Charles Gemora was a former Hollywood makeup artist renowned as "the King of the Gorilla Men" for his prolific appearances in many Hollywood films while wearing a gorilla suit

Gorilla suit

Gorilla suits or ape suits are full-bodied costumes resembling gorillas or other large primates.Gorilla suits have been used both to represent real gorillas in film and on stage, and also as a source of humour...

.

Biography

Gemora arrived in California as a stowaway

Stowaway

A stowaway is a person who secretly boards a vehicle, such as an aircraft, bus, ship, cargo truck or train, to travel without paying and without being detected....

. He quickly found residence along the Filipino section of Temple Street and eventually moved to Echo Park. He earned money doing portrait sketches outside of Universal Studios

Universal Studios

Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 where his talents were discovered and put to work in the studio's theatrical makeup

Theatrical makeup

In the performing arts, theatrical makeup is used to assist in creating the appearance of the characters that actors portray.-Background:In Greek and Roman theatre, makeup was unnecessary. Actors wore various masks, allowing them to portray another gender, age, or entirely different likeness....

 department. When creating a gorilla suit Gemora found his 5'4"/163 cm stature made him a natural to wear the suit himself beginning with The Leopard Lady in 1928.

Gemora's study of real gorillas at the San Diego Zoo

San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, is one of the most progressive zoos in the world, with over 4,000 animals of more than 800 species...

 and his expertise on makeup gave him an extensive career as a gorilla opposite such luminaries as Our Gang

Our Gang

Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...

(Bear Shooters

Bear Shooters

Bear Shooters is a 1930 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Robert F. McGowan. It was the 98th Our Gang short that was released.-Plot:Spud wants to go camping and shoot lots of bears with Jackie, Chubby, and Farina...

), Lon Chaney

Lon Chaney, Sr.

Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...

 (The Unholy Three

The Unholy Three (1930 film)

The Unholy Three is a 1930 melodrama involving a crime spree, directed by Jack Conway. It is a remake of the 1925 film The Unholy Three. Both were based on the novel of the same name by Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins....

), Bela Lugosi

Béla Lugosi

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...

 (Murders in the Rue Morgue

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932 film)

Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1932 horror film, loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". Bela Lugosi portrays a lunatic scientist who abducts women and injects them with blood from his ill-tempered caged ape...

), Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...

, (The Chimp

The Chimp

The Chimp is a Laurel and Hardy short film made in 1932. It was directed by James Parrott, produced by Hal Roach and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.- Plot :...

& Swiss Miss

Swiss Miss

Swiss Miss is a brand name for cocoa powder and pudding products sold by American food company, ConAgra Foods, Inc. Created with a blend of "dark European cocoa", Swiss Miss is a well-established brand of instant hot chocolate in America...

), The Marx Brothers (At the Circus

At the Circus

At the Circus is a 1939 Marx Brothers comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which they save a circus from bankruptcy...

), Bob Hope

Bob Hope

Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

 and Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

 (Road to Zanzibar

Road to Zanzibar

Road to Zanzibar is a 1941 Paramount Pictures comedy film starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour, and marked the second picture in the popular "Road to …" series made by the trio....

), The Great Gildersleeve

The Great Gildersleeve

The Great Gildersleeve , initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, first Introduced to...

 (Gildersleeve's Ghost), Abbott and Costello

Abbott and Costello

William "Bud" Abbott and Lou Costello performed together as Abbott and Costello, an American comedy duo whose work on stage, radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s and 1950s...

 (Africa Screams

Africa Screams

Africa Screams is a 1949 comedy film starring Abbott and Costello and directed by Charles Barton.-Plot:Diana Emerson is in the book department of Klopper's Department store looking for a copy of the book Dark Safari, written by the famed explorer Cuddleford...

) and Robert Mitchum

Robert Mitchum

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...

 (White Witch Doctor

White Witch Doctor (film)

White Witch Doctor is a 1953 adventure film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Henry Hathaway and produced by Otto Lang from a screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, based on the 1950 novel by Louise A. Stinetorf...

).

With men in gorilla suits no longer providing the same scares in the 1950s as they did in the 1930s and '40s, Gemora moved his creature expertise into science fiction

Science fiction film

Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...

 films such as the Martian

Martian

As an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...

 in War of the Worlds and I Married a Monster from Outer Space

I Married a Monster from Outer Space

I Married a Monster from Outer Space is a 1958 science fiction film, directed by Gene Fowler Jr. and starring Tom Tryon and Gloria Talbott....

.

Death

Gemora died of a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 in August 1961 while he was working on the makeup of the film Jack the Giant Killer.

External links

• Lost Souls: Charles Gemora http://www.members.shaw.ca/gorillagallery2/gorillamenclassic/cg_lost_souls_gemora.htm
• Official site http://www.charliegemora.com/