Mal Arnold on AllMovie

Though boasting only a handful of film appearances, Mal Arnold's bizarre star turn as Fuad Ramses in the groundbreaking slasher flick Blood Feast ensures him everlasting notoriety in the annals of screen horror. Born Mal Arnold Epstein in Philadelphia, he relocated to Florida after a stint in the Marines and got involved with acting, taking classes and appearing on stage. His screen debut was as an extra in Nature's Playmates, a nudist colony film that required him to appear in the buff. His association with that film's director, Herschell Gordon Lewis, led to being cast in more substantial (but still supporting) roles in further Lewis productions like Goldilocks and the Three Bares and Scum of the Earth. His big break came when Lewis and producer David F. Friedman decided to try something new and began planning the world's first "gore" film. Despite being only 30 years old, Arnold was chosen to play the elderly maniac in Blood Feast, a feat he accomplished with sprayed-on gray hair and an exaggerated limp. For all the carnage Fuad Ramses is responsible for in the film, he's hardly a menacing figure, but Arnold has contended that he played the character exactly as Lewis directed it, completely over the top and with a ridiculous accent. Arnold's film career essentially ended with Blood Feast, and he went on to work in real estate and the pharmaceutical business.