Event: New York Public Library’s “Jeepers Creepers, It’s Boris Karloff!”

Boris Karloff

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium
October 27, 2011 – LPA Cinema Series: Jeepers Creepers, It’s Boris Karloff!

Last night, my father and I made plans to see “Out of the shadows: The Fashion of Film Noir” exhibit at the NYPL at Lincoln Center. When I got there my dad was beside himself with excitement (or so it seemed with my headphones still on) when we discovered that there would be a presentation about Boris Karloff starting right that minute. (FYI, there are tons of great free performances going on all the time in the Bruno Walter Auditorium.)

The performance consisted of four very talented voice actors on stage, reading the parts of Boris Karloff, various family members, and other industry folks like Peter Bogdanovich. The actor who read the part of Boris Karloff was fantastic. He really had the voice down. The readings were interspersed with audio of Karloff’s interviews and video clips.

I should add here that my dad is something of a film buff. (That’s putting it mildly.) I am truly my father’s daughter in this regard, but I don’t have the same kind of encyclopedic knowledge about film history. So of course I knew that Boris Karloff played Frankenstein, but last night I was presented with a lot of really inspiring information about his life and career that, as an artist and writer, was helpful to hear.