Dwight Frye

Dwight Iliff Frye (February 22, 1899 – November 7, 1943)

"If God is good, I will be able to play comedy, in which I was featured on Broadway for eight seasons and in which no producer of motion pictures will give me a chance! And please God, may it be before I go screwy playing idiots, half-wits and lunatics on the talking screen!"

quote taken from The Missing Links

Everyone's favorite gravedigger madman! Frye was born in Salina, Kansas. He specialized in the portrayal of mentally unbalanced characters, including his signature role, the madman Renfield in Tod Browning's 1931 version of Dracula. Later that same year he also played the hunchbacked dwarf assistant Fritz in James Whale's "Frankenstein."

During the early 1940's, Frye alternated between film roles and appearing on stage in a variety of productions ranging from comedies to musicals, as well as appearing in a stage version of Dracula. He also made a contribution to the war effort by working nights as a tool designer for Lockheed Aircraft. Frye's strong resemblance to former Secretary of War Newton D. Baker helped land him what would have been a substantial role in the biographical film Wilson, based on the life of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, but he succumbed to a heart attack while riding on a bus in Hollywood a few days before filming was to have begun.

Be sure to visit The Missing Link's fantastic biography of Dwight, available here.