Everyone has something they’re afraid of, but for many people, fear can be a personal thing. Perhaps a fear manifested during childhood and lingered; perhaps it’s a more recent addition to your list of anxieties.

Regardless of how legitimate a fear is, it never ceases to send shivers down our spine. Perhaps that’s the reason audiences gravitate toward horror films so frequently; a movie provides the opportunity to confront fear in a controlled environment.

As one of the stars of Son of Frankenstein (1939), Josephine Hutchinson got a firsthand look at fear, and it offered a new perspective.

“It’s interesting to think what people fear,” said Hutchinson during an interview with the Lincoln Journal Star. “In this case, I should think fear was mostly superstition, and we pride ourselves that we are beyond that.”

Hutchinson had her own personal fears. “I don’t believe I’ve ever felt any such fear as we are supposed to feel in this picture, though I remember as a child I had a horror of thunder and lightning,” said the actor. “I didn’t overcome the fear until I was grown up.”

Though fears primarily depend on the individual, Hutchinson believed that aging was a great fear for many women in Hollywood.

“But they can overcome that fear by making up their minds that to every period of life there is some special beauty,” said Hutchinson. “I have several middle-aged and elderly women acquaintances who have an inner spiritual beauty. I think it is much more attractive than physical beautyand far more important to those around them.”