Rondo Hattan - The Brute Man

[Marya Zaleska]

Just wanted to see how many of you are familiar with Rondo Hatton.

He played in Universal's The Brute Man.

He also was known as "The Creeper" in several films.

This actor suffered from acromegalia and needed no makeup to play his characters.

[crabapple]

Oh yes, we all love Rondo. But yes, Rondo.

[AmericanManiac]

I never heard of him, but I was curious so I did a Wikipedia Search. It's a shame of the disease, and I may have to check out a few of the films. If I remember correctly I did see Hunchback, but I vaguely remember it.

As to those who don't know him either here is a short biography about Mr. Hatton.

Hatton was born Rondo K. Hatton in Hagerstown, Maryland to Stewart P. and Emily Zarring Hatton, a pair of Missouri-born teachers. The Hatton family moved several times during Rondo's youth, to Hickory, North Carolina, and to Charles Town, West Virginia, and at last to Tampa, Florida, where family members owned a business. Following his father's death, Hatton and his mother and his younger brother Stewart moved in with his maternal grandmother in Tampa. There he obtained work as a sportswriter for the local newspaper.[1] He worked as a journalist until after World War I when the symptoms of acromegaly developed.

Acromegaly distorted the shape of Hatton's head, face, and extremities in a gradual but consistent process. Hatton, who reportedly had been voted the handsomest boy in his high school class, eventually became severely disfigured by the disease. Because the symptoms developed in adulthood (as is common with the disorder), the disfigurement was incorrectly attributed later by film studio publicity departments to his exposure to mustard gas during service in World War I. Whether Hatton actually served in the war is unclear, though it has been reported that he served on the Mexican border and in France.

Director Henry King noticed Hatton when he was working as a reporter with The Tampa Tribune covering the filming of Hell Harbor (1930) and hired him for a small role. After some hesitation, Hatton moved to Hollywood in 1936 to pursue a career playing similar, often uncredited, bit roles. His most notable of these were as a contestant in the "ugly man competition" (which he loses to Charles Laughton) in the RKO production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and as Gabe Hart, a member of the lynch mob in the 1943 film of The Ox-Bow Incident.

Universal Studios attempted to exploit Hatton's unusual features to promote him as a horror star after he played the part of the Hoxton Creeper in its sixth Sherlock Holmes film, The Pearl of Death (1944). He made a half dozen minor films playing variations of the Creeper character, but he died of a heart attack (a direct result of his acromegalic condition) in 1946 before getting a chance to really make his mark.

Resource from Wikipedia

[newb]

He looks like our very own Crabapple.

[neverending]

Yep, I've heard of Rondo Hatton. Also heard of Lionel Atwill, Dwight Frye & Una O'Connor.

[Marya Zaleska]

Originally Posted by AmericanManiac

I never heard of him, but I was curious so I did a Wikipedia Search. It's a shame of the disease, and I may have to check out a few of the films. If I remember correctly I did see Hunchback, but I vaguely remember it.

As to those who don't know him either here is a short biography about Mr. Hatton.

Hatton was born Rondo K. Hatton in Hagerstown, Maryland to Stewart P. and Emily Zarring Hatton, a pair of Missouri-born teachers. The Hatton family moved several times during Rondo's youth, to Hickory, North Carolina, and to Charles Town, West Virginia, and at last to Tampa, Florida, where family members owned a business. Following his father's death, Hatton and his mother and his younger brother Stewart moved in with his maternal grandmother in Tampa. There he obtained work as a sportswriter for the local newspaper.[1] He worked as a journalist until after World War I when the symptoms of acromegaly developed.

Acromegaly distorted the shape of Hatton's head, face, and extremities in a gradual but consistent process. Hatton, who reportedly had been voted the handsomest boy in his high school class, eventually became severely disfigured by the disease. Because the symptoms developed in adulthood (as is common with the disorder), the disfigurement was incorrectly attributed later by film studio publicity departments to his exposure to mustard gas during service in World War I. Whether Hatton actually served in the war is unclear, though it has been reported that he served on the Mexican border and in France.

Director Henry King noticed Hatton when he was working as a reporter with The Tampa Tribune covering the filming of Hell Harbor (1930) and hired him for a small role. After some hesitation, Hatton moved to Hollywood in 1936 to pursue a career playing similar, often uncredited, bit roles. His most notable of these were as a contestant in the "ugly man competition" (which he loses to Charles Laughton) in the RKO production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and as Gabe Hart, a member of the lynch mob in the 1943 film of The Ox-Bow Incident.

Universal Studios attempted to exploit Hatton's unusual features to promote him as a horror star after he played the part of the Hoxton Creeper in its sixth Sherlock Holmes film, The Pearl of Death (1944). He made a half dozen minor films playing variations of the Creeper character, but he died of a heart attack (a direct result of his acromegalic condition) in 1946 before getting a chance to really make his mark.

Resource from Wikipedia

Nice writeup. Thank you very much!

[Zero]

father?


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