John Carradine

John Carradine ( ; born Richmond Reed Carradine; February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was an American actor, considered one of the greatest character actors in American cinema. He was a member of Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, known for his roles in horror films, Westerns, and Shakespearean theater, most notably portraying Count Dracula in House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966), and Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula (1979). Among his other notable roles was “Preacher Casy” in John Ford’s The Grapes Of Wrath. In later decades of his career, he starred mostly in low-budget B-movies. In total, he holds 351 film and television credits, making him one of the most prolific English-speaking film and television actors of all time. Carradine was married four times, had five children, and was the patriarch of the Carradine family, including four sons and four grandchildren who are or were also actors. Early life Carradine was born in New York City, the son of William Reed Carradine, a correspondent for the Associated Press, and his wife, Genevieve Winnifred Richmond, a surgeon. William Carradine was the son of evangelical author Beverly Carradine. The family lived in Peekskill, New York and Kingston, New York. William Carradine died from tuberculosis when his son John was two years old. Carradine's mother then married "a Philadelphia paper manufacturer named Peck, who thought the way to bring up someone else's boy was to beat him every day just on general principle." Carradine attended the Christ Church School in Kingston and the Episcopal Academy in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, where he developed his diction and his memory skills from portions of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer meted out as a punishment. Carradine's son David claimed his father ran away when he was 14 years old. He later returned and studied sculpture at Philadelphia's Graphic Arts Institute. Carradine lived with his maternal uncle, Peter Richmond, in New York City for a while, working in the film archives of the public library. David said that while still a teenager, his father went to Richmond, Virginia, to serve as an apprentice to Daniel Chester French, the sculptor who created the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He traveled for a time, supporting himself painting portraits. "If the sitter was satisfied, the price was $2.50," he once said.