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 changing into a crucial and industrial sensation.
Cubberly, a full-time nurse on the time, dwelling in Bayonne, New Jersey, had a aspect enterprise making masks for NHL goalies from 1988 to 2000. Mike Richter, Frank Pietrangelo and Mark Fitzpatrick have been among the many gamers who wore his merchandise.
So how did he get drawn in to assist create certainly one of 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 on the lookout 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, who the American Movie Institute ranks as the No. 1 film villain of all time.
“My quarter-hour of fame,” Cubberly says now. “I assume it turned out OK.”
Halfway by way of “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 an excellent 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 lined by three steel bars — a measure towards a possible cannibalistic outburst.
That was Cubberly’s completed product: probably 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.
“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up with the idea in only some minutes, utilizing a Sharpie to attract the design on an image of certainly one of his outdated masks. He interpreted Gerlach’s directions as directions to offer Lecter a muzzle, which led to the mouth masking. He additionally added a pair of holes over the nostrils.
Cubberly was in touch 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 shade. Cubberly recommended protecting the fiberglass’s greenish-tan shade. It could appear like one thing that would have been made in jail, he advised them. Director Jonathan Demme beloved the thought, Cubberly remembers.
“I used to be simply making an attempt to get out of portray the factor,” he says with a chuckle.
Cubberly by no means met Hopkins, who gained an Oscar for his efficiency. The movie’s prop crew mailed him a plaster mildew of the actor’s face, which he nonetheless has. Cubberly sculpted clay over the mildew, then constructed the fiberglass masks over the clay. The method took solely a few days.
The costume division had Hopkins check out various kinds of masks earlier than filming. One regarded like a beekeeper’s masks. Others have been extra cage-like. Cubberly’s design proved only.
“It regarded nothing like several 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 set free a cheer.
The opposite patrons hissed at him to sit down down.
“I made that masks for the film!” he advised 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 further money over time. He’s signed contracts with Halloween costume corporations 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 Actors Guild hockey crew.
Cubberly hasn’t seen the unique in particular person since he shipped it from New Jersey to Pittsburgh, the place a lot of the film was filmed.
“It’s a query I get on a regular basis,” he says. “I do not 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 Photos)
