Sketch artist, fine arts painter, sculptor and monster maker Paul
Blaisdell was born July 21, 1927, in Newport, Rhode Island, and grew up
in Quincy, Massachussetts. He sketched alien monsters and constructed
model airplane kits in his childhood days. Following graduation from
high school, Paul briefly worked as a typewriter repairman and served a
hitch in the military. Using the G.I. Bill, he attended the New England
School of Art and Design, where he met his future wife, Jacqueline
"Jackie" Boyle. Paul and Jackie got married in 1952 after finishing
college and moved to Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles, California.
Blaisdell worked as a technical illustrator for Douglas Aircraft and
submitted his illustrations to such publications as "Spaceways" and
"Otherworlds." Legendary magazine publisher
'Forrest J.
Ackerman' was so impressed
with Paul's work that he became his agent. It was through Ackerman that
Blaisdell got his first film job designing the alien creature for
Roger Corman's
low-budget sci-fi outing
Ausgeburt der Hölle (1955).
Paul went on to handle the special effects on and/or design monsters
for such low-budget American-International Pictures drive-in fare as
Gesandter des Grauens (1957),
Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957)
and
Die Rache der schwarzen Spinne (1958).
Best known for his strikingly original and imaginative creature
designs, Blaisdell's most memorable monsters are the grotesquely
malformed mutant in
Die letzten Sieben (1955),
the infamous cucumber creature in
It Conquered the World (1956),
Tabanga the tree monster in
From Hell It Came (1957) and
the titular distaff beast in
Geschöpf des Schreckens (1956). In
addition to designing these creatures, he also often played them as
well.
Blaisdell became increasingly disenchanted with the film business,
however, and quit making contributions to movies in the late 1950s. In
the early 1960s he and fellow hardcore horror cinema fan
Bob Burns launched the magazine
"Fantastic Monsters of the Films," a sadly short-lived publication that
featured a how-to section by Paul called "The Devil's Workshop." He
also, in the early 1960s, did conceptual artwork on several movies
which never got made. Eventually Paul left the business altogether and
eked out a modest living as a carpenter.
Paul died of stomach cancer at the tragically young age of 55 on July
10, 1983 in Topanga Canyon, California.
