Jack Pierce should be a household name, but he isn't. If you work in makeup effects in Hollywood, he would probably be one of your idols. However, his story is a tragic story of what can happen if you don't update yourself with the times.
Jack Pierce was born in Greece in 1889 as Janus Piccoula. He emigrated to the US in his teens and tried odd jobs, even trying amateur baseball. He eventually found his way into doing small jobs in Hollywood: actor, assistant director, stuntman, etc. But he knew that he would never be a big star because of his small stature, so in the 1920's, he focused on working with makeups for other actors. His star as a makeup effects guru was made when he created the famous face for actor Conrad Veidt in the title role of the film The Man Who Laughs, which is still a disturbing facial makeup to this day. He was then hired fulltime by Universal Pictures. Universal had made a name for itself with horror movies from the 20's, and together with Jack Pierce creating makeups for Lon Chaney, Universal was the company to beat with makeup effects. When Chaney died in 1930, many thought that Universal could not recover, but other actors stepped up to fill the mighty shoes that Chaney left. Most notably, Boris Karloff used a number of famous Pierce makeups (Frankenstein and The Mummy). Lon Chaney's son had his own career, and he used Pierce for memorable makeups as well (The Wolf Man). There was even subtle makeup for Bela Lugosi in the classic Dracula.
From the 1920's-40's, Jack Pierce won award after award for his amazing makeups, and created makeup designs that are still remembered and acclaimed to this day. He was well on his way to movie-making imortality... That is until the middle of the 1940's rolled around. Apparently, Pierce was a very difficult person to work with and not many people at Universal liked him. Lon Chaney Jr. in particular really disliked Pierce, saying that it took Pierce too long to do makeups and made them really painful. The other contributing factor in Pierce's demise was the industry itself was changing. He worked from a kit of his own making to create magnificent wonders, but new inovations in foam latex made makeups cheaper, quicker, and easier to work with. Pierce refused to work with anything but his own kit. In 1946, he ws unceremoniously fired from Universal.
In the 1950's, television became huge, and because of that, the major studios were downsizing to compete with television. Pierce's chance of working in movies was over, unless he would use the newer cheaper methods, which he continued to refuse to do. His last major work was on Mister Ed from 1961-64. He died in 1968. The man who created such amazing visuals for some of the most famous movies ever made was kicked out of the industry that he reinvented only because he wouldn't adapt to it. Recently, there has been a push to get Pierce a star on the Hollywood Boulevard, but it hasn't happened yet. Let that be a lesson!
Bet you didn't know that!
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