Thursday, February 21, 2008

Ben Chapman R.I.P.

Ben Chapman, the man who played The Gill Man (out of the water) in The Creature from the Black Lagoon, has died. A truly great guy that I had the pleasure of meeting many many times, he will sincerely be missed.

For more info about Ben click HERE.


Thanks to my friend Patrick for the news.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

awww shit that sucks. I meet him at a con one time too, very nice guy seemed like he was always smiling and happy.

Mr. Karswell said...

I met him at a variety of different conventions in LA too, one time he even had Julie Adams with him which was really amazing and I got my picture taken with both of them. We had a long chat the first time I met him and he even remembered me the second time I met him a year or so later as we had something in common; we had lived very near each other on Oahu (though at the time when I was there I didn't know it.)

So how many from the original wave of Universal monster men are left now?

Anonymous said...

TERRIBLE NEWS....... I'LL HAVE TO WATCH BLACK LAGOON TONIGHT NOW. ITS INTERESTING HE LIVES IN HAWAII, THEY SHOULD SPREAD HIS ASHES IN FLORIDA THOUGH WHERE THE BLACK LAGOON WAS FILMED.

B-Sol said...

Sad news...The last of the living Universal monsters. Hope you didn't mind if I blog about this one tomorrow Steve. I know we've been having those dueling posts lately lol....

Anonymous said...

Goodbye,Ben.you were one of the last great horror icons.this is really sad,him and Vampira in the same year,i have some work to do tonight,but im definitely going to spend tommorow watching the whole BLACK LAGOON series,even if he's just in the first one.feels like i lost an uncle or somenthing.

Mr. Karswell said...

>Hope you didn't mind if I blog about this one tomorrow Steve.

Blog like the wind Brian! The more people that know about Ben's passing the better...

>him and Vampira in the same year

You said it HP, and it's only February. If this is any indication of what 2008 holds in store for us then...

Anonymous said...

I just read somewhere that Chapman was the last guy alive to play a Universal monster, but Ricou Browning is still very mich alive, he portrayed the creature in the underwater scenes of all 3 creature films.

Anonymous said...

Given that I interviewed Ben for both Rue Morgue and Scarlet Street, if the mods allow it, I have posted an extended remembrance of Ben in my blog, available at this link: http://www.theglobalcollector.com/index.php/in-memory-of-original-creature-from-black-lagoon

Mr. Karswell said...

Thank you for sharing Michael!