This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com
Carl Laemmle Jr. had taken over Universal Studios, the studio his father created, just as the talkies started. Called Junior by those closest to him, Carl learned at the feet of his father, but he knew that he couldn’t just copy what had happened before; he needed to keep the studio fresh and forward facing.
In 1931, Universal saw the birth of two of the longest running franchises in film history, DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN. The Universal Monster phenomena started big, and while no one knew just how important these movies would become not only to the studio but to film fans around the world, Junior knew he had to keep the momentum going. As he sat, trying to think of more classic horror books Universal could get the rights to, his mind pushed a memory forward, a news story from nearly a decade before that had captured his imagination - the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and the supposed Curse of the Pharaohs.
While the Curse of the Pharaohs is as old as the pharaohs themselves - the tomb of Khentika Ikhekhi has the very cool and creepy inscription that says "As for all men who shall enter this my tomb... impure... there will be judgment... an end shall be made for him... I shall seize his neck like a bird... I shall cast the fear of myself into him" - it became famous in 1922 when archaeologist Howard Carter, with the financial resources of Lord Carnarvon, discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, the prince who became king at just nine years old (I can’t speak for you, but when I was nine I couldn’t be trusted to walk the dog before he peed in the house, let alone run a country).
Tutankhamun, son of Akhenaten, suffered from many of the ailments we now relate to the rulers of ancient Egypt. He had a cleft palate and a mild case of scoliosis. He walked with a limp and needed a cane thanks to a deformed left foot. In a bit of exciting news for scientists and historians, Tutankhamun also had malaria, making him the oldest bit of evidence of the mosquito born disease. Good on ya, Tutankhamun!
Being ruler was not easy for the child. His father had left behind quite a mess - the kingdom was nearly broke and Akhenaten had let the friendly relations with neighboring countries fall apart. The people were plenty pissed, and with good reason. Through the urging of his advisors, Tutankhamun started a number of building projects and moved the capitol from out of Akhetaten and back to Thebes. Tutankhamun also restored the god Amun to supremacy, which had to come as quite a blow to Aten, who Akhenaten had named the number one god.
While there is no definitive answer to how Tutankhamun died, we do know that it was just ten years into his reign. The boy king, likely due to complications from malaria, died at just nineteen. He death may have been unexpected - his tomb shows signs that it was not complete when it was sealed. Adding to the mystery of it all is that Tutankhamun appeared to have burned up in his tomb, the mix of embalming oils with the linens and oxygen appeared to start a fire. Maybe that was why they locked up the tomb before the paint was dry.
Howard Carter’s life in archaeology started off great, but after an investigation into the Saqqara Affair - something that sounds way cooler than it actually was - Carter’s career stalled. He had been out of work for three years when Lord Carnarvon hired him to run the excavations in the Valley of the Kings. For seven years, Carter and his team excavated and recorded everything they could, but when World War One broke out in 1914, everything came to a quick halt. For three years, Carter waited to get back to the site knowing that the proverbial white whale was still out there, hidden under the sands.
In 1917, work resumed at the Valley of Kings, but Carter and the team weren’t having much luck finding anything of significance. By the start of 1922, having funded the dig for fifteen years, Lord Carnarvon made it clear that unless something great was found by the end of the season, he would shut everything down. Carter was staring unemployment - and failure - in the face. Each day that passed without a find worthy of Lord Carnarvon’s money was another day closer to joblessness.
Still, Carter could feel that the sand was covering up something great, something that would change the world. They just had to find it before it was too late. Just a glimpse of it before the end of the season, before the money ran out, and Carter would have made his mark. Spring turned into Summer, but there was nothing. Summer became Fall and still, Carter’s team came up empty handed. Just as Fall threatened to become Winter, just as all looked lost… they found it.
On November 4, 1922, Carter and his men found steps. They designated the area as KV62 and Howard Carter, possibly putting the cart before the horse, sent word to Lord Carnarvon to come to the Valley of Kings. On November 26, with Lord Carnarvon and his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert watching, Howard Carter used a chisel given to him by his grandmother when he turned 17 and breached the top left corner of a doorway. The breach was just big enough for Carter to stick in a candle and peek inside. As he did, Lord Carnarvon asked “Can you see anything?”
Carter smiled and replied, “Yes, wonderful things”.
For months, Howard Carter and his crew worked on KV62 as journalist H.V. Morton documented every step. On February 23, 1923, Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon, and Lady Herbert were the first three living people to enter the tomb of Tutankhamun in over three thousand years.
Even before Carter, Lord Carnarvon and Lady Herbert entered the tomb of the dead boy king, rumors of a curse started to spread. The first came from Egyptologist James Henry Breasted who claimed that when Carter sent word to him that they had found Tutankhamun’s resting place, a cobra - the symbol of Egyptian royalty - slithered it’s way into his birdcage and ate his canary.
Rumors really caught on when, a little over a month after entering the tomb, Lord Carnarvon accidentally cut open a mosquito bite while shaving. The cut became infected and within days the financer of the dig was dead. The news of Lord Carnarvon’s death, along with incorrect reports that a curse was found written inside Tutankhamun’s tomb, sent the world into Curse of the Pharaoh fever. Everyone’s least favorite Italian, Benito Mussolini straight up freaked out and ordered that an Egyptian mummy that was given to him as a gift by the Egyptian government be removed from his home. How no one thought it was creepy that the Egyptian government was handing out old dead bodies as presents before this, I have no idea.
The second death came in May when American railroad executive George Gould died of a fever shortly after visiting Tutankhamun’s tomb. A month later Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey was shot and killed by his wife and, rather than accept that Marie-Marguerite Fahmy shot her husband because he was horribly abusive, the press decided the 3000 year dead Egyptian king was responsible.
Tutankhamun then took a little over two months off from curse work before getting back in the swing with Lord Carnarvon’s half brother Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert who died when an operation to remove all of his teeth resulted in his blood becoming poisoned. His teeth, if you’re interested, were being removed because his doctor believed that would cure his blindness. Sounds to me like the curse here was that Aubrey had a really dumb doctor.
Next up was Sir Archibald Douglas-Reid, who x-rayed Tutankhamun. He died in January of 1924 from what every damn source I can find only calls a “mysterious illness”. The curse then waited eleven months before striking again, this time taking the life of Sir Lee Stack, the Governor-General of Sudan, who was assassinated while driving through Cairo.
After that, Tutankhamun took a break from murder and targeted Howard Carter’s friend Sir Bruce Ingham who had nothing to do with the dig, but did own a paperweight made out of a mummified hand that had a bracelet on the wrist. The inscription on the bracelet read “Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water and pestilence”. Sir Ingham’s home burned down and, shortly after it was rebuilt, it was flooded.
Four years after the death of Sir Lee Stack, A.C. Mace, who worked on the excavation team and co-wrote THE DISCOVERY OF THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN with Howard Carter, died of arsenic poisoning. A year after that, Mervyn Herbert, another half brother of Lord Carnarvon, died of malaria that turned to pneumonia at age 46. Six months later, Carter’s secretary, Richard Bethell, was smothered to death in his bed. Three months later, Bethell’s father committed suicide by jumping out a window of his apartment and falling seven stories.
After no good mummy books could be found to buy the rights to, Carl Laemmle Jr. had story editor Richard Schayer and writer Nina Wilcox Putnam come up with a new story. Their concept was about a magician living in San Francisco who had been using nitrates to survive for 3000 years. The concept was given to writer John L. Balderston, who had done some work on the scripts for DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN as well as covered the actual opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb for NEW YORK WORLD. Balderston moved the story to Egypt and changed the character from a magician to a fictional Egyptian pharaoh named Imhotep.
Under the direction of Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff, THE MUMMY was released in December 1932 and was an instant success both critically and financially.
Howard Carter, the man who found the tomb that created a rather odd rumor of a curse, died in 1939 at the age of sixty-four. Papers at the time reported it as the final revenge of Tutankhamun, which must have been a relief to Lady Evelyn Herbert who would live for another 41 years free of the fear of the mummy.