Born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1880 and died in Santa Monica in 1962, Tod Browning ran away from home as a teenager to join a circus, and the carnival world marked his work. He made a series of macabre silent films with Lon Chaney, including The Unknown (1927), then directed Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931), the film that began the Universal horror cycle. Freaks (1932), cast with real circus performers, was so shocking that it was cut and banned in several countries and ended his career at MGM. It later became a cult classic and is now regarded as a masterpiece.
Filmography
- The Unholy Three (1925)
- The Blackbird (1926)
- The Unknown (1927)
- West of Zanzibar (1928)
- Dracula (1931)
- Freaks (1932)
- Mark of the Vampire (1935)
- The Devil-Doll (1936)