The swimmer, stuntman, actor, and filmmaker Ricou Browning departed this world on February 27, at the age of ninety-three. It was said Browning could hold his breath underwater for up to four minutes at a time, which turned out to be a highly marketable skill when it came to shooting the role that would become his forever claim to fame, 1954’s Creature From the Black Lagoon. Browning is the only actor to appear as the Creature (or “Gill Man”) in the film’s dreamlike underwater passages, shot partially on location in Wakulla Springs, Florida; actor Ben Chapman donned the green rubber suit for the “topside” scenes being shot back on the Universal backlot in California. (When you google “Ben Chapman creature,” the first thing to pop up is a famous picture of Browning in the suit, a grin effortlessly cracked, with the monster’s severed head under his arm.) Why does this distinction matter? Because Browning’s aquatic athleticism is what made the creature real, and therefore terrifying. Submerged, the Creature’s balletic, silent menace makes a harsh contrast with the lumbering bipedal amphibian seen aboveground: bug-eyed, mono-expressionistic, arms outstretched. With Browning goes the final link to the original era of “Universal Monsters,” which begins with Lon Chaney’s Quasimodo in the 1923 The Hunchback of Notre Dame and concludes with the Black Lagoon sequels Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).
