Rondo Hatton was born in Hagerstown, Maryland on April 22nd 1894 to Stewart Price and Emily Zarring Hatton, a pair of Missouri-born teachers.
In 1913, whilst at Hillsborough High School, Hatton was voted the handsomest boy in his class. Following his father’s death, Hatton, his mother, and his younger brother Stewart moved in with his maternal grandmother in Tampa, Florida.
Once in Florida, Hatton obtained work as a sportswriter for the local newspaper. He worked as a journalist until after World War I when the symptoms of acromegaly developed and distorted his head, face and extremities.
During World War I, Hatton served on the Pancho Villa Expedition along the Mexican border and in France with the United States Army, from which he was discharged due to his illness.
By 1930, Hatton was working for The Tampa Tribune newspaper. By chance he was assigned to cover Henry King’s latest film Hell Harbor. King noticed Hatton immediately and chased him to be in his next movie. Hatton appeared in a small role as the owner of a dock side bar but resisted the lure of Hollywood. Eventually though he decided to make the most of the opportunity finally made the move to Hollywood in 1936 where King cast him in the film In Old Chicago where he played the right hand man to a villainous thug.
His career began with playing similar roles to what he had done for King, often these were uncredited (The Big Guy, Moon Over Burma, The Cyclone Kid), bit parts or extra roles. His most notable of these came in 1939 as a contestant-extra in the “ugly man competition” which he loses to a heavily made up Charles Laughton in the RKO production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Then in 1943 Hatton played a supporting-character role as Gabe Hart, a member of the lynch mob in the film of The Ox-Bow Incident.
In the early 1940’s Universal Studios came knocking at Hatton’s door, seeing him as there next big horror movie star. Sadly, they exploited Hatton’s condition incorrectly telling the press that his condition was due to exposure to a German mustard gas during his service in World War I. They billed him as “the monster who needed no make-up!”
In 1944 Universal cast Hatton as The Hoxton Creeper (aka The Hoxton Horror) in its sixth Sherlock Holmes film, The Pearl of Death.
In 1945, Hatton appeared as Moose – a henchman – in all thirteen episodes of the Universal series Royal Mounted Rides Again. For the first twelve episodes he sat outside his evil boss’ office, then in the last episode he got to draw his gun in a showdown but is shot.
Later that year Hatton was back as a henchman to Otto Kruger on the big screen in The Jungle Captive. Hatton then reprised his role as “The Creeper” in two movies – House of Horrors which was filmed in 1945 but not released until 1946 and The Brute Man which was filmed in only thirteen days.
Sadly Hatton died of coronary thrombosis, brought on by his acromegalic condition on February 2nd 1946 and never go to see House of Horrors or The Brute Man hit the big screen. He was buried in Tampa, Florida.
Ogun Bat is a Japanese superhero created by Takeo Nagamatsu in 1931 and is considered to be the first Japanese superhero. The anime ran 52 episodes between April 1st 1967 and March 23rd Read more
Released in December 1980, Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I aka Zork I was an interactive fiction video game written by Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels and Tim Read more
Zoolander is back but a lot has happened since 2001! Rest assured the Ben Stiller comedy features familiar faces and a few new ones with plenty to get you excited. Read more
At a dinner party with their wives, NASA scientist Dr. Keith Ritchie (Tony Huston) reveals to his colleague Dr. Curt Taylor (John Agar) that he has secretly been in communication Read more
In Italy during World War II, an American military patrol discovers a spaceship that has crash-landed in the woods, along with its alien crew. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm9fnNfLg8M A nearby Nazi unit also Read more
Zone Fighter was a tokusatsu science fiction/superhero television series produced by Toho Company Ltd. It aired from April 2nd 1973 to September 24th 1973, with a total of 26 episodes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdhcjsVLDQY The series follows Read more
When the government's latest crime deterrent, obmoz, goes completely off the rails and starts to destroy everything from the underfunded super team Planetronix to the president himself, who ya gonna Read more
Tony Todd is back in an all new zombie movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBlWz-n-nec When the world is in shambles, plagued by a zombie outbreak, only the strong will survive, but just how Read more
Directed by Chris Watson and distributed by Troma Entertainment, Zombiegeddon begins as Satan creates a human-like race called zombies. When the zombies begin taking over the world, dirty cops Jeff Read more
Zombie Hotel ran for twenty-six episodes in 2006 and focuses on Fungus and Maggot - two child zombies who pretend to be human to get into their local school. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzXhCDspKxU Read more
After surviving the 'Multipocalypse', Ben tries to live a normal life, hiding the fact that he is infected with a zombie plague. His new friends have just found out ... Read more
A dutiful Samurai, a madcap Ninja and a bizarro Zen Monk team up to battle the undead in Feudal Japan. Can these unlikely allies stay friends long enough to stop Read more
Based on Marilyn Sadler and Roger Bollen's book of the same name, Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century was directed by Kenneth Johnson and set in the year 2049. It Read more
Arriving in 2010, Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City was the sequel for 2004's Zebraman, and starred Show Aikawa once again as Shinichi Ichikawa/Zebraman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqnYJugzaiU As the film opens it Read more
Directed by Takashi Miike, Zebraman follows Shinichi Ichikawa (Shô Aikawa), a man whose life is unravelling before his eyes. At work he is a failing school teacher and at home he Read more
Ryan Reynolds announced via Twitter that Zazie Beets (Atlanta) will play Domino in the upcoming Deadpool sequel: https://twitter.com/VancityReynolds/status/839947701487796224 Deadpool 2 will be directed by David Leitch (John Wick), with original Deadpool scripters Rhett Reese Read more
Zardoz, often referred to as "the one where James Bond is in his pants," is set in a future post-apocalypse Earth in the year 2293. By this point in history Read more
Zapped is a British sci-fi/fantasy sitcom that takes place in both in the real world and in a town called Munty which exists in a medieval fantasy world. The series Read more
A prequel set in the world of Syfy's #1 scripted hit zombie series Z Nation, Black Summer is as bad as the apocalypse gets. A worldwide drought and famine when Read more
Brett Summers
Founded Cult Faction in 2014. Some would describe him as a teacher, writer, dream weaver, and visionary... some would not...
1 thought on “Rondo Hatton”