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Actor Became A Detroit Legend: Sir Graves Ghastly

Detroit Free Press
By Christohper Walton
Sunday, October 31, 1999

'Happy hauntings'

Former TV horror host Sir Graves Ghastly reflects on his career and those things that go bump in the night
Detroit Free Press -- October 31, 1999

In the 1970s, Saturday afternoon television was the realm of Detroit horror show host Sir Graves Ghastly.

Horror flick fans tuned in to WJBK-TV (Channel 2) at 1 p.m. to watch the campy vampire rise from his coffin, introduce that week's feature film, then screech his trademark devilish cackle. If not exactly terrifying, that weird laugh was certainly good for a giggle or two.

The severely cowlicked Sir Graves Ghastly character was the creation of longtime stage actor and radio announcer Lawson Deming. Though Deming. hung up his crimson-trimmed cape and paste-on goatee and retired Sir Graves in 1983 after a 16-year run, thousands of metro Detroiters in their 20s and 30s remember his slightly satanic, mostly ridiculous laugh.

For a Halloween treat, the Free Press spoke with Deming., now 86, who lives with his wife of 60 years in Medina, Ohio, near Cleveland. Deming. discussed the origin of Sir Graves Ghastly, horror movies then and now, and his relationship with another Midwest horror figure of years gone by: the Ghoul.

************

First, I have to ask about your address. You live on River Styx Road?

It used to be named County Road 49 when we came to live out here. It's out in the sticks -- that's "s-t-i-c-k-s." And one Saturday, I'm coming back from doing the show in Detroit, and I turn onto County Road 49, and all of a sudden it says River Styx Road. You know what the River Styx is, don't you? It's the river that the dead souls were rowed across to Hades.

It's just coincidence that Sir Graves Ghastly lives on River Styx Road?

Quite a coincidence.

How did the Sir Graves Ghastly show come to be?

Immediately before the Sir Graves Ghastly show, I was with the "Woodrow Show," a children's television program in Cleveland. I was the puppeteer and the voice of the animal friends of Woodrow, the host.... NBC told us they weren't interested in doing children's shows any longer.... One of the last places we wanted to go was Detroit, but we wound up there with a three-year contract with TV2 (then WJBK). We were there about two weeks, and they decided they ought to give me something to do besides sit in a wooden well with puppets on my hands. The TV2 people said, "Hey, we've got a 1 o'clock Saturday afternoon horror movie, and we'd like you to host it. Come up with a character." My wife and I came up with (in a deep, scary voice) Sir Graves Ghastly, a tongue-in-cheek vampire.

How did you come up with the character?

We kind of cast about the idea of a horror host, and I thought, "Geez, it would be cute to do a vampire," and she thought that was a good idea.

Then we made up a story about Sir Graves Ghastly being from an Italian family that went to England when the Romans controlled it. My name, Sir Graves Ghastly, was a derivation of Gravarious Ghastliano. The story was that Graves, who had trod the boards with Shakespeare, got in an argument with Her Majesty and she had him hanged in the Tower of London. But like a poor vaccination, it didn't quite take, enabling him to come back. It was sort of a tongue-in-cheek character, not much ghastly about it.

How did you come up with the costume?

I figured, "What does a vampire wear?" So we came up with the black suit and the black tie and the black cape with blood-red lining and the fancy hairdo with the big swirl on the forehead, and a mustache and beard, which I pasted on.

The goatee wasn't real?

No, no.

Did you ever encounter any protest from Christian groups about your character because of satanic overtones?

Oh, no, everybody knew that it was tongue-in-cheek. And I prided myself in that whatever I did was in good taste, never anything out of line.

Was there a rivalry between you and the other camp horror icon of Detroit television, the Ghoul, played by Ron Sweed?

Well, if there was any rivalry, it was of his making. I paid no attention to it. He started bad-mouthing me on his show, thinking to draw reprise from me. I ignored him. The Ghoul came from Cleveland, too. He modeled himself after Ernie Anderson, whose character was Ghoulardi. Ernie had gone off to the West Coast, to Hollywood, so the Ghoul figured he'd show up and make a big splash in Cleveland. It wasn't that great a splash. He was OK.

Did his bad-mouthing upset you?

No. I was very secure. (Laughs)

You played several characters on the show in addition to Sir Graves Ghastly. What about the Glob?

The Glob, that was based on something that I had seen somewhere on television in Cleveland. It was me hanging upside down and lip-synching, and my upside-down mouth had a circle around it so that all you saw was my mouth and teeth singing. That was the Glob.

What about some of the other characters?

I had a character called Tilly Trollhouse, That Gorgeous Cookie -- it was me in drag.

There was Baruba, a character in a monk's cowl. You never saw his face.

Then we had Graves' alter ego, Walter, who was a little fey, you might say, who lip-synched to rather weird songs.

The show was introduced every week with a very quick, very brief appearance by my cousin, Baron Boogaloff, from the Bavarian branch of the family. That was me, too.

I was everybody, including Reel McCoy, the little guy who dug up my films. The reason we had all these characters was I figured that way the audience couldn't just sit there and bad-mouth the film.... I wanted to give them something else to bad-mouth.

Did you think you were scaring people?

It was more tongue-in-cheek than anything. I'd do public appearances in the neighborhoods in Detroit, and the little kids loved me. The kids would come up, put their arms around my legs and say, "I love you, Sir Graves." And I'd say (in the voice of Sir Graves), "I love you, too." It was interesting.

Despite the fact that I had been in radio for years, I wasn't too concerned with ratings. After one of the first ratings came out, one of the TV2 engineers came up to me and said, "Hey, Deming., do you realize you got 70 percent of the tuned-in audience?" I always did manage to get very good ratings unless I was beaten by a big football game or if the Tigers were hot.

That's a scary thought.

You said it, not me.

Do you have a vivid memory of scaring anyone?

I don't really remember scaring anyone in particular. I'll tell you one thing, though. I was making an appearance Downriver somewhere, and a portly nun walked up to me and said, "Tell me what you think, Sir Graves." She then let out a terrific imitation of the Sir Graves laugh. She said, "I use that to get my kids' attention." That was rather scary.

How did you come up with that laugh?

It was based on the devil in "Damn Yankees." If I had a buck for every time I did that laugh, I'd be a multimillionaire.

The horror movies on your show were mainly classical, with a more muted, more psychological impact as compared with later horror films that were gorier and more graphic. Did you select the horror movies shown on your show?

No, that was the job of the film director.

So you had no control over that?

No, except for every now and then, I'd complain if the movie that week was a real dog -- which a lot of them were, believe me.

What's your favorite old horror flick?

Oy, that's difficult. (A long pause.)

Did you see "The Blair Witch Project"?

No, I've purposely not watched it.

Why is that?

I'm really not that tuned into it anymore.

Do you even like horror movies?

I could take them or leave them. I'm more attuned to science fiction than horror films. Usually, my wife and I watch public television because it's much more apt to have good movies.

What's your favorite current TV show?

"Frasier." I try to watch good drama and good comedy.

There's a lot of stuff on television aimed primarily at young people -- I'm talking anywhere from 12 years old to 40 years old -- which is pure drivel.

Did you have any background in horror?

No, not specifically, but I'd been acting all my life. I did theater work even as a child, through grade school, junior high, then I really blossomed in high school.

Then in the 1930s, I got into radio. I lived in Cleveland. The Cleveland College of Western Reserve University had a downtown college. They had instituted a radio play production class. I listened to the class play they put on during that summer. I didn't think much of it; it wasn't very good. But I figured I better get in there and learn about radio.

So I showed up in Studio C of radio station WHK one September evening, and it didn't sink in that a lot of the people there knew one another. So I sat down, and pretty soon another young man came and sat down beside me.

I introduced myself and said, "By the way, did you hear the one-act radio play that the summer class put on?" He said no, and I proceeded to tear the show to shreds, saying it was a lousy play, bad production, bad directing and the worst of the bunch was the dame who played Grandma Oldstyle. Well, that dame was sitting right behind me. It took a long time, but we've been married 60 years now.

She married you after that?

Yes, but she didn't like me at first, believe me.

When you were Sir Graves Ghastly, what did your wife call you around the house?

"Dear." I really didn't let the character overflow into my home life.

Do you still have the coffin you used on the show?

Oh, no. That died its own death. I remember one time I was climbing into the coffin getting ready to open the show and the bottom fell out. It was one of the cheapest.

Do you still have your costume?

Oh, yes. But I don't try to put on the beard and mustache anymore. I have my own now ...which is white.

Do you decorate your house for Halloween?

No. I'll tell you, I live on 20 acres, and I'm a thousand feet back from the road, and it's 300 feet up a hill to begin with. Nobody comes here on Halloween.

In light of what you ended up doing in your career, was Halloween special to you as a kid?

Not really. You know, after all, an actor assumes a role, and that's what I did when I got to be host of a horror movie.

Did you do a lot of personal appearances?

Yes, especially around Halloween for the Jaycees. They loved to get me in their haunted houses, at the exit, so that the people would be very happy to see me when they came out from really being scared.

What do you do these days?

(Laughs). Well, mostly my wife, Mary Rita, and I sit together, clean the house, clean the yard, clean ourselves, (laughs again) watch good stuff on TV and do a lot of reading.

Do you have children?

Four sons. One, who is now the president of the Cleveland Institute of Art, studied at that big art school outside Detroit ...um ...Cranbrook.

What do you find scary now?

I don't know, (laughing).... I'm getting to the end of my years. It's not too far down the hill now, or up the hill. It doesn't frighten me, but I wish there were some things I had done earlier that I haven't been able to do.

Such as what?

Get back on the stage. There's nothing like a live audience.

Article respectfully shared under the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law as educational material without benefit of financial gain.

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	Media Crypt: Interviews & Articles
		Actor Became A Detroit Legend: Sir Graves Ghastly Detroit Free Press By Christohper Walton Sunday, October 31, 1999 'Happy hauntings' Former TV horror host Sir Graves Ghastly reflects on his career and those things that go bump in the night Detroit Free Press -- October 31, 1999 In the 1970s, Saturday afternoon television was the realm of Detroit horror show host Sir Graves Ghastly. Horror flick fans tuned in to WJBK-TV (Channel 2) at 1 p.m. to watch the campy vampire rise from his coffin, introduce that week's feature film, then screech his trademark devilish cackle. If not exactly terrifying, that weird laugh was certainly good for a giggle or two. The severely cowlicked Sir Graves Ghastly character was the creation of longtime stage actor and radio announcer Lawson Deming. Though Deming. hung up his crimson-trimmed cape and paste-on goatee and retired Sir Graves in 1983 after a 16-year run, thousands of metro Detroiters in their 20s and 30s remember his slightly satanic, mostly ridiculous laugh. For a Halloween treat, the Free Press spoke with Deming., now 86, who lives with his wife of 60 years in Medina, Ohio, near Cleveland. Deming. discussed the origin of Sir Graves Ghastly, horror movies then and now, and his relationship with another Midwest horror figure of years gone by: the Ghoul. ************ First, I have to ask about your address. You live on River Styx Road? It used to be named County Road 49 when we came to live out here. It's out in the sticks -- that's "s-t-i-c-k-s." And one Saturday, I'm coming back from doing the show in Detroit, and I turn onto County Road 49, and all of a sudden it says River Styx Road. You know what the River Styx is, don't you? It's the river that the dead souls were rowed across to Hades. It's just coincidence that Sir Graves Ghastly lives on River Styx Road? Quite a coincidence. How did the Sir Graves Ghastly show come to be? Immediately before the Sir Graves Ghastly show, I was with the "Woodrow Show," a children's television program in Cleveland. I was the puppeteer and the voice of the animal friends of Woodrow, the host.... NBC told us they weren't interested in doing children's shows any longer.... One of the last places we wanted to go was Detroit, but we wound up there with a three-year contract with TV2 (then WJBK). We were there about two weeks, and they decided they ought to give me something to do besides sit in a wooden well with puppets on my hands. The TV2 people said, "Hey, we've got a 1 o'clock Saturday afternoon horror movie, and we'd like you to host it. Come up with a character." My wife and I came up with (in a deep, scary voice) Sir Graves Ghastly, a tongue-in-cheek vampire. How did you come up with the character? We kind of cast about the idea of a horror host, and I thought, "Geez, it would be cute to do a vampire," and she thought that was a good idea. Then we made up a story about Sir Graves Ghastly being from an Italian family that went to England when the Romans controlled it. My name, Sir Graves Ghastly, was a derivation of Gravarious Ghastliano. The story was that Graves, who had trod the boards with Shakespeare, got in an argument with Her Majesty and she had him hanged in the Tower of London. But like a poor vaccination, it didn't quite take, enabling him to come back. It was sort of a tongue-in-cheek character, not much ghastly about it. How did you come up with the costume? I figured, "What does a vampire wear?" So we came up with the black suit and the black tie and the black cape with blood-red lining and the fancy hairdo with the big swirl on the forehead, and a mustache and beard, which I pasted on. The goatee wasn't real? No, no. Did you ever encounter any protest from Christian groups about your character because of satanic overtones? Oh, no, everybody knew that it was tongue-in-cheek. And I prided myself in that whatever I did was in good taste, never anything out of line. Was there a rivalry between you and the other camp horror icon of Detroit television, the Ghoul, played by Ron Sweed? Well, if there was any rivalry, it was of his making. I paid no attention to it. He started bad-mouthing me on his show, thinking to draw reprise from me. I ignored him. The Ghoul came from Cleveland, too. He modeled himself after Ernie Anderson, whose character was Ghoulardi. Ernie had gone off to the West Coast, to Hollywood, so the Ghoul figured he'd show up and make a big splash in Cleveland. It wasn't that great a splash. He was OK. Did his bad-mouthing upset you? No. I was very secure. (Laughs) You played several characters on the show in addition to Sir Graves Ghastly. What about the Glob? The Glob, that was based on something that I had seen somewhere on television in Cleveland. It was me hanging upside down and lip-synching, and my upside-down mouth had a circle around it so that all you saw was my mouth and teeth singing. That was the Glob. What about some of the other characters? I had a character called Tilly Trollhouse, That Gorgeous Cookie -- it was me in drag. There was Baruba, a character in a monk's cowl. You never saw his face. Then we had Graves' alter ego, Walter, who was a little fey, you might say, who lip-synched to rather weird songs. The show was introduced every week with a very quick, very brief appearance by my cousin, Baron Boogaloff, from the Bavarian branch of the family. That was me, too. I was everybody, including Reel McCoy, the little guy who dug up my films. The reason we had all these characters was I figured that way the audience couldn't just sit there and bad-mouth the film.... I wanted to give them something else to bad-mouth. Did you think you were scaring people? It was more tongue-in-cheek than anything. I'd do public appearances in the neighborhoods in Detroit, and the little kids loved me. The kids would come up, put their arms around my legs and say, "I love you, Sir Graves." And I'd say (in the voice of Sir Graves), "I love you, too." It was interesting. Despite the fact that I had been in radio for years, I wasn't too concerned with ratings. After one of the first ratings came out, one of the TV2 engineers came up to me and said, "Hey, Deming., do you realize you got 70 percent of the tuned-in audience?" I always did manage to get very good ratings unless I was beaten by a big football game or if the Tigers were hot. That's a scary thought. You said it, not me. Do you have a vivid memory of scaring anyone? I don't really remember scaring anyone in particular. I'll tell you one thing, though. I was making an appearance Downriver somewhere, and a portly nun walked up to me and said, "Tell me what you think, Sir Graves." She then let out a terrific imitation of the Sir Graves laugh. She said, "I use that to get my kids' attention." That was rather scary. How did you come up with that laugh? It was based on the devil in "Damn Yankees." If I had a buck for every time I did that laugh, I'd be a multimillionaire. The horror movies on your show were mainly classical, with a more muted, more psychological impact as compared with later horror films that were gorier and more graphic. Did you select the horror movies shown on your show? No, that was the job of the film director. So you had no control over that? No, except for every now and then, I'd complain if the movie that week was a real dog -- which a lot of them were, believe me. What's your favorite old horror flick? Oy, that's difficult. (A long pause.) Did you see "The Blair Witch Project"? No, I've purposely not watched it. Why is that? I'm really not that tuned into it anymore. Do you even like horror movies? I could take them or leave them. I'm more attuned to science fiction than horror films. Usually, my wife and I watch public television because it's much more apt to have good movies. What's your favorite current TV show? "Frasier." I try to watch good drama and good comedy. There's a lot of stuff on television aimed primarily at young people -- I'm talking anywhere from 12 years old to 40 years old -- which is pure drivel. Did you have any background in horror? No, not specifically, but I'd been acting all my life. I did theater work even as a child, through grade school, junior high, then I really blossomed in high school. Then in the 1930s, I got into radio. I lived in Cleveland. The Cleveland College of Western Reserve University had a downtown college. They had instituted a radio play production class. I listened to the class play they put on during that summer. I didn't think much of it; it wasn't very good. But I figured I better get in there and learn about radio. So I showed up in Studio C of radio station WHK one September evening, and it didn't sink in that a lot of the people there knew one another. So I sat down, and pretty soon another young man came and sat down beside me. I introduced myself and said, "By the way, did you hear the one-act radio play that the summer class put on?" He said no, and I proceeded to tear the show to shreds, saying it was a lousy play, bad production, bad directing and the worst of the bunch was the dame who played Grandma Oldstyle. Well, that dame was sitting right behind me. It took a long time, but we've been married 60 years now. She married you after that? Yes, but she didn't like me at first, believe me. When you were Sir Graves Ghastly, what did your wife call you around the house? "Dear." I really didn't let the character overflow into my home life. Do you still have the coffin you used on the show? Oh, no. That died its own death. I remember one time I was climbing into the coffin getting ready to open the show and the bottom fell out. It was one of the cheapest. Do you still have your costume? Oh, yes. But I don't try to put on the beard and mustache anymore. I have my own now ...which is white. Do you decorate your house for Halloween? No. I'll tell you, I live on 20 acres, and I'm a thousand feet back from the road, and it's 300 feet up a hill to begin with. Nobody comes here on Halloween. In light of what you ended up doing in your career, was Halloween special to you as a kid? Not really. You know, after all, an actor assumes a role, and that's what I did when I got to be host of a horror movie. Did you do a lot of personal appearances? Yes, especially around Halloween for the Jaycees. They loved to get me in their haunted houses, at the exit, so that the people would be very happy to see me when they came out from really being scared. What do you do these days? (Laughs). Well, mostly my wife, Mary Rita, and I sit together, clean the house, clean the yard, clean ourselves, (laughs again) watch good stuff on TV and do a lot of reading. Do you have children? Four sons. One, who is now the president of the Cleveland Institute of Art, studied at that big art school outside Detroit ...um ...Cranbrook. What do you find scary now? I don't know, (laughing).... I'm getting to the end of my years. It's not too far down the hill now, or up the hill. It doesn't frighten me, but I wish there were some things I had done earlier that I haven't been able to do. Such as what? Get back on the stage. There's nothing like a live audience. Copyright ©1999 Detroit Free Press Inc. All rights reserved. Article respectfully shared under the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law as educational material without benefit of financial gain. <Back Website ©2002-2005 Keith Milford. All Rights Reserved.