Monday, June 11, 2018

MILICENT PATRICK / Creator of Classic Fifties Universal Movie Monsters!

It's time to pay some respect to artist Milicent Patrick, she worked at Universal Studios in the fifties and was the amazing creator of three of their classic monsters!!... You go girl! Milicent was a commercial artist, fashion designer and illustrator of children's books when she was not acting in feature roles and television, she accumulated 28 acting credits including roles in WESTWARD THE WOMEN, WE'RE NOT MARRIED!, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET CAPTAIN KIDD, MAN WITHOUT A STAR, LUST FOR LIFE and THE PINK JUNGLE. She went steady with actor George Tobias for forty years, until his death in 1977!

First up is her Xenomorph from IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE in 1953, undoubtedly a real shocker when it showed up on the screen for the audiences that were lucky enough to see it originally in freakin' 3-D!!

Also in 1953, she designed the great monster mask for ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. Her design seems to be the model for the masks used in TARANTULA! and MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS.

Then in 1954, Milicent designs her most famous creation, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, which appears in a whopping three movies! Secondly, it gets its revenge, then thirdly, it walks among us! Behold!.. THE CREATURE!!

Wow, what an imagination Milicent had, really amazing concepts! In 1955, she designs the Metaluna Mutant that tormented Faith Domergue in THIS ISLAND EARTH. In my sophomore year in high school, I painted a Mutant head for an art show! I wonder what people thought when they saw it...

Here she is on the set touching up the Creature before its big scene.

Here she is at her art table with her creations surrounding her...

She got to hang out with people like Kirk Douglas while doing her illustrations!

We'll end with this photo, hey, Milicent loves monsters too!!.. Eegah!! warned me about Wednesday's post, I certainly wouldn't want to miss that one!

2 comments:

The Del-Aires said...

A huge thank you for this post! I've always felt she was a truly unsung hero at Universal and I know there is still a bit of controversy regarding how much of the final look for the Creature was actually due to her or Bud Westmore. (Personally I side with Milicent.)

Randall Landers said...

Lovely article about a wonderfully talented woman.

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