Ricou Browning Swam the Creature and Created Flipper

When the Gill-man swims in Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), that is Ricou Browning in the suit, a swimmer from Fort Pierce working underwater at Wakulla Springs. He could hold his breath for about four minutes, which is how the shots got made. On land the creature was a different actor, Ben Chapman.

Three Creatures

Browning learned underwater performing from Newt Perry, the Florida showman behind the Weeki Wachee mermaids. He wore the suit again for Revenge of the Creature (1955), shot at Silver Springs, Rice Creek near Palatka and Marineland, and for The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), back at Wakulla and on the Caloosahatchee River near Fort Myers.

Flipper

With Jack Cowden he wrote and produced Flipper (1963), the film that became the television series. Two years later he directed the underwater fight in the James Bond film Thunderball.

Browning was born in Fort Pierce on February 16, 1930, and died on February 27, 2023, at 93.