Ep. 38 The Gillman Monster & Murder by Cosmetics

By |

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | TuneIn | RSS

In our Halloween episode Milena and Megan get spooky with 1950s monster movie special effects artist Milicent Patrick & prolific serial killer/chemist Giulia Tofana

Milicent Patrick

Happy Halloween everyone! Sure, here in America the scariest holiday is right around the corner – Election Day – instead of facing that nightmare of a reality we’re getting spooky. Today we’re covering a forgotten woman of Hollywood’s Movie Monster history, animator, illustrator, actress, and special effects artist Milicent Patrick.

While sexism plays heavily in her career, we cover what it took to make a monster (hint: over 170,000$), how to get hired as a makeup artist at Universal and how bad bosses get what’s coming to them.

Selected Works

Milicent sketching creature designs, shown with Bud Westmore
Image of the 1954 Gil-man, aka the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Milicent contributed to the creature design and custom paintwork for the mask
1955 photo of Milicent sketching Kirk Douglas while on set of ‘Man Without a Star’
In addition to her makeup effects and acting, Milicent also provide illustration works. Above, samples from The Westmore Beauty Book Milicent illustrated
  • Creature from the Black Lagoon Movie – Film that Milicent worked primarily on during her career as a special effects artist
  • Hearst Castle – Ridiculously American mansion commissioned by publishing tycoon William Hearst and designed by America’s first woman architect Julia Morgan
  • CalArts – Where Milicent attended school, when it was still Chouinard Art Institute. After school went on to become one of Disney’s first women animators
  • Bud Westmore – Head of Universal’s make up department for over 20 years, hired Milicent. By all accounts major butthole of a boss

Wanna Know More?

Check out:

Giulia Tofana

1903 painting The Love Potion by Evelyn De Morgan. No records of what Giulia looked like have survived

It’s Rome, 1640. You’re a upper-class woman with piece-of-shit husband. The way he treats you isn’t uncommon, and that’s part of the problem. Like many women throughout history, you are considered his property. His property to fuck, beat, or to demean as he pleases. What are you to do? Divorce him? This is Rome, home to the Vatican – Catholics don’t divorce.
But with a dead husband…well….you’d be free to remarry…

Our featured scientist today capitalized on the more, nefarious, components of chemistry and developed a poison to rid 17th century Italian women of their abusive husbands. Can murder ever be justified? Our scientist today makes a good case for it

2 Comments

  1. Del Toro’s favorite film monsters are Frankenstein’s monster, the Alien, Gill-man, Godzilla, and the Thing . Frankenstein in particular has a special meaning for him, in both film and literature, as he claims he has a “Frankenstein fetish to a degree that is unhealthy”, and that it’s “the most important book of my life, so you know if I get to it, whenever I get to it, it will be the right way”.

    • I did not know that! That makes sense with his works, in always featuring narratives of the ‘other’. He’s crafted some pretty amazing monsters himself – the Pale Man is always going to be a classic

      – Megan

Comments are closed.