Charles' Gorilla to Quit Aping

   Charles Gemora, who's frightened plenty of people in the past 20 years, had decided to cut out the monkey business.
   Not that Charlie, considered to be one of the country's best gorilla 'impersonators', will forever forsake his beloved hairy costume.
   But the strain of stomping about as one of our ferocious "monsters(?)" through most of Hollywood's gorilla films has had an effect on the 5 foot 4 inch makeup artist.
Hang Up Costume
   Doctors have advised him to find something less strenuous to occupy his spare time, so Charlie says his costume will hang in the Paramount Studio's wardrobe department whole he works on a shower fixture he's invented for the ladies
   But the problem of keeping Milady's hair dry won't dim Charlie's memories of a career he built out of a talent for sculpting and a visit to the zoo.
   Now 46, Charlie spent long hours at the San Diego Zoo drawing, sculpting, and studying it's hairy tenants.

"I spent days watching Gargi , their famous gorilla. I studied his walk, habits, all the characteristics of the animal", he explains, " I read every book I could find on the subject."

When the First National Studio produced the film, "The Gorilla," in 1927, Charlie made the gorilla costume. And, because he couldn't teach the actors to imitate the animal properly, he played the part.
For the past 15 years Charlie has been employed as a make-up man at Paramount Studios, besides playing all the gorilla roles that came along.
The studio now has the last suit he created - a 50-pound, eight-piece outfit, which fools not only the eye but the touch.

A specially moulded rubber substance is used for the areas of the body not covered by hair. Charlie has matched this substance so closely to the real thing that most women shriek from touching it.

For he coat of the costume Charlie has used the hair of the yak, a domesticated Tibetan animal, mixed with that of Chinese women.
The curly yak hair together with the straight human hair give the matted effect of the coat of a real gorilla he explains.