage at the time, and it
Speaker 1: was called The Crime of Dr Crespy. Along with Eric
Speaker 1: von Stroheim, although after the picture was finished, it kind
Speaker 1: of lingered for a while without a release date until
Speaker 1: it was finally put out in In the meantime, James
Speaker 1: Whale made his second Frankenstein movie, which eventually became the
Speaker 1: Bride of Frankenstein, and he conjured apart for Dwight by
Speaker 1: cobbling together three smaller roles. Dwight had really loved working
Speaker 1: with James Whale, so he was really happy to do
Speaker 1: another horror film with him as the character of Carl,
Speaker 1: for I got a chance to be comedic and scary
Speaker 1: and to have a really fabulous death scene. Whale's second
Speaker 1: Frankenstein movie was a huge success. Yeah. In interviews with
Speaker 1: Dwight Fry's son, his son will often talk about how
Speaker 1: he really credits James Whale was sort of saving them
Speaker 1: at a time when they were really desperate and he
Speaker 1: really needed acting work. And then he got cast, of
Speaker 1: course in Frankenstein. So yeah, he really thought the world
Speaker 1: of James Whale. Dwight's options on Broadway uh started to dwindle,
Speaker 1: so he started spending more time in Hollywood playing these
Speaker 1: bit parts and often wondering how actors who had stood
Speaker 1: in his shadow on the New York Stage had more
Speaker 1: successful careers when they moved out to California than he did.
Speaker 1: We talked in our James Wale episodes about the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven film The Road Back, which was heavily edited
Speaker 1: to avoid losing the German market because of its anti
Speaker 1: Nazi message. Dwight Fry had a bit part in this film,
Speaker 1: and just as Wales's film was cut down, so was
Speaker 1: Dwight's career. But it wasn't because of his involvement in
Speaker 1: this movie. He had just never really caught on as
Speaker 1: a screen actor that would be billed as a major player.
Speaker 1: Fry played an unsettling character on the l A Stage
Speaker 1: in eight in a play called Night Must Fall. His
Speaker 1: former director from Spokane, Washington, Odie Woodward, directed him in
Speaker 1: the part of a man who carried a woman's head
Speaker 1: around in a box, and that play ran at l
Speaker 1: A's Mason Opera House in May of that year. In
Speaker 1: the summer of nine, team thirty eight, the Regina Movie
Speaker 1: Theater in Los Angeles was really struggling. The sixt venue
Speaker 1: wasn't selling tickets, and in a desperate move, the manager
Speaker 1: e Mark Human booked a horror triple bill as kind
Speaker 1: of a stunt in the late summer. So starting in
Speaker 1: August of that year, they started showing Son of Kong, Dracula,
Speaker 1: and Frankenstein on one ticket. For some reason, this became
Speaker 1: one of the most popular tickets in Los Angeles, with
Speaker 1: lines around the block in the theater, running the bill
Speaker 1: at all hours and still selling out and turning away customers.
Speaker 1: I have a side theory about why this was so successful,
Speaker 1: and it harkens back to our air conditioning episode. So
Speaker 1: if you could pay for one ticket and get like
Speaker 1: five hours of air conditioning, wouldn't you do it? Sure
Speaker 1: would for movies that had been really popular already, so
Speaker 1: there was I mean a little bit of nostalgia. It
Speaker 1: was only like eight years for some of them, but
Speaker 1: I think that might have contributed to why that was
Speaker 1: so successful again August in Los Angeles. So this event
Speaker 1: really reinvigorated the careers of Lugosi and Karlov and Dwight
Speaker 1: Fry was hoping for a similar lift. He actually took
Speaker 1: his son to one of these shows, and he was
Speaker 1: a little bit disappointed that Buddy enjoyed himself, but was
Speaker 1: not the least bit scared. He was kind of hoping
Speaker 1: that Renfield would inspire just a little bit of terror,
Speaker 1: and instead his son just thought it was amazing and fun.
Speaker 1: Dwight was cast in Son of Frankenstein, which was funded
Speaker 1: in the hopes of cashing in on the new wave
Speaker 1: of interest in these older universal horror pictures, but by
Speaker 1: the time the film was edited, Fry's small part was
Speaker 1: completely removed from it. In one Dracula was staged in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles at the Bow Arts Theater, and for that
Speaker 1: stage production for I reprised his role of Renfield. He
Speaker 1: also continued to take bit parts in films, and he
Speaker 1: actually appears in a short film called Don't Talk, which
Speaker 1: was made in two and was nominated for an Oscar
Speaker 1: that year. But that was like a small bright light
Speaker 1: in a dimming career. He needed to make ends meet,
Speaker 1: so he took a job at the Douglas Eric Draft
Speaker 1: Factory and worked there as a tool designer at night.
Speaker 1: During the day, he continued to look for acting jobs.
Speaker 1: A really good acting opportunity came along when he was
Speaker 1: offered the role of Alexander Hamilton's in the Broadway play
Speaker 1: The Patriots, but he turned it down. He wasn't willing
Speaker 1: to leave the family or leave his job at Douglas
Speaker 1: during wartime. It was a really difficult decision though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's described by his son is like a very heartbreaking
Speaker 1: decision for him to make. Uh. And Dwight's last horror
Speaker 1: picture was Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. It was made in
Speaker 1: nineteen three, and that was followed the same year by
Speaker 1: two uncredited performances in Hangman Also Die and Dangerous Blonds.
Speaker 1: His wife Laura picked up work as a store clerk
Speaker 1: to keep the family afloat. Finally, in late nineteen forty three,
Speaker 1: there was a ray of light. Fry was cast in
Speaker 1: a Woodrow Wilson biopic that was called Wilson. This was
Speaker 1: it twentieth Century Fox. He had the smallest role of
Speaker 1: Wilson's Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker. But Fox was
Speaker 1: putting a lot of money into this movie. It was
Speaker 1: going to be their big offering of and it would
Speaker 1: be Fry's first color picture. Yeah, he was pretty excited
Speaker 1: that this was gonna kind of relaunch his career. And
Speaker 1: on the night of November seven, Dwight took his wife
Speaker 1: Laura and their son Buddy to the Pantageous Theater to
Speaker 1: watch an r KO double bill of a Lady Takes
Speaker 1: a Chance and Sherlock Holmes Faces Death. Sets in that
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes picture were actually from films that Fry had
Speaker 1: been in. There was a set in it from Dracula
Speaker 1: and another from Frankenstein. When the evening's entertainment was over,
Speaker 1: the family walked to a bus stop at Hollywood and Vine.
Speaker 1: They boarded the bus back home, but just after they
Speaker 1: got on, d White collapsed in the aisle. An ambulance
Speaker 1: was called. He was taken to Hollywood Receiving Hospital, where
Speaker 1: he died shortly after arrival. He was forty four and
Speaker 1: had been really hopeful that his acting career was once
Speaker 1: again about to get underway, but he had died of
Speaker 1: a heart attack. His death certificate was that his profession
Speaker 1: as tool designer in reference to this work he was
Speaker 1: doing in the aircraft industry. And while Dwight's death was
Speaker 1: a surprise to virtually everyone, he had actually known for
Speaker 1: a while that he had a heart condition. He had
Speaker 1: had two minor heart attacks at work at the factory,
Speaker 1: and he never told his family about them, and he
Speaker 1: swore his coworkers to secrecy because he believed that he
Speaker 1: would be healed through faith, so he never sought any
Speaker 1: medical attention. He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale.
Speaker 1: So it's a very sad end for Dwight Fry because
Speaker 1: he was very young, and I feel like he probably
Speaker 1: could have done a lot more interesting work. Uh. And
Speaker 1: like I said, I really enjoy him in a lot
Speaker 1: of movies, so I'm bummed that we don't have more
Speaker 1: of them. Uh. He It's kind of interesting. He had
Speaker 1: never in his life gotten fan mail, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: until after he died that his family started receiving fan
Speaker 1: mail for his work, so he kind of got recognized
Speaker 1: after he had passed, but not during his lifetime. Dwight
Speaker 1: for I, I'm sorry that was a bummer Halloween story.
Speaker 1: Well it's also one of those which it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it's going to be a bummer and then it
Speaker 1: suddenly is right because it seems like, I mean right
Speaker 1: at the end, it really seemed like it was about
Speaker 1: to turn around. Sorry, do you have some listener mail
Speaker 1: for us? That's maybe not a bummer? I do. It's
Speaker 1: it's more of a thank you than a listener mail completely. Uh,
Speaker 1: there is mail involved, but I'm not going to read
Speaker 1: it all. It is in tiny script, and I'm not
Speaker 1: confident that I will read it all correctly, but it
Speaker 1: is from our listener Jin. And Jin made a trip
Speaker 1: to the Melton Carnegie Museum and she very very kindly
Speaker 1: sent us a bunch of goodies. So we have um
Speaker 1: Melton Carnegie Museum bookmarks and pencils and pens and these
Speaker 1: cute little pocket note pads and even pencil sharpeners. And
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, the weight of my heart is through
Speaker 1: school supplies. So this is heaven. So thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Jan. It was an amazing little
Speaker 1: parcel to open. Uh, and I really really enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and I was glad that she kind of had this
Speaker 1: connection to history UH and Andrew Carnegie's history through our podcast.
Speaker 1: So I thank you very very much. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us, you can do so at
Speaker 1: History Podcast at houst works dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find us pretty much everywhere on social media as Missed
Speaker 1: in History and Missed in History dot com is where
Speaker 1: you can find show notes for any of the episodes
Speaker 1: that Tracy and I have worked on, as well as
Speaker 1: a full back catalog archive of every episode of the
Speaker 1: show that has ever existed, so we welcome you to
Speaker 1: come and hang out with us at missed in History
Speaker 1: dot com and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: Google Play, or wherever it is you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: how staff works dot com.