Ricou Browning, an underwater stuntman best known for playing the Gill-man in the 1954 horror classic Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels, passed away peacefully on Sunday at his home in Southwest Ranches, Florida, from natural causes. He later co-produced the dolphin drama Flipper for both the big screen and television. He was 93.
His son Ricou Browning Jr., a marine coordinator for film and television productions, told Deadline that his father had passed away. Florida native Browning studied physical education at Florida State University before landing a job at Wakulla Springs, a picturesque park that had been used since the 1930s for underwater locations in various Tarzan movies. He is regarded as the last surviving original actor to portray any of the Universal Classic Monsters.
Browning started appearing in the underwater shows and newsreels created by fellow swimmer and promoter Newt Perry while working at Wakulla Springs. Browning was charged with helping a film crew in 1953 as they scouted sites for a future Universal horror movie. He would soon be required to assume the Gill-man outfit from filmmaker Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black Lagoon, a classic representation of Hollywood horror (1954).
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Although actor Ben Chapman dressed up as a creature for the on-land scenes, the movie’s most spellbindingly captivating moments came from Browning’s beautifully spooky underwater portrayal. A scene in which Julia Adams’s character, the film’s heroine, swims slightly underneath Browning’s Gill-man is particularly noteworthy. In the follow-up films Vengeance of the Monster (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us, Browning would later return to the submerged role (1956).
Early in the 1960s, Browning began to diversify into other water-related areas of the film and television industries. He co-wrote a narrative about a highly intelligent bottlenose dolphin in 1963 with ad writer Jack Cowden. The 1963 movie Flipper, which was directed by James B. Clark, produced by Ivan Tors, and written by Arthur Weiss, would do for dolphins what Lassie had done earlier for collies.
NBC would air a TV series based on the movie from 1964 to 1967. More than 30 episodes of the show, in which Chuck Connors played the warden of a fictitious Florida state park, were directed by Browning. Bud, the son of the warden who made friends with the namesake mammal, was portrayed by young actor Tommy Norden. At about the same time, Browning added a bear to the TV zoo by directing episodes of CBS’ Gentle Ben.
He also directed the underwater scenes for the Tony Randall and Janet Leigh comedy Hello Down There from 1969. Four years later, he was the director of the family movie Salty, which is about a nice sea lion and his human companions. As a second unit director, stunt coordinator, or underwater sequence director on movies like Thunderball (1965), Around the Globe Under the Sea (1966), Island of the Lost (1967), and Never Say Never Again, Browning worked steadily over the following few decades (1983).
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In 1980, Browning worked as a second unit director on Harold Ramis’ Caddyshack, contributing his expertise in the water to one of the movie’s most infamous scenes: a swimming pool scene that imitated Jaws’ opening sequence but with a dreadful chocolate bar in place of the shark. His son, who followed his father into acting and stunt work, as well as his daughters Renee, Kelly, and Kim, as well as other extended family members, survive Browning.
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