Biography
Dwight Frye was an American character actor of stage and screen. Born Dwight Iliff Fry on 22 February 1899 in Salina, Kansas, he began as a concert pianist before moving into theatre in the 1920s, appearing in Broadway productions including the original 1922 staging of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author.
With the advent of sound films he became known for roles as mentally unbalanced characters in Universal horror pictures. He played Renfield in Dracula (1931) and Fritz in Frankenstein (1931). In Bride of Frankenstein (1935) he portrayed Karl, Pretorius's henchman; the part had been longer but many scenes were cut before release. Frye also appeared in The Vampire Bat (1933) and later Universal Frankenstein sequels. He died of a heart attack on 7 November 1943 in Los Angeles, aged 44.
