Ben Chapman on Creature from the Black Lagoon

One of the most iconic of all movie monsters is the Gill Man from Universal's Creature from the Black Lagoon. Played on land by entertainer Ben Chapman: and under the sea by Olympiad Ricou Browning, the creature left its mark on popular culture to this day. I was fortunate enough to speak with Ben Chapman via telephone from his home in Hawaii recently. In just over an hour we covered a lot of ground and hopefully revealed a little bit of the complicated man behind the monster.

BEN CHAPMAN: How's the weather where you're at?

CLASH TV: (laughs) I don't really know, I haven't been outside much today. How about where you are?

BEN CHAPMAN: Oh it's terrible! It got down to around eighty!

CLASH TV: I love Hawaii! What island do you live on?

BEN CHAPMAN: I live in Waikiki. It's just beautiful here. I'm glad to be back. You know I went to Toronto to do a show last week... The Festival of Fear from a magazine called Rue Morgue.

CLASH TV: How was it?

BEN CHAPMAN: Oh man! I was swamped! Friday, Saturday, Sunday... I mean swamped! Big show! I mean never thought it would've been this big... I mean it was a huge show. Even Bill Shatner and Nimoy were there. Carrie Fisher... Linda Blair... little Verne Troyer... I actually wanted to take a picture with him but when I went by him he was swamped. By the time I got back to my table that was it! Friday, Saturday and Sunday from the time I walked in at nine o'clock in the morning until whenever we got off it was just people. Wall to wall people! I ran out of photos.

CLASH TV: It sounds like a lot of fun.

BEN CHAPMAN: Yes, and they were wonderful. The Canadian fans... they're a different breed of people. They're really nice people... not that Americans aren't... and the place they held it was like eight stories. Just huge! Of course I had to go by wheelchair... you know I have some health problems. It's not that I can't walk, but I get shortness of breathe. When they'd wheel me in there'd be people lying all over the floor waiting on line. The floors were carpeted and these kids would be all over the floors waiting to go in to see people speak. Then we'd go down to another floor and it would be packed! Then I get down to my floor and was just like a zoo! During the day you just couldn't walk around. It was wonderful! I'm not complaining! (Laugh) It was a blast.

CLASH TV: Festival of Fear is obviously a can't-miss for anyone who can go. How many appearances do you do these days? Are you scaling back?

BEN CHAPMAN: Oh yes. Oh my god yes, I'm scaling back. I'm only doing two or three... I can't remember... I did Toronto and next month I do San Fransisco on the fourteenth. One day at the Castro Theatre. It's strictly Creature from the Black Lagoon... Julie Adams and myself. They're going to show all three of the movies. The Great thing about it is the theatre... I don't know if you've ever been, but when I went to school movie theatres were huge with balconies... from the back of the balcony to the screen was just "Whoa"... and this is one of those theatres. Also, they're going to show Creature from the Black Lagoon in its original form using the double projector.

CLASH TV: Are they going to give out old-style 3D glasses?

BEN CHAPMAN: I'm not sure. I know they'll have to have something. I'm not sure who the process worked... the science behind it. I know they had to use two cameras because the 3D works the same way as your eyes... you know if cover one eye you don't have any depth perception, so they had to use two cameras. They came out one day and explained it all to us on the set while we were filming, but there was a lot going on. When you're making a movie it's hurry up and wait and there's lots going on. We were lucky because Creature was a movie that was perfectly cast. It was a rarity. Every body in there was perfect for the role that they played and they played it exactly as it should be. That's what made it great. We would show up every morning and say "Hey! Hi! How was last night?" Just like a big family. There were no egos. There were no shouting matches, just hugs and kisses. Just like a big family. That's why they could come out and explain things like the camera to us... we didn't have any problems on the set. It was very easy-going.

CLASH TV: Do you think that atmosphere is part of what made the film a classic?

BEN CHAPMAN: A lot of people ask me that. It really was a perfectly cast movie and everyone was so relaxed. It really came through on the screen. Like this... I would wake up in the morning, I lived in Malibu [California] and in those days there were no freeways and I had to drive over the valley and down to the studios. I'd wake up and eat breakfast and I couldn't wait to get to the studios. They were my other family. I'd spend a whole day with them and I'd come home to my other family. I really had two families.

CLASH TV: Was that the closest group you were ever with on a production?

BEN CHAPMAN: Oh yeah! We were all contractees... these were the great days of Hollywood when there were studios. Now there aren't any studios. Today everything is independent. Everyone makes a movie, they make twenty million dollars and the next day they set up off and they're a production company. There are no more studios. Back then the studio would own you and they were paying you to be part of their family. They would take you and send you to school... back in the forties, fifties and a little in the sixties you would see such great movie stars because the studio would take you and teach you how to walk... how to talk... how to dress... everyone went to school at the studio. The studio groomed you. Everyone who was under contract went to school and you shared that.

CLASH TV: I know that you started out as a dancer, Tahitian style in nightclubs.

BEN CHAPMAN: Yes.

CLASH TV: Actors always say how hard it is to act in makeup... on top of that you couldn't speak as the Gill Man. Do you think you dancer background helped you get the emotion across through movement?

BEN CHAPMAN: Sure... sure... when I first started with the picture itself Jack Arnold was the director you know, and he had just finished It Came from Outer Space... a big science fiction picture, and I'd heard that he was kind of a gruff guy. I'd always prided myself on being a professional... better than an amateur... there is a big difference... and I found Jack Arnold to be very professional. I mean he could be gruff, but you learn from people like that. I walked up to him and said, "Can I ask you a question," he said "sure". I asked him "How do you want me to play him"? An actor has to bring himself to the role, that's what you get paid for. Jack said, "Just don't make a cartoon out of him. I don't want you walking around CLUMP CLUMP CLUMP. Since he lives under water kind of make him glide on land." Kind of like a Michael Jackson Moon-Walk... but instead of backwards, forwards. But of course we didn't have the Moon-Walk then. I had to kind of glide with my feet, I couldn't lift my feet up. It was kind of hard because you're used to picking your feet up. I came in one day and he said "I've solved your problem." I said, "Oh... what's that?" and he said "You'll see." So the fins that I wore on my feet were actually boots that I wore up to my knees and they zipped up the back. When I put them on he had ten-pound weights in their soles! There were kind of flat, but they fit like the sole of a shoe. When I put them on and I'd want to pick my feet up the weight would remind me not to pick my feet up. So if you look, I kind of glided. But I still had to sit and think about what I was going to do for the role. Then it dawned on me that it was my turn. Lan Chaney in the twenties with The Hunchback, Boris and Bela in the thirties with Frankstein and Dracula, [Lan Chaney] Junior in the forties with the Wolfman... now comes the fifties and it's my turn. I don't want to fall on my face. I wanted to know what made them so successful and it took me a little while to figure it out. It was the beauty and the beast. There was always a woman. Even Dracula, Frankenstein... they all had women. I said AH! YES! That's it!

CLASH TV: Also, King Kong.

BEN CHAPMAN: Exactly! The misunderstood.

CLASH TV: You've also said many times that one of the great qualities of the film is that the Gill Man was not the bad guy. The other characters were the interlopers. The monster isn't really the monster.

BEN CHAPMAN: Today when you want to see Creature from the Black Lagoon you think bad guy. The monster killed people. No, no, no, no, no! He was not the bad guy. Did you ever see a movie called The Seven Year Itch?

CLASH TV: Of course.

BEN CHAPMAN: Remember Marilyn in that? She had a thing for the Gill Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. When she comes out from the movie theatre she has that line where they ask her what she thought of the movie and she says she felt so bad for the monster.

CLASH TV: I read in an interview you did that you met Marilyn after she did Seven Year Itch. Peter Lawford introduced you?

BEN CHAPMAN: Right. Peter was a very good friend of mine and I was at the house one day when Marilyn was there and... well... I was young...and I'd happened to go to see Seven Year Itch. When it [the creature] came up on the screen, I almost fell off my chair. She was under contract at Twentieth Century Fox, I was under contract at Universal Studios... now studios do not use clips from other studios' movies. Why would I use one of your clips when I could use one of my own? So it must have been very important to use one from Universal Studios. So when I happened to be at the house... she was there and I thought, well... I can't just go up and say "Do you know who I am? I was the Creature from the Black Lagoon". You can't do that. So I did this to myself and I still do it to this day... I say, "Okay Benny how are you gonna do this? How are you going to approach Marilyn Monroe and let her know that you were the Gill Man?" So we sat and talked and we talked about her work and I told her I especially liked The Seven Year Itch. She said, "You just liked when my dress got blown up over my head." The famous scene. I said oh no! I just loved the story, I loved the whole thing. I said, "Now that you brought it up you had just come out from seeing a movie in that scene. What was that movie again?" She said, "Oh, The Creature from the Black Lagoon." Okay... here I am... she just said Creature from the Black Lagoon... I'm standing right there! What am I going to say? But it so happens Peter was there and I tell him that we just talking about The Seven Year Itch and all that... Peter says, oh by the way Marilyn, Benny played the Creature. She turned around and looked at me and said, "You did." Now what am I going to say? I say, "Have you seen it?" She says she did. "And did you like it?" She says "Oh yes, very much." After that I didn't know what else to say. What do I say? I can't say, "Okay baby... now that you've seen it let's go re-enact it. Let me carry you around." (laughs)

CLASH TV: (laughs) Getting back to the Creature... There are so many reasons why the film is a classic, tell me about the Gill Man as a character.

BEN CHAPMAN: One of the big reasons the movie is a classic is because of the story. It's about a group of scientists who take an expedition to the lagoon. Richard Denning was the leader. There are scientists to this day who think man came from the sea, the lung fish has lungs because it could come on land and all of that. I don't necessarily believe it, but that's what some scientists believe and that's where the Gill Man came from. When these scientists get down there we made it in to a love story. When Julie goes swimming and the creature sees her for the first time and thinks "She has two arms and two legs" the creature falls in love with her. He didn't attack anyone when they got their camera and went under water. He only got mad when Richard Denning took a shot at him with a spear gun. That's what pissed him off. He did kill the two natives in the tent when the doctor took off but we don't know why. It could have been that they antagonized him or whatever. You have to remember that when we made movies in the forties and fifties we left a lot of it to your imagination. Not like movies today where you spell everything out. Creature from the Black Lagoon killed six people in the movie but you don't realize it because there's no blood, there's no dead bodies... everything is left to your imagination. That's why they were entertaining. Today when you go to a movie you want to come out and jump off a building! They're not as entertaining.

CLASH TV: Entertaining. That's a word that's important to you. I've seen you quoted as saying you're an entertainer, not only an actor. When did you decide you wanted to be an entertainer.

BEN CHAPMAN: I graduated from high school in San Fransisco I moved down to Southern California... and I come from a... how can I say it... an entertainment family. I had a cousin at Universal Studios...

CLASH TV: John Hall?

BEN CHAPMAN: Right! The movie star. That's how I got my contract at Universal. I served in the Marine Corps in Korea and when I got out in 1952 I went back to work dancing at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and some people came in from Universal Studios and they were going to make a musical short with Pinky Lee and Mamie Vandorn... well we shot this musical short and they showed it at the studio and one of the studio heads said "Who's that guy playing the chief up there?" They said, "Oh, that's Ben Chapman. His cousin is John Hall." They were thinking about brining back the movies that John used to make... all those movies about the South Sea Islands. They were going to put me under contract and then groom me to be the new John Hall. They put me under contract but I told them I still wanted to keep dancing at night. When you go under contract with a studio you're not allowed to work for anyone else, but that's another studio... they said I could work my nightclubs but not another studio.

CLASH TV: When did you stop working nightclubs?

BEN CHAPMAN: Well, I started making a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars a week. In fact I was paid three hundred to do Creature... about seven or eight solid weeks.

CLASH TV: I heard what you said to the Honolulu Weekly about the upcoming remake of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. You said you don't think classics should be remade... can you expand on that for me?

BEN CHAPMAN: When a movie becomes a classic... Frankenstein, Dracula, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca... all these movies are classics... I believe that when a movie becomes a classic it should be put on a shelf and left alone. That's why it's a classic. Leave it alone. Leave IT alone. It's been proven time and time again that they have remade movies and they're really bad when they come out. The night before last I happened to see Godzilla on TV... the one with... what's his name?

CLASH TV: Matthew Broderick?

BEN CHAPMAN: What a stupid movie! Did you see it?

CLASH TV: Oh yeah, I saw it when it came out.

BEN CHAPMAN: You know when there's that scene where helicopters are flying all around and they had all this fish and like twenty gun-ships and things and he's walking between these buildings and he's ten stories high and it's chaos in the streets and he loses his camera or something... his girlfriend took it or something and he goes to this store on the corner and he opens the door and the bell goes ding-a-ling-a-ling. The woman behind the counter smiles and says "May I help you?" He gets the camera and he walks outside... and when I watch a movie I watch what's happening in the background... and there's this push-cart selling hotdogs and stuff... there's one in the background with people getting hotdogs! It's like there's nothing going on. A block away is total chaos! Just a block away they've got gun-ships and he's knocking buildings over and one block away they don't hear it? I don't want them to do creature from the Black Lagoon because I know they're going to ruin it. We created a beautiful piece. My Gill Man was very unique looking... he was not threatening looking... not evil looking...
CLASH TV: You said that you wish toy companies would stop putting teeth on the Gill Man.

BEN CHAPMAN: That's right! What they think are teeth is actually part of my cheeks under the costume. You can actually see through part of the costume and they think those are fangs or something. The Gill Man was not an evil looking person, he looked just like a normal person but he had alligator skin or whatever you want to call it.

CLASH TV: You did a movie called Jungle Moon Men. It was your last feature credit I could find. Can you tell me about it?

BEN CHAPMAN: Well, that was a Jungle Jim picture. I was at a party one night and John Hall was there, my cousin, and he introduced me to this gentleman... Charles Schneer, a producer at Columbia Studios, and he used to do the Jungle Jim shows for Johnny Weissmuller. He wanted me for the part of a native... so I played an African. A young chieftain! (laugh)

CLASH TV: That's funny.

BEN CHAPMAN: It was funny! I get killed about fifteen or twenty minutes in to the movie. The moon men were all the little midgets you know. There were about twenty of them. Billy Barty and a whole punch of people. If you find Jungle Jim and the Moon Men it's a funny movie. But, I like the nightclubs... you know with the audience right there... you know movies are just... movies are a horrible. You know... hurry up and wait. Get there at five in the morning work until eleven at night and do two scenes. I gave up the business in 1960. I still went out on calls you know... but I wasn't knocking on people's doors... "Hey, you got anything for me?"

CLASH TV: Is that when you moved to Hawaii?

BEN CHAPMAN: I moved to Tahiti in 1970, I worked for the 7-Up Company for ten years, and a friend of mine came down to my home and I was all set... I had money in the bank, I didn't work... I had what most people were looking for. Get up in the morning and do what you want... fly where you want... well... it drove me crazy. I've gotta have something to do. I can not sit around. We look at these cruises... Carnival cruises... I would go nuts on one of those cruise ships.

CLASH TV: Is that when you went in to Real Estate?

BEN CHAPMAN: I went in to Real Estate and Timesharing. I'm one of those people who was born lucky. A friend of mine came down and we had the house all ready for him and the whole time he wasn't himself and I keep asking him why he came down. Finally, I say to him, "What's on your mind?" He tells me that he came to see me because he worked for a company that needed someone to take around big clients and things... show them a good time and all that... and he said "I know just the right guy." So he came to see me and he said he felt bad. He said that when he saw how I was set up he felt bad asking me if I want to do it. I told him I'd love to do it. He didn't know I was climbing the coconut trees at night! (laugh) So I took that position.

CLASH TV: I came across an interesting quote from you... "I can accept a yes or a no but I cannot accept a maybe" I think that's a very bold and interesting statement. Can you tell me exactly why you don't like "maybes".

BEN CHAPMAN: That's right. I can't stand it when people can't make up their mind. I want people to know what they want to say it. It's all about knowing what you want.

CLASH TV: Like Jack Arnold on Creature.

B. Yes. People need to be able to make up their minds.

CLASH TV: I want to thank you for giving me the time to do this interview.

BEN CHAPMAN: Oh, thank you. It was a pleasure. Aloha!

CLASH TV: Aloha Ben!