Dwight Frye
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Dwight Iliff Frye (February 22, 1899 – November 7, 1943) was an American stage and screen actor.
Frye was born in Salina, Kansas. Nicknamed "The Man with the Thousand-Watt 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 Browning's 1931 version of Dracula. Later that same year he also played the hunchbacked dwarf assistant in the film Frankenstein. (This character, named Fritz, is often mistakenly referred to as Ygor, a character originated by Bela 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 half-wit 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.
During the early 1940's, 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. He also made a contribution to the war effort by working nights as a tool designer for Lockheed Aircraft. Frye's 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 U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, but he succumbed to a heart attack while riding on a bus in Hollywood a few days before filming was to have begun.
Frye was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
[edit] Trivia
- The shock rock group Alice Cooper included a song entitled "Ballad of Dwight Fry" (without the final "e") on their 1971 album Love It to Death. It is sung from the point of view of a character such as the actor might have played.
- The music company Wind-Up Entertainment Inc. houses one music publishing concern called Renfield Music Publishing, and another called Dwight Frye Music, which publishes artists such as Evanescence and Creed.
