Sleep well, Gill-Man

Ben Chapman (1928-2008), best known for his role as the Gill-Man in Universal's 1954 classic The Creature From the Black Lagoon, has passed on. This news may seem apocryphal at best, what with Chapman being 80 years old and only having appeared in half a dozen films in the '50s, but I felt I had to report because the Creature was one of the first movie monsters I saw (along with the rest of the Universal stable), and had a HUGE influence on leading me down the warped and thorny path toward my current love for horror films of all kind (not to mention my fascination and unsettled score with a certain Creature From the Black Lagoon slot machine at Casino Niagara.....). Bet you we won't get ANY requests for Creature over the next weeks, while the Brokeback juggernaut rolls along.....sad, really.