To get you in the mood for this post, watch a little of this classic movie from 1931 below:

We doubt there’ll ever be another actor whose portrayal of “Frankenstein” will equal Boris Karloff’s tender and sympathetic performance, but Karloff may have done too good a job: The English-born actor became synonymous with horror movies. He did some in the 1930s, added a few creepy films in the 60s, and providing the voice of the narrator and titular character in the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas “sealed the deal.”

In real life, Karloff was a private and modest man who lived a very conservative, circumspect life. He was kind and generous, and as a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933, he dressed up as Santa Claus every Christmas and gave gifts to handicapped children at a hospital in Baltimore.  He was also an animal lover whose pets includes a four-hundred-pound pig named, “Violet” (she always wore a violet bow and became as excited as a puppy when Karloff came home), “Elsie,” a large cow, a tortoise, a parrot, ducks, and Buff Orpington laying chickens. Karloff also had several Scotties, but his favorite dogs were his Bedlington Terriers which he bred (two of them were named, “Agnus Dei” and “Silly Bitch”). Pups were often given to friends, and many Hollywood stars had them.

The dogs usually roamed the house and shared the sofa with Karloff as he settled in to read for the evening.  Jeffrey Williams and Henry Brandon were often guests at the Karloff household, and Brandon recalled: “They had two Bedlington Terriers. The female’s name was ‘Silly Bitch’. Karloff poured Jeff a stiff Scotch and left him with the dogs in the library. The male, whose name escapes me, lifted a leg on a fine overstuffed chair. As it reached its apex, his eye caught Jeff’s, who wordlessly shook his head. The dog paused for a long moment. slowly lowered the offending leg and stalked out of the room.“

Another anecdote achieved legendary status in biographies of Karloff. As the story goes, Karloff was walking his Bedlingtons one day with his four-year old daughter, “Sara,” in Brentwood, California. The dogs broke free and ran up to an inebriated man stumbling down the street.  Suddenly, the drunk begged Karloff for a ride to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital after claiming that he’d “just seen three sheep bark!” Karloff obliged and drove the man to the hospital.”

See an interview with Sara Karloff here.

Bedlington Terrier art by Robert May
www.robertmayfinearts.com

Other images of Boris Karloff with his Bedlington Terriers were found on Pinterest.