Lon Chaney

His father was the son of James L. Chaney and wife Caroline Uffner and grandson of John Chaney (1790-1881), US Congressman, Representative from Ohio, and wife Mary Ann Lafere, and was a distant relative of Dick Cheney.

Although his parents were deaf, Leonidas Chaney became an actor and also owner of a theatre company (together with his brother John). He made his debut at the movies in 1912, and his filmography is vast. Lon Chaney was especially famous for his horror parts in movies like e. g.

Unbeknown to many people, who consider Chaney a "horror actor", he was an amazing dancer in his stage years. The only film that contains footage of him dancing is the incomplete The Fascination of the Fleur de Lis (1915). He was also known to be a hilarious comedian. In fact, one report of the day said, "As a comedian, he is irresistible". And according to Michael F. Blake (Chaney's biographer), Lon could even sing. Sadly, no audio recordings exist of Chaney singing, but people who knew him said that he had a rich baritone voice.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a publicity reel in the 1920s that featured all their contract players standing in a line as the camera panned to film them. At one point, we see a man speaking and gesturing to those around him, but with his back to the camera. Although he was not identified in the film, this was Chaney. Even in a publicity film, he didn't want the public to see his face without character make-up.

Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Due to his special make-up effects he carried the characterization to be "the man with the thousand faces.

The working title of his film The Unknown (1927) was "Alonso the Armless", which seems to have led to a great deal of confusion over the years regarding the actor's actual name. As committed to their faith as Chaney's parents were, they would probably have never considered giving one of their children a name not shared by a religious saint, and to this date there is neither a St. Alonso nor a St. Lon. Chaney's birth name was Leonidas Frank Chaney; both St. Leonidas and St. Francis are prominent in the traditional Roman Catholic Litany of Saints.

For many years, the cause of the lung cancer that brought about his death at age 47 was thought to have been a piece of artificial snow, made out of crushed gypsum, that lodged in his throat during the filming of Thunder (1929), his last silent film. However, Chaney biographer and scholar Michael Blake points out that the most likely cause was the fact that Chaney was a heavy smoker, and that the piece of artificial snow merely hastened the inevitable.

With the exception of Charles Chaplin, Chaney was the last major silent film star to make a talkie. Assaying five different voices in his first talkie, Chaney signed a notarized statement attesting to the fact that the different voices were his: "I, Lon Chaney, being first duly sworn, depose and say: In the photoplay entitled The Unholy Three (1930), produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation, all voice reproductions which purport to be reproductions of my voice, to wit, the ventriloquist's, the old woman's, the dummy's, the parrot's, and the girl's, are actual reproductions of my own voice, and in no place in said photoplay or in any of the various characters portrayed by me in said photoplay was a 'double' or substitute used for my voice. Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 19th day of May, 1930, J. L. Hendrickson, Notary Public in and for the county of Los Angeles, State of California."

Were it not for his death, Chaney, rather than Bela Lugosi, would have been Tod Browning's choice for the starring role in Dracula (1931).

In the late 1950s, there was a resurgence of interest in Chaney. The first factor was the biopic, Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) made by Univeral Studios (then Universal International) starring James Cagney as Chaney. Of greater influence was the magazine "Famous Monsters of Filmland" started in 1958 and edited by devoted Chaney fan Forrest J. Ackerman. Ackerman published many photographs and articles about Chaney. Each issue also included at least one full page devoted to Chaney under the title "Lon Chaney Shall Not Die". This coverage introduced Chaney to new generations who would have probably never heard of him. The interest in Chaney also led to early efforts to find and and preserve Chaney's films.

He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7046 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Mentioned in Warren Zevon's 1978 song "Werewolves of London".

Referenced in Charlie's Angels: Of Ghosts and Angels (1980) by Kris Munroe.

His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is featured during the theme song of season one on the television series The Fall Guy (1981).

Pictured on one of ten 29¢ US commemorative postage stamps celebrating stars of the silent screen, issued 27 April 1994. Designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, this set of stamps also honored Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, Charles Chaplin, John Gilbert, Zasu Pitts, Harold Lloyd, Theda Bara, Buster Keaton and the Keystone Kops.

Pictured on one of a set of five 32¢ US commemorative postage stamps, issued 30 September 1997, celebrating "Famous Movie Monsters". He is shown as the title character in Phantom Of The Opera (1925). Other actors honored in this set of stamps, and the classic monsters they portray, are Bela Lugosi as Dracula (1931); Lon Chaney Jr.. as The Wolf Man (1941); and Boris Karloff on two stamps as The Mummy (1932) and the monster in Frankenstein (1931).

Profiled in "From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse: Highbrow and Lowbrow Transgression in Cinema's First Century" by John Cline. [2010]