Boris Karloff (November 23, 1887 – February 2, 1969), born William Henry "Bill" Pratt, was an actor best known for his roles in horror films. After gaining fame, he was sometimes billed as "Karloff" and sometimes as "Karloff the Uncanny".

Life and career

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A son of Edward John Pratt Jr, the Deputy Commissioner of Customs, Salt and Opium, Northern Division, Indian Salt Revenue Service, and his third wife, Eliza Sarah Millard, the future actor was born in Camberwell, London, and brought up in Enfield. His paternal grandmother was Eliza Julia Pratt, a sister of Anna Leonowens, whose stories about life in the royal court of Siam (now Thailand) were the basis of the musical "The King and I". Through her, Karloff could claim distant East Indian ancestry, as it seems that Eliza Edwards and her sister, Anna, were the children of a mixed-race marriage. Karloff, however, often claimed Russian ancestry to explain his exotic looks, though his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears.

Orphaned in his youth, he was raised by his elder brothers and sister and attended Enfield Grammar School before moving to Uppingham School and Merchant Taylors' School, and eventually the University of London. Karloff's first goal in life was to join the foreign service — his brother, Sir John Henry Pratt, became a distinguished British diplomat — but instead he fell into acting. In 1909, Pratt travelled to Canada, changing his name to something more in keeping with his new vocation while on his way to an acting job with the Jeanne Russell Theater Co. in Kamloops, British Columbia. He spent years testing the waters in North America while living in smaller towns like Kamloops and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In 1912, while appearing in a play in Regina, Saskatchewan, Karloff volunteered to be a rescue worker following a devastating tornado. He also lived in Minot, North Dakota for a year, performing in an opera house above a hardware store. For health reasons, he did not fight in World War I.

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