John Carradine Movies and Career Information

John Carradine (February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. He was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history and the patriarch of an acting dynasty that includes four of his sons and four of his grandchildren. John Carradine was born Richmond Reed Carradine in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, the son of Genevieve Winifred (née Richmond), a surgeon, and William Reed Carradine, a correspondent for the Associated Press. William Carradine was the son of evangelical author Beverly Carradine. The family lived in Peekskill and Kingston, New York. William died from tuberculosis when John was two years old. John's mother remarried "a Philadelphia paper manufacturer named Peck, who thought the way to bring up someone else's boy was to beat him every day just on general principle." John attended the Christ Church School in Kingston. and the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania (see notes) where he developed his diction and his memory while memorizing portions of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer as a punishment. Carradine's son, David, recalled