Three years of endless research have gone into creating the world’s first book about Millicent Patrick, the true creator of the monster from The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
On March 5, “The Lady from the Black Lagoon, Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Millicent Patrick” was released unto the world and fans of the original Universal picture, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and people hell bent on keeping the legacy of Millicent Patrick alive all gathered in the middle of the Last Bookstore in Los Angeles.
In the unfair world of the 50s, where women were blatantly treated unfairly and it was not hidden even in the slightest, existed a beacon of light.
Millicent Patrick worked for Universal Studios, and was one of Disney’s first female animators.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon was setting up to be Universal’s next blockbuster hit and the sole creator of the monster needed to promise her director Bud Westmore that she would lie and tell everyone that the monster was designed by him.
Westmore was jealous of all the attention Patrick was receiving for her monster design and did what any man in Hollywood would do.
Surprise, surprise, another incompetent male needing to take credit for something he did not create. Another male responsible to robbing a woman of her hard work. Another man so willing to take advantage of another woman.
This same issue still goes on today, and not just in the film industry. Author, Mallory O’Meara spoke about her own battles as a woman involved in the horror film industry in the modern age.
O’Meara passionately exclaimed for all the women out in the crowd, “You do not have to put up with the crap you think you do.”
Mallory O’Meara was only 17 years old when she discovered the lost truth about Millicent Patrick and when working on her own movie sets as an adult, always kept in mind that she was right where she belonged because if Patrick did it in the 50s, she can do it now.
O’Meara described the struggle to even have her book published. Stating that no one wanted anything to do with the truth about what has always been happening to women in Hollywood.
But when the #MeToo movement happened and Guillermo Del Toro’s “Shape of Water” was released, everything changed.
Author Mallory O’Meara had to teach herself how to write as she had to teach herself how to research.
O’Meara talked to endless historians and archivists, spent plenty of time at Hearst Castle and even went to the Mormon temple to hunt down the story of Millicent Patrick and gather the evidence to support it all.
The end game?
“I want gender equity in Hollywood. I want awards for female directors, cinematographers, producers…I never want what happened to Millicent Patrick to happen to another woman again.”
