Meeting Ricou Browning

This weekend, I went to Monsterama Con, and got to meet one of my idols, Ricou Browning. Ricou played the Gill-man in 1954’s Creature From the Black Lagoon, 1955’s Revenge of the Creature, and 1956’s Creature Walks Among Us. He is the only actor to have played the gill-man more than once and is the last surviving actor from Universal’s classic monster series. Ricou told me he got the part because he could hold his breath longer than the other actors up for the part. I asked him what it was like to swim with that suit on, and he told me, “It was like swimming in mud.”

Ricou went on to become an underwater director, running the second unit underwater scenes from movies such as Flipper and Caddyshack. What a thrill to meet one of my favorite monsters!