The Lady From The Black Lagoon

Of Goddesses And Monsters

The Lady From The Black Lagoon -
Hollywood Monsters And The
Lost Legacy Of Milicent Patrick
by Mallory O’Meara.
Hanover Square Press
ISBN: 9781335937803

Regular readers will know that I’ve read more than my fair share of books about the shenanigans involved in various aspects of movie making over a number of decades (a few more decades than I’d like to admit). There are some really terrible ones out there, some really good ones and, just occasionally, a really great one. And when I say great ones, I mean the final outcome of all the research or the way in which the book is structured or the unprecedented archival nature of the material makes it an absolute belter of an essential addition to any film lover’s bookshelves. And, when I say bookshelf, I obviously mean the ‘too many piles of stuff on the floor’ of your daily environment through which it takes a minute to remember the correct path to navigate around all that movie memorabilia.

Yeah, I’m talking about the real cream of the crop, top tier books which have something extra special tucked between their pages. I’m talking about tomes like Mario Bava - All The Colours Of The Dark (Tim Lucas’ hefty and amazing bible on the late, great director), House Of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (reviewed here), Scala Cinema 1978-1993 (reviewed here), The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy (reviewed here), Saul Bass - A Life In Film and Design (reviewed here) and A Thousand Cuts, The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved The Movies (reviewed here).

Mallory O’Meara’s astonishing The Lady From The Black Lagoon - Hollywood Monsters And The Lost Legacy Of Milicent Patrick... is just such a book. One of the essentials for any movie afficionado’s book shelf/movie shrine/miniature book Everest. I had originally planned to have a review of a famous giallo/horror director’s autobiography in this spot this week* but, when I finally got around to reading this book, which I bought sometime last year, it just floored me. This one was special and it’s still percolating in my mind so, you know, I wanted to get this one up on here as quickly as possible because you all need to read it.

Now, I’d never heard of Mallory O’Meara before but I had, only vaguely, heard of Milicent Patrick. When I was a young ‘un, sometime between the early 1970s to early 1980s, my parents took me to a sex cinema off Piccadilly Circus to see, in 3D and complete with green and red glasses, a proper double feature of IT Came From Outer Space and Creature From The Black Lagoon (a movie I reviewed here). I was thrilled and loved both movies, with the Gill-Man’s cinematic debut rating high on my list. A number of years ago, probably via the internet, I got wind that the creature had been designed by a lady named Milicent Patrick. That’s cool, I thought and then, you know, thought no more of it. So Mallory O’Meara’s thankless quest to bring to light the wonders and personal horrors of one of her heroes (she even has a tattoo of Milicent with the Gill-Man on her arm which, alas, we don’t see in this book, at least not in the edition I bought). is a very welcome publication And it’s a long quest on which she journeyed to give us this incredible account.

So all I knew before going into this one was that Milicent had designed the creature (although I’d also heard other stories and, frankly, now I know why) and that the guy who ran the head of the make-up department got jealous of her credit and basically ruined her career in Hollywood, after which she kind of dropped out and disappeared. So we should all be thankful that this O’Meara gal came along and decided to painstakingly dig a little deeper and do the detective work.

This story didn’t come easily and it’s possibly not a 100% complete picture of Patrick’s life but, one of the nice things about this book, unlike some other biographies, is that Mallory is completely honest about what she writes and she doesn’t seem to give in to wild speculation and present it as fact. There are maybe tiny holes (there always are) but you won’t find them glossed over or filled in here, they’re presented as they are... and obviously that means certain things we’ll never know but, from what I can see, the important stuff is somehow now with us.

And when I say she did the detective work, I mean just that. This isn’t just about Milicent Patrick’s life... take a look at that subtitle and you’ll see Hollywood Monsters mentioned here too and, spoiler alert, she’s not just talking about the beloved beasts you see on the silver screen, she’s talking about some of the less palatable Hollywood predators that have come to light in recent years and were, as we kinda always knew, prevalent in Milicent Patrick’s time too. You know the kind I mean. This book is as much about O’Meara as it is about Patrick. Mallory works on film production, has encountered some of these other monsters first hand and, as you simultaneously read her account of how she managed to track down all the information piece by piece, as she reports the continuing story of Milicent’s life, you realise that there are also some parallels, to some extent, between the biographer and her subject.

And there’s some fantastic stuff Ms. O’Meara turned up. As a taster only, because I really don’t want to spoil the content of this book for first time readers... Milicent Patric was a daughter to Camille Rossi, an architect who eventually worked a long time on William Randolph Hearst’s private castle and grounds (if you’re into Citizen Kane... which you kind of should be if you like to look at astonishing film technique... then Xanadu is based on this and, obviously, Kane is a satirical view of Hearst). Camille was the guy who even managed to turn around an oak tree! Milicent eventually went to study art at the Chouinard Art Institute which, because of an opportunity by the lady who ran the institute, was a direct pipeline into the Disney studios. Patrick was asked to work for Disney in 1938 and became one of the first female animators for the studio on films such as Fantasia. She also took small parts in films and eventually got hired by make-up legend Bud Westmore, whose name I’d heard from time to time, to work in his make up department at Universal, where she designed things like the aliens in their non-human form for It Came From Outer Space, the wonderful Metalunan Mutants from This Island Earth and, of course, The Gill-Man from Creature From The Black Lagoon. Then she got her 15 minutes of fame doing a whirlwind promotional tour for Universal studios but, as O’Meary says in her own, quite witty and wonderful words... “While Millicent was in the skies, filled with excitement, Bud Westmore was in his office, simmering with resentment.” Then Westmore took all the credit for himself, fired her and made sure she would probably never work for a make-up company again. And then she completely dropped out of public consciousness but, her new biographer was having none of that and she followed the few leads she had to finally hit the jackpot and flesh out the rest of Patrick’s life... much of which was spent in a long term, on/off relationship with the original radio incarnation of The Lone Ranger. I should probably insert a joke here about somebody who worked on movie monsters marrying someone who used to make silver bullets to load into his guns but, yeah, it’s not quite coming to me.

And the absolute cherry on the cake here is, it’s not just a well researched book... it’s also both a) an important one when it comes to women standing their ground against the various examples of toxic masculinity that permeates the film industry (and all the other industries and, no, 'toxic masculinity' is not a phrase I thought I would ever need to write in one of my reviews) and b) a really entertaining account of her journey to find this story. This isn’t good in that ‘academic explains things in layman’s terms and gives you total understanding of the subject matter’ kind of way. I mean, yeah, okay it is... you’ll certainly know the score here. Each important person that Milicent Patrick encounters in her life is given a mini biography by the writer as they enter her story and it’s very informative...

But what I really mean is, this girl is funny and she can write in a really entertaining and, towards the end of the book, moving manner. I love that she mostly uses her footnotes not just to inform but to crack extra jokes. So, for example, when she writes the phrase “Los Angeles still has never been devastated by a major earthquake.”, you’ll get the footnote “I’m nervous even typing that.” Or when she writes “There was a massive flood that devastated the crops, followed by a drought, which devastated the cattle.”, she can’t resist adding the footnote, “As in, lots of cattle died. Not that the cattle were like, so devastated about it being dry.” And she comes out with some absolute gems like, when she’s in the Universal archives and pulls out a note about the swimsuit actress Julie Adams should be wearing in Creature From The Black Lagoon, she comments that “My eyes rolled so hard that I was afraid they would get stuck in my frontal lobe.” I’m sorry, I  don’t often quote directly from the books I review but, this one is so good I had to share some of these.

As the book continues, you can feel the author's joys and disappointments as new facts are gleaned or claims made by the subject disproved and discounted. And it’s a real journey and, despite the oodles of humorous quips and nuggets of cold hard fact dripping from the pages, she did move me to tears by the end of the book too. Proper, manly tears, of course... as should be expected from a hard hearted individual such as myself.

And, that’s as much as I really want to say about this one because, I really don’t want to spoil it for you. The Lady From The Black Lagoon - Hollywood Monsters And The Lost Legacy Of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara is a really cool book and a solid recommendation from me if you’re into Hollywood, monster movies, feminism or, you know, that thrilling combination of all three. This one’s a creature feature you won’t want to miss. 

*Yeah, don't worry, the Argento autobiography review will be coming to this blog very soon.