:22:01
but the equally unlikely contract player
Broderick Crawford was.
:22:05
Suggestions that "budget bobbysoxer"
Grace MacDonald portray Christine
:22:10
were quickly gagged.
:22:12
Phantom was now a million-dollar movie,
needing a million-dollar star.
:22:17
Universal's Invisible Man, Claude Rains,
:22:19
was between contracts
at Warner Brothers.
:22:23
In Hollywood, Rains
always projected urbane sophistication,
:22:27
but it was an image hard earned.
:22:29
I am always in awe
of how terribly elegant he was.
:22:35
He was one of 12 children.
:22:39
All but two died from
poverty-related illnesses in London.
:22:44
This was not an elegant upbringing.
He had a very strong cockney accent,
:22:48
which I couldn't understand
when he spoke with it.
:22:52
He also had
a couple of speech impediments.
:22:54
He couldn't say Rs.
:22:57
His name was William Rains,
so he called himself Willy Wains.
:23:02
He really transformed himself over
a long period of time into somebody else.
:23:06
And that was the person that I knew.
:23:09
Rains accepted the role of the Phantom,
with one special provision.
:23:13
He refused to wear an elaborate make-up.
:23:16
He dreaded being typecast in fright films,
:23:18
and had previously turned down the Basil
Rathbone part in Son of Frankenstein.
:23:25
The opera, of course,
always has its prima donna.
:23:29
When it came to Universal monsters,
there was only one contender for the title.
:23:34
The great Jack Pierce,
the dictator of all dictators.
:23:38
Nobody was ever late
at Jack Pierce's office.
:23:41
You never dared to be five minutes late.
When he said be there at 7.30,
:23:46
or sometimes 5.30 in the morning,
you had to be there.
:23:50
I was late once at Jack Pierce's office.
:23:53
The first and the last time.
I never did it again.
:23:57
Pierce's authority was never challenged
for a simple reason: