Lon Chaney Jr.
Creighton Tull Chaney, known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film The Wolf Man and its various crossovers, Count Alucard in Son of Dracula, Frankenstein's monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein, the Mummy in three pictures, and various other roles in many Universal horror films, including six films in their 1940s Inner Sanctum series, making him a horror icon. He also portrayed Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men and played supporting parts in dozens of mainstream movies, including High Noon, The Defiant Ones, and numerous Westerns, musicals, comedies and dramas.
Originally referred to in films as Creighton Chaney, he was later credited as "Lon Chaney, Jr." in 1935, and after Man Made Monster, beginning as early as The Wolf Man later that same year, he was almost always billed under the name of his more famous father, the deceased cinema giant Lon Chaney, at the studio's insistence. Chaney had English, French, and Irish ancestry, and his career in movies and television spanned four decades, from 1931 to 1971.
Early life
Creighton Tull Chaney was born on February 10, 1906, in Oklahoma City, the son of then-stage performer Lon Chaney and Frances Cleveland Creighton, a singing stage performer who traveled in road shows across the country with Chaney. In a 1965 interview, Chaney Jr. revealed that he was a stillborn baby. "I was all black and not breathing when I was born," he shared. "My father ran out of the house with me and broke a hole in the ice in a nearby lake, and dunked me in time after time until he revived me". His parents' troubled marriage ended in divorce in 1913 following his mother's scandalous public suicide attempt in Los Angeles. Many articles and biographies over the years report that Creighton was led to believe his mother had died while he was a boy, and he only learned that she was still alive after his father's death. Creighton always maintained he had a tough childhood.Young Creighton lived in various homes and boarding schools until 1916, when his father married Hazel Hastings and could provide a stable home.
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 attended business college and became successful in a Los Angeles appliance corporation. Creighton, who had begun working for a plumbing company, married Dorothy Hinckley, the daughter of his employer Ralph Hinckley. They had two sons: Lon Ralph Chaney and Ronald Creighton Chaney.
Creighton's life changed when his father was diagnosed with throat cancer and died on August 26, 1930, at the age of 47.
Career
As Creighton Chaney
It was only after his father's death that Chaney began to act in films, billed under his own name. He began with an uncredited bit part in the serial The Galloping Ghost and signed a contract with RKO where he was given small roles in a number of films, including Girl Crazy, Bird of Paradise, and The Most Dangerous Game .RKO gave him the starring role in a serial, The Last Frontier. He got bigger film roles in Lucky Devils, Son of the Border, Scarlet River, and The Life of Vergie Winters. Over at Mascot Pictures he supported John Wayne in a serial, The Three Musketeers, which was later re-edited into a film entitled Desert Command.
"I did every possible bit in pictures" said Chaney later. "Had to do stuntwork to live. I bulldogged steers, fell off and got knocked off cliffs, rode horses off precipices into rivers, drove prairie schooners up and down hills."
He had the lead in the independent film Sixteen Fathoms Deep, and a memorable part in which his character sings in Girl o' My Dreams at Monogram. The last film he made as Creighton Chaney was The Marriage Bargain for Screencraft Productions. After this point he was billed as Lon Chaney, Jr. until 1942, when he was usually billed, at the insistence of Universal Studios, with his iconic father's name, although the "Jr." was usually added by others to distinguish the two.
As Lon Chaney Jr.
He had the lead in A Scream in the Night made for Commodore Pictures, a crime thriller. He played small roles at Paramount: Hold 'Em Yale, Accent on Youth and Rose Bowl. A small outfit, Ray Kirkwood Productions, gave him a lead, The Shadow of Silk Lennox.At Republic, he featured alongside Gene Autry in The Singing Cowboy and The Old Corral. He was a henchman in a serial for Republic, Undersea Kingdom. Universal got him to play a henchman in their serial, Ace Drummond, and he was uncredited in Columbia's Killer at Large. He lent his name to a cafe which was embroiled in a liquor scandal.
Chaney Jr. was the main villain in Cheyenne Rides Again and also played a villainous part in a serial, Secret Agent X-9.
20th Century Fox
Chaney Jr. signed a contract at 20th Century Fox and appeared in Love Is News with Tyrone Power, Midnight Taxi with Brian Donlevy, That I May Live, This Is My Affair with Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck, Angel's Holiday, Born Reckless with Brian Donlevy, Wild and Woolly with Walter Brennan, The Lady Escapes with Gloria Stuart, Thin Ice with Tyrone Power, One Mile from Heaven with Claire Trevor, Charlie Chan on Broadway, Life Begins in College with the Ritz Brothers, Wife, Doctor and Nurse with Loretta Young, Second Honeymoon with Tyrone Power and Loretta Young, Checkers, Love and Hisses with Walter Winchell, City Girl, Happy Landing with Ethel Merman, Sally, Irene and Mary with Fred Allen and Jimmy Durante, Mr. Moto's Gamble with Peter Lorre, Walking Down Broadway with Claire Trevor, Alexander's Ragtime Band with Tyrone Power, Josette with Don Ameche and Robert Young, Speed to Burn with Lynn Bari, Passport Husband, Straight, Place and Show with the Ritz Brothers, John Ford's Submarine Patrol with Nancy Kelly, and Road Demon. He was almost killed by a train while filming a bank robbery scene in Jesse James. Jesse James also coincidentally featured Henry Hull, the star of Werewolf of London, in a supporting role.Chaney Jr. later made Charlie Chan in City in Darkness with Lynn Bari and Frontier Marshal with Randolph Scott and Nancy Kelly.
''Of Mice and Men'' (1939)
Chaney Jr's only stage appearance had been as Lennie Small in a production of Of Mice and Men with Wallace Ford. He was cast in that role in the 1939 film adaptation, which was produced by Hal Roach Studios. The film was Chaney Jr's first major role in a film and was a critical success for him. Chaney had a screen test for the role of Quasimodo for the remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a role which his father played back in 1923, but the role went to Charles Laughton.''One Million B.C.''
used him in his third-billed character role in One Million B.C. as Victor Mature's caveman father, after which Chaney began to be viewed as a character actor in the mold of his father. He had in fact designed a swarthy, ape-like Neanderthal make-up on himself for the film, but production decisions and union rules prevented his following through on emulating his father in that fashion. Cecil B. DeMille used him in a supporting role in North West Mounted Police and MGM used him in Billy the Kid with Robert Taylor as Billy and Brian Donlevy as Pat Garrett. That studio considered putting Chaney Jr in a remake of his father's hit He Who Gets Slapped but decided not to make it.Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures offered Chaney Jr the lead in Man-Made Monster, a science-fiction horror thriller originally written with Boris Karloff in mind. Chaney's first horror film, it was successful enough for them to offer him a long-term contract.Universal kept him in supporting roles for a while: a comedy Too Many Blondes, a musical San Antonio Rose with Shemp Howard, a serial Riders of Death Valley featuring Noah Beery Jr., the Western Badlands of Dakota and the "Northern" North to the Klondike with Broderick Crawford.
Horror film star: ''The Wolf Man'', ''The Mummy'', ''Inner Sanctum''
Chaney Jr. was then given the title role in The Wolf Man for Universal, a role which, much like Karloff's Frankenstein monster, would largely typecast Chaney as a horror film actor for the rest of his life. Universal dropped the "Jr." and billed him as "Lon Chaney" going forward within that studio, apparently to foster confusion with his father among audiences.Chaney Jr. was now an official horror star, and Universal gave him the role of Frankenstein's monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein, the first B-movie of the series, when Boris Karloff decided not to play the part again; Bela Lugosi returned in his role as Ygor and the leading lady was Evelyn Ankers. He was in a crime film, Eyes of the Underworld, and the wartime shorts Keeping Fit and What We Are Fighting For.
Chaney Jr. played Kharis the Mummy in The Mummy's Tomb, another hit. He was in a Western Frontier Badmen, then reprised his role as the Wolf Man in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man with Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster. The film was originally filmed with the Monster being blind and speaking in Lugosi's distinctive "Ygor" voice, but the studio cut out all references to either so that audiences were left wondering why the Monster staggered around with his arms extended in front of him, not to mention why he had lost the ability to speak since Ghost of Frankenstein, grievously damaging Lugosi's reputation.
Chaney Jr. was given the role of Dracula in Son of Dracula ; the film was actually about Dracula himself, who had no son in the film. This made him the only actor to portray all four of Universal's major horror characters: the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, and Count Dracula.
After a cameo in Crazy House he was given the lead in Calling Dr. Death, based on the Inner Sanctum mysteries. It kicked off another series starring Chaney, the next of which was Weird Woman.
He made a second mummy movie, The Mummy's Ghost, and had a supporting part in Cobra Woman, starring Maria Montez, and Ghost Catchers, with the comedy team Olsen and Johnson.
Dead Man's Eyes was the third Inner Sanctum, after which he was back as the Wolf Man in House of Frankenstein. The Mummy's Curse was Chaney's third and final appearance as Kharis.
He played an antagonist in the Abbott and Costello comedy Here Come the Co-Eds, then made more Inner Sanctums: The Frozen Ghost with Evelyn Ankers and Strange Confession with Brenda Joyce. He returned as the Wolf Man in House of Dracula, one of the last of the Universal horror cycle. Pillow of Death was the last Inner Sanctum. The Daltons Ride Again was a Western featuring Noah Beery Jr. in a supporting role.