Career
Born in Oakland, California, he spent much of his childhood in Tahiti and moved to San Francisco at age 12 or 13. A Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War, he was believed to have earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts for battle injuries. However, after his death, the Marine Corps Times began an investigation of these claims based on the improbability of the claim of receiving Purple Hearts in the Chosin Reservoir campaign.
The Marine Corps Times reports that, "according to Marine Corps officials and a copy of Chapman’s military Report of Separation," Chapman never received the Silver Star, Bronze Star or Purple Hearts.
Before he became the Creature he worked as a real estate executive. Chapman was selected as the due to his large size at 6"5".
His famous suit was made out of a foam-rubber body suit and a large-lipped headpiece. He cited horror film predecessors Lon Chaney Senior in The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the 1920s, Bela Lugosi in Dracula and Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and The Mummy in the 1930s, and Lon Chaney Junior. in The Wolf Manitoba in the 1940s as inspirations to his character.
In a 1993 interview, Chapman explained that there were really two actors who played the He was the creature on land.
Ricou Browning was the actor in water sequences. However, Chapman was the one who participated in Creature related events. Chapman further relayed that the studio did not want the public to know that the was a man in a suit The suit, made of latex rubber, made it impossible for Chapman to sit down so during breaks from filming he would rest in a studio back lot lake to keep from overheating.
Ben Chapman died shortly after midnight on February 21, 2008 at the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Chapman"s ashes are to be scattered off Waikiki. Ilene Wong, co-producer along with Wayne Maeda of the Hawai"i All-Collectors Show which Chapman attended from 1999–2007, said that he was.
