JACK PIERCE

Jack P. Pierce (born Janus Piccoula) was a legendary Greek makeup artist and actor from the 1910s to the 1960s. He was born in 1889, and he emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s. It was not until the 1920s that he started working in the film industry, running through many different jobs, including acting and assistant directing. In 1926, he created the ape makeup for an actor in the movie "The Monkey Talks", and Carl Laemmle so loved his makeup ability that he hired Pierce to be a full time makeup man at Universal Studios. In the 1920s, Lon Chaney Sr. did his own makeup at Universal, but after Chaney passed away in 1930, Pierce was assigned the job of creating the makeup in the next major Universal horror movies, starting with Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931. His makeup on Karloff for Frankenstein was so well received that he became THE man for makeup through the mid 1940s. In 1946, after the studios had begun using latex masks (which could be created and put on quickly, as opposed to Pierce's makeup, which often took hours each day!), Pierce and Universal parted ways. He did not adapt to the new makeup methods, and had a series of jobs over the next couple of decades, ending with the TV show "Mr. Ed". He passed away in 1968.