The Creature From the Black Lagoon died.

Riccou Browning played the amphibious creature in the film The Creature From the Black Lagoon, and he was a friend of mine during the late 80s and into the late 90s. I met him when his son worked on my construction crew for a little while (I was just a crewman, not a boss). His son had a drug problem, so he wasn't on my crew for very long, but Riccou and I remained friends until I moved some distance away.

He died last week. He was 93. He was a very good friend; cheerful, straight-forward, he liked swapping scuba stories and he was nice to my kids. They had a lot of questions after I told them who Riccou was, and he answered all of them very patiently. He even told my sons how the creature suit worked, how it allowed him to breath underwater and for how long.
 

My brother and I loved the Lagoon as we called him. Richard Carlson looked a lot like our father so there was that, too.
 
Riccou Browning played the amphibious creature in the film The Creature From the Black Lagoon, and he was a friend of mine during the late 80s and into the late 90s. I met him when his son worked on my construction crew for a little while (I was just a crewman, not a boss). His son had a drug problem, so he wasn't on my crew for very long, but Riccou and I remained friends until I moved some distance away.

He died last week. He was 93. He was a very good friend; cheerful, straight-forward, he liked swapping scuba stories and he was nice to my kids. They had a lot of questions after I told them who Riccou was, and he answered all of them very patiently. He even told my sons how the creature suit worked, how it allowed him to breath underwater and for how long.
That was one creature it might have been interesting to have a "Develop" story. Like Godzilla did.
 
A more evolved creature character lives on in the form of Abraham Sapien from Hellboy, and the amphibian man in The Shape of Water…

F740373E-D535-4F8C-9B02-384F6699D17D.jpeg
 
Sorry for the loss of your dear friend.
Mr. Browning achieved immortality as the iconic "Creature". His performance will go down as epic in the history of the horror film genre. And he was a great friend.
Riccou helped design the suit, too. He was a WWll navy veteran who's specialty was long-distance night time scuba diving, and that was before the US Navy Seals was formed. The creature suit had to allow Ric to breath underwater for extended periods but the whole apparatus had to be so compact that it was virtually invisible. And it also had to be light.

He designed that apparatus after quite a bit of trial and error, and that's the part he was most proud of because the US navy took interest in it.
 

Back
Top