being removed from the production each week. The audiences would vote privately on which performer they liked best, with Hillie winning her spot in Detroit. As production was set to start, the four finalists of the Panther Woman contest arrived in Hollywood. Early publicity shots were taken which historian Gregory Mank described as making the winners look "less like vamps, as they do like classmates at a convent school." The judges of the final winner for the contest were Cecil B. DeMille, Rouben Mamoulian, Ernst Lubitsch, Norman Taurog, Stuart Walker and Erle C. Kenton. On September 29, two days before, production was set to begin Kathleen Burke was summoned to the casting office and told she had won the contest. Hillie, Andre and Patrick all received Paramount contracts as well. Charles Laughton portrays Dr. Moreau in the film. Laughton had performed on stage in New York in 1931 and was requested to come to Hollywood in early 1932 by Paramount. Paramount did not yet have a film ready for him, leading Laughton to be in Universal's The Old Dark House (1932). On June 19, The New York Times announced that Laughton would be playing the starring role in the film. Prior to working on the film, Laughton would work on Paramount’s Devil and the Deep (1932) and MGM's Payment Deferred (1932). To prepare for the role, Laughton used his own skills with a bullwhip, which he’d already used in the play A Man with Red Hair, and the other was his beard, which had been inspired by a doctor Laughton had visited. Laughton was paid $2,250 per week for his work on the film. On July 31, the Los Angeles Times wrote that Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, who were both under contract to Paramount, had were to portray Ruth and Edward Parker respectively. These roles would later go to Richard Arlen and Leila Hyams. Among the extra actors were wrestlers Hans Steinke, known as The German Oak as a beast man and Harry Ezekian as Gola, who wrestled under the name of Ali Baba. Director Norman Taurog who had won the Academy Award for Best Director for Skippy (1931) was initially going to be the director of Island of Lost Souls. On September 20, 11 days before production was set to begin on the film, Variety announced that Paramount was "having trouble injecting comedy into Island of Lost Souls"