Influential performers: Ricou Browning
Ricou Browning’s name is one you might not be familiar with, unless you’re really into old-timey Universal Monsters movies. He was not just an actor, but rather, a very skilled underwater stuntman.
Ricou was born in Florida in 1930. He studied Physical Education at Florida State University. He started working in “water shows,” which generally range from “historic underwater mermaid performances to high-energy water-skiing stunts and musical fountains.” He worked at Wakulla Springs, and was in short film “newsreels” for Newt Perry, who himself was apparently proclaimed “the best swimmer in America.” This aforementioned watery colleague brought Ricou with him when he went to work at Weeki Wachee Springs.
In 1953, he was showing around Universal Pictures scouts at Wakulla Springs. “Their cameraman asked if I could swim in front of the cameras so they could get the perspective of the size of a human being against the fish and the grass. So I did.” So notable was Ricou’s swimming, that a few days later, he was offered the role of the notorious Gill-man for underwater scenes. On land, the role was performed by Ben Chapman at Universal City.
Ricou is the only performer who portrayed Gill-man in all three films of the original Creature from the Black Lagoon trilogy, in their water scenes. What this required of him physically should not be underestimated.
He could apparently hold his breath underwater for up to 4 minutes at a time. He was moving around in a heavy rubber suit, underwater. He completed long sequences without diving gear, and the head of the suit was almost impossible to see out of. As a submechanophobe who can hold my breath for all of 2 seconds, I can’t imagine doing this. It’s not that I can’t swim, but I certainly don’t like to hover underwater. It must take absolute balls of steel.
Speaking of his breathing in a 2013 interview, Ricou said: “If you’re not doing anything at all, four minutes is possible, but not if you’re moving in the water. If you’re swimming fast or fighting, you use up a lot of oxygen, and it cuts it down to, at the most, two minutes.”
Ricou’s swimming as Gill-man was eerily graceful. The movements were smooth and functional, those of something that belongs to the water and is not merely visiting it.
Ricou continued to be heavily-involved with underwater filmmaking. He was a writer and producer on Flipper (1963) and also directed the second unit underwater scenes. He was a director, actor, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and stuntman, among others, on a number of notable film productions. If something needed to happen underwater in mid-century Hollywood, Ricou Browning was probably involved.
Ricou was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2012. He was the last surviving original actor to portray a Universal Classic Monster. He died at his home in Florida in 2023, aged 93.
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