Gwen Conliffe

Gwen Conliffe was the daughter of antique store proprietor Charles Conliffe. She lived in a room above the shop in the village of Llanwelly in Wales. She was engaged to marry a man named Frank Andrews, a gamekeeper on the nearby Talbot estate.

In 1941, Gwen Conliffe met the inheritor of the Talbot property, Larry Talbot. Larry was instantly infatuated with Gwen, having discovered her after accidentally spying on her with his father's telescope. It was Gwen who sold Larry the silver-tipped wolf's head cane that would become so important in their immediate futures. Larry flirted with Gwen and tried to get her to date him, but Gwen politely rebuffed his advances. Larry finally wore her down though and Gwen agreed to accompany him to a gypsy camp with her friend Jenny Williams. While Jenny had her palm read by a fortune teller named Bela, Larry continued to put the moves on Gwen. Gwen warned him that she was engaged to be married, but this did little to sway Larry's intent. Moments later, a wolf attacked the camp, killing Jenny Williams. Larry ran to her rescue and beat the wolf to death with his cane, but it was too late. Jenny was dead. Larry learned some time later, that the wolf was actually the fortune teller Bela, who turned into a werewolf on the nights of the full moon.

In the days preceding Jenny's funeral, several of the elder women in the village, including her mother, came to the Conliffe store, openly blaming Gwen for the girl's death.

Within a few evenings, Larry Talbot discovered that he had been infected with the curse of the werewolf. Fearing that he might inadvertently place Gwen in danger, he gave her a protective charm (which in turn had been given to him by the gypsy Maleva).

The charm didn't help however. That night, Larry Talbot changed into a Wolf Man and attacked Gwen on the moors. He probably would have killed her if not for the arrival of Larry's father, Sir John Talbot, who bludgeoned the Wolf Man to death with Larry's silver-tipped cane.

Notes & Trivia

 * During the climactic scene where the Wolf Man attacks Gwen, actress Evelyn Ankers passed out from the chemicals given off by the fog machine.