Stage actor during 1910s in west Canada; Official biography

An article about his early acting career and secret wives in British Columbia. Author is historian/journalist.

Flunked out of Kings College, moved to Canada to farm. Didn't last, decided his calling was the stage.

Bio details Karloff’s Kootenay link https://www.nelsonstar.com/opinion/bio-details-karloffs-kootenay-link/

Short history of William Henry Pratt from the biography.
http://www.morethanamonster.co.uk/about-boris-karloff.html

After a while Karloff began to work as an extra at the local film studios. Over the years the roles grew larger. With the transition from silent pictures to sound Karloff's theatrical training stood him in good stead. In 1930 he received good notices as the killer, Ned Galloway, in the stage play The Criminal Code. When Howard Hawks made a motion picture version of the play, the following year, Karloff retained the role of the killer.

Then one day, as the story goes, Karloff was sitting in the commissary at Universal having lunch. The director, James Whale, spotted him and asked him to test for the role of the monster in his latest picture - Frankenstein. Karloff won the role and, at the age of forty -three, found himself a star. More horror films followed, many of which are now deemed to be classics of the genre: Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Black Cat, and Son of Frankenstein to name but a few - and became firmly established as one of Hollywood's leading 'bogey-men.'