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Jonathan Haze, who originated the Seymour role in cult classic 1960 horror comedy The Little Shop of Horrors during a long collaboration with its director Roger Corman, has died. He was 91.
His daughter, Rebecca Haze, told Deadline that he died peacefully on November 2 at his home in Los Angeles but did not provide a cause.
Born in Pittsburgh on April 1, 1929, Haze was discovered working in a gas station by Corman, who gave him a role in Monster from the Ocean Floor, which Corman produced. That same year, he cast Haze in The Fast and the Furious and then as Billy Candy in the 1955 western Five Guns West, starring John Lund and Dorothy Malone.
They were the first of nearly 20 movies they made together, including 1955’s Apache Woman and Day the World Ended; 1956’s Gunslinger, The Oklahoma Woman, It Conquered the World and Swamp Women; and 1957’s Naked Paradise, Not of This Earth, Rock All Night, Carnival Rock and The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent aka The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent.
Haze also did guest turns on TV’s Dragnet, 77 Sunset Strip, Overland Trail, The Californians and Cimarron City before landing his signature role.
Seymour Krelboined is described in The Little Shop of Horrors screenplay as “a scrawny runt, with a nose like a door-stopper and the gait of an ostrich.” Working as a assistant in a skid row flower shop alongside Audrey (Jackie Joseph), on whom he has a crush, Haze’s Seymour is fired after botching an arrangement for a mean dentist. Seymour gets to keep his job after telling the boss about a plant he has grown from seeds, which he names Audrey Jr., to his colleague’s delight.
Plant food fails to provide enough nourishment for the rather strange flora, but things change when Seymour cuts his finger and drips blood on Audrey Jr. The Venus flytrap-like plant now craves — no, demands — human blood and begins to grow. Big. And horror hilarity ensues, leading to the film’s signature catchphrase: “Feed me, Seymour.”
Watch the trailer here:
The film was adapted for the 1982 Off-Broadway musical Little Shop of Horrors, which later was produced in London’s West End and in a 2003-04 Broadway revival. That show inspired director Frank Oz’s 1986 film musical, starring Rick Moranis as Seymour.
Haze — a cousin of drum legend Buddy Rich — went on to appear in Corman’s 1963 films The Terror and X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes and would have sporadic film and TV roles culminating with the 2010 gangland drama feature Nobody Smiling.
He also served as production manager on Corman’s The Fast and the Furious and The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955) along with a few other films in the 1960s and ’70s. Haze also wrote screenplays for the 1962 feature Invasion of the Star Creatures and a 1960 “Family Skeleton” episode of 77 Sunset Strip and went on to enjoy a long career producing commercials.
Along with Rebecca Haze, survivors include another daughter, three grandchildren and a great-grandson.
