Name	James Whale
Date of Birth	July 22, 1889
Birthplace	Dudley, Worcestershire, England
Star Sign	Cancer
Died	May 29, 1957 (Aged 68)
Cause of Death	suicide - drowning
Nationality	United Kingdom
Occupation	Director
Celebrity Index	Ja
Claim to Fame	Frankenstein
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Trivia and Quotes

Quotes

A director must be pretty bad if he can`t get a thrill out of war, murder, robbery.

OTHER

[on Boris Karloff] His face fascinated me. I made drawings of his head, adding sharp bony ridges where I imagined the skull might have joined.

OTHER

[to Paul Robeson, upon hearing and seeing the "Ol` Man River" sequence in Whale`s 1936 film Show Boat (1936)] The spine-chilling effect of that one song was something I shall never forget.

OTHER

Trivia

Because Whale`s status as a director at Universal under the Carl Laemmle regime grew until he was given total control over his films, many of his films carry the credit "A James Whale Production", even though Whale never actually produced his films; the producing chores were always handled by someone else.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 1197-1202. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Columbarium of Memory, Niche #20076.

Life partner David Lewis found him dead in their Santa Monica swimming pool; he didn`t disclose the suicide note until close to his own death in 1987, leaving Whale`s death - up to that time - a mystery.

Personally responsible for selecting Boris Karloff as Frankenstein`s monster.

The painful last years of his life in Hollywood, where he was one of the few celebrities to live openly acknowledging his homosexuality, were depicted by Ian McKellen in Gods and Monsters (1998).

• James Whale and Melinda Whale

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