Charles Gemora

Charles Gemora was a Filipino-American actor, stunt performer and makeup artist who became the actor Hollywood called on whenever a film needed a gorilla. Born on Negros in 1903, he began as an extra in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923, and later worked as a set designer. He built a gorilla suit for The Lost World in 1925, then turned to building and wearing gorilla suits, studying the animals at the San Diego Zoo to make them more accurate, with moving jaws and curling lips. He played gorillas for comedy, appearing alongside Wheeler and Woolsey, the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy, and was kept in a cage while filming Island of Lost Souls (1932) to preserve the illusion that a real animal was used. When gorilla pictures lost favor he moved into science fiction, designing the Martian for The War of the Worlds in 1953, and he worked as a makeup artist through One-Eyed Jacks in 1961.