LON CHANEY, JR.

'Lon Chaney, Jr.' (February 10, 1906 – July 12, 1973) was an American character actor, known mainly for his roles in monster movies and as the son of silent film actor Lon Chaney. He was first credited as "Lon Chaney, Jr." only in 1935, as a studio marketing ploy by a small production outfit.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

Personal life

Complete Filmography

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Born 'Creighton Tull Chaney' in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Lon Chaney, Sr. and Cleva Creighton Chaney, a singing stage performer who traveled in road shows across the country with Lon. His parents' troubled marriage ended in divorce in 1913 following a scandalous public suicide attempt by his mother in Los Angeles. Young Creighton lived in various homes and boarding schools until 1916, when his father (now employed in films) remarried Hazel Hastings and could provide a stable home. Many sources report that Creighton was led to believe his mother Cleva had died while he was a boy, and was only made aware she lived after his father's death in 1930.
From an early age he worked hard to avoid his famous father's shadow. In young adulthood, his father discouraged him from show business, and he became successful in a Los Angeles appliance corporation.

Career

It was only after his father's death that Chaney started acting in movies, beginning with an uncredited role in the 1932 film ''Girl Crazy''. He appeared in films under his real name Creighton until 1935, when he began to be billed as "Lon Chaney Jr." (and would appear as "Lon Chaney" later in his career). He first achieved stardom and critical acclaim in the 1939 feature film version of ''Of Mice and Men'', in which he played Lennie Small.
In 1941, Chaney starred in the title role of ''The Wolf Man'' for Universal Pictures Co. Inc., a role which would typecast him for the rest of his life. He maintained a career at Universal horror movies over the next few years, replaying the Wolf Man in ''Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man'', ''House of Frankenstein'', ''House of Dracula'', ''Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'', Frankenstein's monster in ''The Ghost of Frankenstein'', Kharis the mummy in ''The Mummy's Tomb'', ''The Mummy's Ghost'' and ''The Mummy's Curse''. He played Dracula in ''Son of Dracula'', a role for which he initially seemed completely wrong. But by playing the part with a quiet, ultra-controlled sense of menace he overcame the miscasting, and Dracula is now generally regarded as his best role in a Universal picture since the original ''Wolf Man''. Chaney is thus the only actor to portray all four of Universal's major monsters: Wolf Man; Frankenstein Monster; Mummy; and Dracula. Universal also starred him in a series of psychological mysteries associated with the ''Inner Sanctum'' radio series. He also played western heroes, such as in the serial ''Overland Mail'', but the six-foot, 220-pound actor often appeared as mundane heavies. After leaving Universal, he worked primarily in character roles in low-budget films, due to typecasting and alcoholism. In later years he often played mute or brutish roles, partly due to the ravages of throat cancer, the same disease that claimed his father's life. In his final feature film, ''Dracula vs. Frankenstein'' (1971), he played Groton, Dr. Frankenstein's mute henchman.
While continuing to pop up in lower budget horror epics throughout the 1950s, Chaney also established himself as a top-flight cameo artiste for producer Stanley Kramer, taking key supporting roles in the classic western ''High Noon'' (1952) (starring Gary Cooper), ''Not as a Stranger'' (1955), a hospital melodrama featuring Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra, and ''The Defiant Ones'' (1958, starring Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier.) Kramer told the press at the time that whenever a script came in with a role too difficult for most actors in Hollywood, he called Chaney.
He became quite popular with baby boomers, however, after Universal released its backlog of horror films to television in 1956 and ''Famous Monsters of Filmland'' magazine regularly focused on his films. He was honored by appearing as the Wolf Man on one of a 1997 series of United States postage stamps depicting movie monsters, as was (Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster and The Mummy, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and Lon Chaney, Sr. as The Phantom of the Opera.
In the 1960s Chaney's career ran the gamut from decent horror productions, such as Roger Corman's ''The Haunted Palace'' and big-studio Westerns such as 1967's ''Welcome to Hard Times'', to such bottom-of-the-barrel fodder as ''Hillbillys in a Haunted House'' and ''Dr. Terror's Gallery of Horrors'' (both 1967). His bread-and-butter work during this decade was television -- where he put in guest shots on everything from ''Wagon Train'' to ''The Monkees'' -- and a string of low-budget but entertaining and very traditional Westerns produced by A.C. Lyles for Paramount.
From a personal standpoint, Chaney seemed to have been well-liked by his co-workers -- "sweet" is the adjective that most commonly emerges from people who acted with him -- yet he was capable of intense dislikes. For instance, he and frequent co-star Evelyn Ankers did not get along at all (he called her "Shankers" and she once characterized him as "The Mad Ghoul"), despite their undeniable on-camera chemistry. Chaney is also said to have had a belligerent relationship with actor Martin Kosleck. Years after the fact, Kosleck explained this as a case of jealousy over Kosleck's (self-described) superior talent, though interestingly, all the people for whom Chaney is on record as behaving badly toward -- Kosleck; actor Frank Reicher, whom Chaney famously nearly strangled on camera in "The Mummy's Ghost" and director Robert Siodmak, over whose head Chaney broke a vase -- were all German, and all the incidents occurred during World War II. There seems little doubt that Chaney's basic geniality, even his professional intensity, could be greatly altered through the introduction of alcohol.
Chaney always projected a peculiar childish quality on screen, no matter how old he was, which meant that his best roles tended to be those for which a childish quality was requisite, such as "Lenny," "Larry Talbot," and even in later years some of his roles as weak and/or alcoholic parents. Only rarely did this quality drop, as was the case with his performance as "Dracula" in "Son of Dracula" and years later as "Simon Orne" in "The Haunted Palace".

Personal life

Married twice, he died of liver failure in San Clemente, California. His body was donated for medical research. ^[1]
Chaney had two sons, Lon Ralph Chaney (born July 3, 1928) and Ronald Creighton Chaney (born March 18, 1930), both now deceased. He is survived by a grandson, Ron Chaney, who attends film conventions and graciously discusses his grandfather's life and film career. Ron Chaney was featured on the CBS Sunday Morning program on October 29, 2006. On his deathbed, Lon Chaney Jr's close friend Sandie Clark told reporters that Lon Chaney Jr "... was a gentle, talented man..."

Complete Filmography

# ''The Trap'' (1922)
# ''The Galloping Ghost'' (1931)
# ''Girl Crazy'' (1932)
# ''Bird of Paradise'' (1932)
# ''The Most Dangerous Game'' (1932)
# ''The Last Frontier'' (1932)
# ''The Black Ghost'' (1932)
# ''Lucky Devils'' (1933)
# ''The Three Musketeers'' (1933)
# ''Son of the Border'' (1933)
# ''Scarlet River'' (1933)
# ''Sixteen Fathoms Deep'' (1934)
# ''The Life of Vergie Winters'' (1934)
# ''Girl of My Dreams'' (1934)
# ''The Marriage Bargain'' (1935)
# ''Hold Em' Yale'' (1935)
# ''A Scream in the Night'' (1935)
# ''Accent on Youth'' (1935)
# ''The Shadow of Silk Lennox'' (1935)
# ''The Singing Cowboy'' (1936)
# ''Undersea Kingdom'' (1936)
# ''Ace Drummond'' (1936)
# ''Killer at Large'' (1936)
# ''Rose Bowl'' (1936)
# ''The Old Corral'' (1936)
# ''Cheyenne Rides Again'' (1937)
# ''Love Is News'' (1937)
# ''Midnight Taxi'' (1937)
# ''Secret Agent X-9'' (1937)
# ''That I May Live'' (1937)
# ''This Is My Affair'' (1937)
# ''Angel's Holiday'' (1937)
# ''Born Reckless'' (1937)
# ''Wild and Woolly'' (1937)
# ''The Lady Escapes'' (1937)
# ''One Mile From Heaven'' (1937)
# ''Thin Ice'' (1937)
# ''Charlie Chan on Broadway'' (1937)
# ''Life Begins in College'' (1937)
# ''Wife, Doctor, and Nurse'' (1937)
# ''Second Honeymoon'' (1937)
# ''Checkers'' (1937)
# ''Love and Hisses'' (1937)
# ''City Girl'' (1938)
# ''Happy Landing'' (1938)
# ''Sally, Irene, and Mary'' (1938)
# ''Mr. Moto's Gamble'' (1938)
# ''Walking Down Broadway'' (1938)
# ''Alexander's Ragtime Band'' (1938)
# ''Josette'' (1938)
# ''Speed to Burn'' (1938)
# ''Passport Husband'' (1938)
# ''Straight Place and Show'' (1938)
# ''Submarine Patrol'' (1938)
# ''Road Demon'' (1938)
# ''Jesse James'' (1939)
# ''Union Pacific'' (1939)
# ''Charlie Chan in City in Darkness'' (1939)
# ''Of Mice and Men'' (1939)
# ''Frontier Marshall'' (1939)
# ''North West Mounted Police'' (1940)
# ''One Million B.C.'' (1940)
# ''Too Many Blondes'' (1941)
# ''Billy the Kid'' (1941)
# ''Man Made Monster'' (1941)
# ''San Antonio Rose'' (1941)
# ''Riders of Death Valley'' (1941)
# ''Badlands of South Dakota'' (1941)
# ''The Wolf Man'' (1941)
# ''North to the Klondike'' (1941)
# ''Overland Mail'' (1942)
# ''The Ghost of Frankenstein'' (1942)
# ''Eyes of the Underworld'' (1942)
# ''The Mummy's Tomb'' (1942)
# ''Frontier Badmen'' (1943)
# ''Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man'' (1943)
# ''What We Are Fighting For'' (1943)
# ''Son of Dracula'' (1943)
# ''Crazy House'' (1943)
# ''Calling Dr. Death'' (1944)
# ''Weird Woman'' (1944)
# ''The Mummy's Ghost'' (1944)
# ''Cobra Woman'' (1944)
# ''The Ghost Catchers'' (1944)
# ''Dead Man's Eyes'' (1944)
# ''House of Frankenstein'' (1944)
# ''The Mummy's Curse'' (1944)
# ''Here Come The Co-Eds'' (1945)
# ''The Frozen Ghost'' (1945)
# ''Strange Confession'' (1945)
# ''House of Dracula'' (1945)
# ''The Daltons Ride Again'' (1945)
# ''Pillow of Death'' (1945)
# ''My Favorite Brunette'' (1947)
# ''Albuquerque'' (1948)
# ''Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'' (1948)
# ''16 Fathoms Deep'' (1949)
# ''Captain China'' (1950)
# ''There's a Girl In My Heart'' (1950)
# ''Once a Thief'' (1950)
# ''Inside Straight'' (1951)
# ''Bride of the Gorilla'' (1951)
# ''Only the Valiant'' (1951)
# ''Behave Yourself!'' (1951)
# ''Flame of Araby'' (1951)
# ''The Bushwhackers'' (1952)
# ''The Thief of Damascus'' (1952)
# ''Battles of Chief Pontiac'' (1952)
# ''High Noon'' (1952)
# ''The Black Castle'' (1952)
# ''Raiders of the Seven Seas'' (1953)
# ''Bandit Island'' (1953)
# ''A Lion is in the Streets'' (1953)
# ''The Boy from Oklahoma'' (1954)
# ''Casanova's Big Night'' (1954)
# ''The Big Chase'' (1954)
# ''Passion'' (1954)
# ''The Black Pirates'' (1954)
# ''The Big Chase'' (1954)
# ''Big House, U.S.A.'' (1955)
# ''I Died a Thousand Times'' (1955)
# ''The Indian Fighter'' (1955)
# ''Not as a Stranger'' (1955)
# ''The Silver Star'' (1955)
# ''The Black Sleep'' (1956)
# ''Indestructible Man'' (1956)
# ''Manfish'' (1956)
# ''Pardners'' (1956)
# '' (1956)
# ''Along the Mohawk Trail'' (1957)
# ''The Cyclops'' (1957)
# ''The Alligator People'' (1959)
# ''Money, Women, and Guns'' (1959)
# ''House of Terror'' (1960)
# ''The Devil's Messenger'' (1961)
# ''The Phantom'' (1961)
# ''Rebellion in Cuba'' (1961)
# ''The Haunted Palace'' (1963)
# ''Face of the Screaming Werewolf'' (1964)
# ''Land of the Lawless'' (1964)
# ''Stage to Thunder Rock'' (1964)
# ''House of Black Death'' (1965)
# ''Dr. Terror's Gallery of Horrors'' (1965)
# ''Young Fury'' (1965)
# ''Black Spurs'' (1965)
# ''Town Tamer'' (1965)
# ''Johnny Reno'' (1966)
# ''Apache Uprising'' (1966)
# ''Welcome to Hard Times'' (1967)
# ''Hillbillys in a Haunted House''(1967)
# ''Spider Baby'' (1968)
# ''Buckskin'' (1968)
# ''The Fireball Jungle'' (1969)
# ''The Female Bunch'' (1969)
# ''A Stranger in Town'' (1969)
# ''Dracula vs. Frankenstein'' (1971)

References

1. Lon Chaney Jr., Actor, Is Dead at 67; Portrayed Monsters

External links

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