Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SATURDAY, June 12, 1993 TAG: 9306120341 SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: By JACKIE HYMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
"I wanted to see people's reaction, so I went out on the streets," said Quaid, who wears latex, pancake makeup and false hair in the Turner Network Television production of "Frankenstein," filmed in Poland and the United Kingdom.
"Everyone looked and everyone gasped and avoided me," he said. "They'd give me sidelong glances, and a security guard [at the hotel] came up and confronted me: What was I doing there? It gave me an idea what someone who looks like this would have to contend with."
"Frankenstein," a more or less faithful version of Mary Shelley's classic horror novel, airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on TNT.
The movie also stars Patrick Bergin as Dr. Frankenstein and Sir John Mills as a blind man who befriends the monster. David Wickes wrote, directed and served as executive producer.
Stretching his 6-foot-4-inch frame on a couch in a TNT office overlooking Century City, Quaid looked more like a leading man than a brute.
"I wanted to make the monster not just a monster, but a disfigured man," he said. "I wanted to emphasize the human qualities. He is basically struggling for equal rights. He wants anything any man would want."
"It was one of the most difficult roles I've ever played," said Quaid, who was nominated for an Oscar for "The Last Detail" and won a Golden Globe as Lyndon Johnson in the TV movie "LBJ: The Early Years."
"To play a monster, you have to find a fine line there," he said. "It's easy to overdo it. . . . It gave me a real appreciation for Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi and how they would create these monsters."
The film focuses on the complex relationship between Dr. Frankenstein and the creature he tried to make in his own image.
The script balances the horror of the monster's degradation and revenge with the doctor's joy as he prepares for his marriage and the monster's longing for similar happiness.
What would have happened if the monster had found a woman of his own?
"I really think he would have gone off with her and they would have had kids and had some fights and gone to marriage counseling," Quaid said.
Quaid said he stumbled into acting in high school only because the class took place in an air-conditioned room.
"In Houston, it's real humid, so I went into the drama class," he said. "I thought I'd have to sit and listen to a bunch of effete intellectuals talk about Aristotle. . . . About the second or third day, I decided this was what I wanted to be."
He studied drama at the University of Houston, where his teacher, Cecil Pickett, sent him and several other students to audition for director Peter Bogdanovich, who was casting "The Last Picture Show."
Quaid won a role, and went on to a busy career playing character parts. He was followed to Hollywood by his younger brother, Dennis. The two have played brothers in the film "The Long Riders" and on stage in Sam Shepard's "True West."
Off-screen, they compete at golf.
"I think his sole goal is to beat me," Randy Quaid said. "He's getting pretty good."
"Frankenstein" has been made into more than two dozen films, beginning in 1910 with a 16-minute silent. It has been spoofed in "Young Frankenstein" and "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" and has been carried to extremes in "Frankenstein Vs. the Space Monsters" and "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter." A new feature film version starring Robert De Niro as the monster has been announced by Kenneth Branagh.
by CNB