Gill-Man

The Gill-man
The Gill-man, as portrayed by Ben Chapman in Creature from the Black Lagoon.
First appearance	Creature from the Black Lagoon
Last appearance	The Creature Walks Among Us
Created by	Harry Essex Arthur A. Ross Maurice Zimm
Portrayed by	Creature from the Black Lagoon Ben Chapman Revenge of the Creature Tom Hennesy The Creature Walks Among Us Don Megowan Underwater Ricou Browning
Information
Type	Devonian amphibian

Gill-man, commonly referred to as the The Creature, is the lead antagonist of the 1954 black-and-white science fiction film Creature from the Black Lagoon and its two sequels Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).

In all three films, Ricou Browning portrays the Gill-man when he is swimming underwater. In the scenes when the Gill-man is walking on dry land, Ben Chapman plays the creature in the first film, followed by Tom Hennesy in the second, and Don Megowan in the third.

The Gill-man's popularity as an iconic monster of cinema has led to numerous cameo appearances, including an episode of The Munsters, the motion picture The Monster Squad, and a stage show.

Producer William Alland was attending a dinner party during the filming of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (in which Alland played the reporter Thompson) in 1941 when Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa told him about the myth of a race of half-fish, half-human creatures in the Amazon river. Figueroa spoke of a friend of his who disappeared in the Amazon while filming a documentary on a rumored population of fish people. Alland then wrote story notes entitled "The Sea Monster" ten years later. There were various designs for the creature. William Alland envisioned the creature as a "sad, beautiful monster" and the sculpture of it was much like that of an aquatic development of a human. Alland said, "It would still frighten you, but because how human it was, not the other way around". Originally, the creature's design was meant to incorporate a sleek, feminine eel-like figure, which did not have as many bumps and gills as the final version. The designer of the approved Gill-man was a former Disney illustrator Millicent Patrick, though her role was deliberately downplayed by makeup artist Bud Westmore, who for half a century would receive sole credit for the creature's conception. The Gill-man suit was made from airtight molded sponge rubber and cost $15,000. The underwater sequences were filmed at Wakulla Springs in North Florida (today a state park), as were many of the rear projection images. Part of the film was shot in Jacksonville, Florida on the south side of the river near the foot of the old Acosta Bridge. In the underwater scenes, air was fed into the Gill-man suit with a rubber hose.