Dwight Frye

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Dwight Iliff Frye February 22 1899 November 7 1943 was an American stage and screen actor noted for his appearances in the classic horror films Dracula Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein Frye was born in Salina Kansas Nicknamed The Man with the ThousandWatt Stare and The Man of a Thousand Deaths he specialized in the portrayal of mentally unbalanced characters including his signature role the madman Renfield in Tod Brownings 1931 version of Dracula Later that same year he also played the hunchbacked assistant in the film Frankenstein This character named Fritz is often mistakenly referred to as Ygor a character originated by Béla Lugosi in the later film Son of Frankenstein Frye had a prominent role in the 1933 horror film The Vampire Bat starring Lionel Atwill Melvyn Douglas and Fay Wray in which he played Herman a halfwit suspected of being a killer He also had a memorable role in the classic Bride of Frankenstein in which he played Karl The part of Karl was originally much longer and many extra scenes of Frye were shot as a sub plot but were edited out of the final version to shorten the running time as well as to appease the censor boards The most memorable of these cut scenes was that of Karl killing the Burgomaster portrayed by E E Clive No known prints of these scenes survive today but photographs of the scene were used to illustrate the scenes synopsis and are included in the recent Universal DVD release of the film During the early 1940s Frye alternated between film roles and appearing on stage in a variety of productions ranging from comedies to musicals as well as appearing in a stage version of Dracula In 1924 he played the Son in a translation of Luigi Pirandellos Six Characters in Search of an Author1 There was a Dwight Frye Fan Club at one time2 but it is currently dormant He also made a contribution to the war effort by working nights as a tool designer for Lockheed Aircraft Fryes strong resemblance to former Secretary of War Newton D Baker helped land him what would have been a substantial role in the biographical film Wilson based on the life of US President Woodrow Wilson but he died of a heart attack while riding on a bus in Hollywood a few days before filming was to have begun Frye was interred in Glendales Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery Description above from the Wikipedia article Dwight Frye licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia