Ed Cubberly had by no means heard of Anthony Hopkins when he obtained a cellphone name from Kathleen Gerlach, the assistant costume designer on a film he knew nothing about. It was 1989, and the movie model of “The Silence of the Lambs” was two years from turning into a vital and industrial sensation.
Cubberly, a full-time nurse on the time, residing in Bayonne, New Jersey, had a aspect enterprise making masks for NHL goalies from 1988 to 2000. Mike Richter, Frank Pietrangelo and Mark Fitzpatrick had been among the many gamers who wore his merchandise.
So how did he get drawn in to assist create one among movie’s all-time villains?
At one level within the late Eighties, Cubberly left a enterprise card at Gerry Cosby & Co. Sporting Items in Manhattan. Not lengthy after, members of the “The Silence of the Lambs” prop division went to the store searching for a masks. They walked away with Cubberly’s contact info.
Gerlach reached out to Cubberly about making a masks — not for hockey however for what would turn out to be a traditional scene within the film. And thus started Cubberly’s lone foray into movie and his connection to Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lecter, whom the American Movie Institute ranks because the No. 1 film villain of all time.
“My quarter-hour of fame,” Cubberly says now. “I suppose it turned out OK.”
Halfway via “Silence of the Lambs,” Lecter speaks to a senator whereas strapped to a gurney. He’s a serial killer infamous for consuming his victims, however he’s additionally a superb psychiatrist with info that would assist catch one other serial killer, Buffalo Invoice. As he speaks to the senator, whose daughter has been kidnapped by Buffalo Invoice, he wears a straight jacket and a fiberglass masks that covers his nostril and the decrease half of his face.
There’s a gap over his mouth coated by three metallic bars — a measure in opposition to a possible cannibalistic outburst.
That was Cubberly’s completed product: essentially the most well-known masks he ever made, with all due respect to the Statue of Liberty masks that New York Rangers goalie Mike Richter wore within the 1994 Stanley Cup Last.
Mike Richter’s Statue of Liberty masks was designed however not painted by Ed Cubberly. (Al Bello / Getty Photographs)
“It was type of devious and scary wanting,” says Cubberly, now 67. “It match the scene completely.”
When enlisting Cubberly’s assist, Gerlach gave him an outline of the scene. Cubberly got here up with the idea in just a few minutes, utilizing a Sharpie to attract the design on an image of one among his previous masks. He interpreted Gerlach’s directions as directions to offer Lecter a muzzle, which led to the mouth protecting. He additionally added a pair of holes over the nostrils.
Cubberly was involved with Gerlach and future Academy Award-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood all through the method. At one level, they requested what he was pondering for the masks’s coloration. Cubberly recommended maintaining the fiberglass’s greenish-tan shade. It might appear to be one thing that would have been made in jail, he informed them. Director Jonathan Demme liked the thought, Cubberly remembers.
“I used to be simply attempting to get out of portray the factor,” he says with a chuckle.
Cubberly by no means met Hopkins, who received an Oscar for his efficiency. The movie’s prop crew mailed him a plaster mould of the actor’s face, which he nonetheless has. Cubberly sculpted clay over the mould, then constructed the fiberglass masks over the clay. The method took solely a few days.
The costume division had Hopkins check out several types of masks earlier than filming. One regarded like a beekeeper’s masks. Others had been extra cage-like. Cubberly’s design proved only.
“It regarded nothing like every of the opposite masks,” he says.
The scene is equally distinctive — and tense. Dramatic string music performs as Lecter is wheeled ahead, and Hopkins makes piercing eye contact with the senator as he toys together with her all through the dialog.
Cubberly doesn’t watch many motion pictures, however he and his spouse went to “The Silence of the Lambs” when it got here out in theaters. He didn’t know precisely when his masks would make an look. The second it did, he jumped from his seat and let loose a cheer.
The opposite patrons hissed at him to take a seat down.
“I made that masks for the film!” he informed them.
Nobody within the theater believed him. Why would they assume the masks got here from New Jersey?
Cubberly, who now lives in Frenchtown, New Jersey, obtained $400 in cost for the masks. He additionally maintains copyright over the design. That’s gotten him some additional money over time. He’s signed contracts with Halloween costume firms permitting them to breed the masks.
Billy Crystal wore the unique whereas internet hosting the Oscars in 1992, making a joke that he regarded just like the goalie from the Display screen Actors Guild hockey crew.
Cubberly hasn’t seen the unique in individual since he shipped it from New Jersey to Pittsburgh, the place many of the film was filmed.
“It’s a query I get on a regular basis,” he says. “I don’t know the place it’s.”
He does, nonetheless, have a present from the person who wore it. After making the masks, he requested the movie’s prop crew if he may get one thing signed by Hopkins. They granted the request, mailing him a photograph of Hopkins sporting the masks. He retains the photograph framed on his wall.
“To Eddie,” Hopkins scrawled on the backside of the image, “All good needs — and be very cautious on darkish nights, Eddie, as a result of I’ll be ready and watching.”
Hopkins signed the image twice: as soon as along with his personal title and as soon as with the title of the character Cubberly helped give his iconic look: Dr. Lecter.
(High photograph: Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Photographs)