Lawson Deming of Ohio and his wife, Mary Rita,
developed Sir Graves Ghastly, the campy vampire who hosted a
weekly horror movie show on Detroit TV every week for 16 years
Actor fondly remembers days as Sir Graves Ghastly
By NICOLE M. ROBERTSON
Of The Oakland Press
It was his laugh that people remember about Sir Graves Ghastly. That half-menacing "Nyeeeehhhhhaaaaaaaaaa!!" He bellowed it with a twist of his mouth and curled-up mustache. It always followed the final line of his TV show, "Happy haunting!" as he closed his casket on another week's ghastly movie.
Kids today don't know what they missed.
Sir Graves was an institution in Detroit from 1967 to 1983. We watched him late nights on Fridays and later, "Sir Graves Presents" every Saturday afternoon. He didn't get to pick the movies, which could be real stinkeroos, but sometimes they were actually pretty scary. Like that one with the rat that chewed the guy's face off ... eeeyewwwwww ...
The man behind the spit curl and the pasted-on whiskers is radio and stage performer and producer Lawson Deming, who grew up in Ohio and married his college sweetheart, Mary Rita. Deming, now 87, still lives on River Styx Road in Medina, Ohio, with his wife of 61 years.
"We met in radio class (at) Case Western Reserve,"Deming says in a phone interview, with his life partner talking on the extension. "She got into stage work."
"I had a homemaker show (on radio)," Mary Rita Deming adds. "And we had a show together. We did adaptions of classics for children."
During their courtship, Deming was offered work in Los Angeles with the "Amos and Andy" radio show. But he decided he couldn't leave his love behind. That was during the Depression, when the couple couldn't afford to marry for the first seven years of their romance. Later, they would wed and raise four boys -- one of whom, David Deming, attended Cranbrook Institute in Bloomfield Hills and went on to become president of Cleveland Institute of Art. Another son became a television producer and director.
Back in the early days, Hollywood didn't hold much interest for the couple.
"It's strange," Deming says. "That didn't entice us. It didn't have such a good reputation. If we'd have been younger, we might've tried."
But they had plenty to do in the Cleveland area. Deming was working as a puppeteer on the Woodrow the Woodsman children's TV show when he was asked to host an afternoon horror movie program. He had to come up with a character he could play.
"Between my wife and myself, I came up with Sir Graves Ghastly," he said, noting the campy vampire always was intended to be tongue-in-cheek. He also created and performed other characters -- Tilly Trollhouse (a "gorgeous cookie"), who he performed himself in women's clothes; The Glob, a formless face that sang ghoulish songs (really Deming's chin, painted with eyes and flipped upside-down); Reel McCoy, who dug up the movies Sir Graves presented; and the Cool Ghoul -- kind of an "undead" beatnik.
"It was like getting paid for having fun," he says.
In creating Sir Graves' signature maniacal laugh, he took his inspiration from the devil in "Damn Yankees." He says even now, fans will call him -- especially at this time of year -- and imitate that laugh.
On the show, Deming's cast of silly characters did skits and talked about the movies he showed.
"I never did anything annoying that was not in good taste," Deming said. "I more or less chuckled at the movies instead of badmouthing them. Particularly in my personal appearances.
"I had little kids come up to me and hug my legs and say, 'I love you, Sir Graves.' And I'd tousle their hair and say, 'I love you, too.' " He says this in character, offering Sir Graves' voice.
Even after he retired, Deming wasn't forgotten.
"The Junior Chamber of Commerce (in Detroit) would call and ask me to to appear at their haunted houses, but five to six years ago I decided it was too much."
Now recovering with difficulty from his third hip operation in July, Deming is moving a little slower these days. But he and his wife are still a partnership, keeping in touch with the many friends they've made through their long media careers.
They still receive a lot of fan mail -- especially this time of year -- from people saying they watched Sir Graves when they were kids, "mostly boys," often asking for autographed photos. They happily oblige.
Although not much of a horror fan himself (Deming prefers more thoughtful fare, such as PBS shows and "Frasier"), he recognizes the enduring appeal of horror.
"I don't know," he says, thinking about why people love scary movies. "You see it on television ... it's a safe way of being frightened without getting involved in it personally."
Copyright The Oakland Press, Oct. 31, 2000