William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor, who starred as Frankenstein's Monster (aka Frankenstein) in the Universal Pictures horror film Frankenstein (1931), which established him as a horror icon. He reprised the role in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). Karloff also appeared as Imhotep in The Mummy (1932), and voiced the Grinch and the Narrator in television's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), which won him a Grammy Award. Karloff was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960.
Although Karloff quit playing the Frankenstein monster in 1939, he played a character which spoofed the monster in Arsenic and Old Lace in the early 1940s on Broadway. He returned to Universal's Frankenstein franchise in 1944's House of Frankenstein, playing Dr. Niemann.