Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and his groundbreaking artistry with makeup.
[ Chaney was known for his starring roles in such silent ]horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apo ...
s as '' The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' (1923) and '' The Phantom of the Opera'' (1925). His ability to transform himself using makeup techniques that he developed earned him the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Faces".
Early life
Leonidas Frank Chaney was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Frank H. Chaney (a barber) and Emma Alice Kennedy. His father was of English and French ancestry, and his mother was of Scottish, English, and Irish descent. Chaney's maternal grandfather, Jonathan Ralston Kennedy, founded the "Colorado School for the Education of Mutes" (now Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind) in 1874, and Chaney's parents met there. His great-grandfather was congressman John Chaney.
Both of Chaney's parents were deaf and, as a child of deaf adult
A child of deaf adult, often known by the acronym coda, is a person who was raised by one or more deaf parent or legal guardian. Ninety percent of children born to deaf adults can hear normally, resulting in a significant and widespread communi ...
s, Chaney became skilled in pantomime. He entered a stage career in 1902, and began traveling with popular vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...
and theater acts. In 1905, Chaney, then 22, met and married 16-year-old singer Cleva Creighton (Frances Cleveland Creighton) and in 1906, their only child, a son, Creighton Tull Chaney (later known as Lon Chaney Jr.) was born. The Chaneys continued touring, settling in California in 1910.
Marital troubles developed and on April 30, 1913, Cleva went to the Majestic Theater in downtown Los Angeles, where Lon was managing the "Kolb and Dill Kolb and Dill was the stage name of the vaudeville team founded by Clarence Kolb and Max Dill.
Background
Kolb and Dill were born in Cleveland, Ohio, and were boyhood friends who decided to go into show business together. The book ''Vaudeville O ...
" show, and attempted suicide by swallowing mercuric chloride. The suicide attempt failed, but it ruined her singing career; the ensuing scandal and divorce forced Chaney out of the theater and into film.
The time spent there is not clearly known, but between the years 1912 and 1917, Chaney worked under contract for Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
doing bit or character parts. His skill with makeup gained him many parts in the highly competitive casting atmosphere. During this time, Chaney befriended the husband-wife director team of Joe De Grasse and Ida May Park, who gave him substantial roles in their pictures, and further encouraged him to play macabre characters.
In 1915, Chaney married one of his former colleagues in the Kolb and Dill company, a recently divorced chorus girl named Hazel Hastings. The new couple gained custody of Chaney's 10-year-old son Creighton, who had resided in various homes and boarding schools since Chaney's divorce from Cleva in 1913.
Career
By 1917, Chaney was a prominent actor in the studio, but his salary did not reflect this status. When Chaney asked for a raise, studio executive William Sistrom replied, "You'll never be worth more than one hundred dollars a week." After leaving the studio, Chaney struggled for the first year as a character actor. It was not until he played a substantial role in William S. Hart's picture '' Riddle Gawne'' (1918) that Chaney's talents as a character actor were truly recognized by the industry.
Universal presented Chaney, Dorothy Phillips, and William Stowell as a team in '' The Piper's Price'' (1917). In succeeding films, the men alternated playing lover, villain, or other man to the beautiful Phillips. They would occasionally be joined by Claire DuBrey nearly making the trio a quartet of recurring actors from film to film. So successful were the films starring this group that Universal produced fourteen films from 1917 to 1919 with Chaney, Stowell, and Phillips.[Internet Movie Database, IMDb.com ; film listings on ''Lon Chaney, William Stowell, Dorothy Phillips & Claire Dubrey'']
The films were usually directed by Joe De Grasse or his wife Ida May Park, both friends of Chaney's at Universal. When Chaney was away branching out on films such as '' Riddle Gawne'' and '' The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin'' (both 1918), Stowell and Phillips would continue on as a duo until Chaney's return. Stowell and Phillips made '' The Heart of Humanity'' (also 1918), bringing in Erich von Stroheim for a part as the villain that could easily have been played by Chaney.
'' Paid in Advance'' (1919) was the group's last film together, for the chiseled featured Stowell was sent to Africa by Universal to scout locations for a movie. En route from one city to another, Stowell was in the caboose when it was hit by the locomotive from another train; he was killed instantly. The majority of these films are lost but a few, including ''Triumph'' and ''Paid in Advance'' survive in private collections or unrestored in European or Russian archives.
Chaney had a breakthrough performance as "The Frog" in George Loane Tucker
George Loane Tucker (June 12, 1872 – June 20, 1921) was an American actor, silent film director, screenwriter, producer, and editor.
Career
Tucker was born George S. Loane in Chicago to George Loane and stage actress Ethel Tucker. After ...
's '' The Miracle Man'' (1919). The film displayed not only Chaney's acting ability, but also his talent as a master of makeup. Critical praise and a gross of over $2 million put Chaney on the map as America's foremost character actor.
Chaney exhibited great adaptability with makeup in more conventional crime and adventure films, such as '' The Penalty'' (1920), in which he played a gangster with both legs amputated. Chaney appeared in 10 films directed by Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of vari ...
, often portraying disguised and/or mutilated characters, including carnival knife-thrower Alonzo the Armless in '' The Unknown'' (1927) opposite Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, ncertain year from 1904 to 1908was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion pic ...
. Around the same time, Chaney also co-starred with Conrad Nagel, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall and Polly Moran in the Tod Browning horror film '' London After Midnight'' (1927), one of the most sought after lost film
A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress.
Conditions
During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy ...
s. His final film role was a sound remake of his silent classic '' The Unholy Three'' (1930), his only "talkie
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decad ...
" and the only film in which Chaney utilized his powerful and versatile voice. Chaney signed a sworn statement declaring that five of the key voices in the film (the ventriloquist, the old woman, a parrot, the dummy and the girl) were his own.
Makeup in the early days of cinema was almost non-existent with the exception of beards and moustaches to denote villains.[Anderson, R. G. (1971). Faces, Forms, Films; the Artistry of Lon Chaney (pp. 1–216). Cranbury, NJ: A. S. Barnes and Co., Inc.] Most of what the Hollywood studios knew about film stemmed from their experience with theater makeup, but this did not always transfer well to the big screen, especially as the film quality increased over time. It is also worth noting that makeup departments were not yet in place during Chaney's time. Prior to the mid-20s, actors were expected to do their own makeup.
In the absence of such specialized professions, Chaney's skills gave him a competitive advantage over other actors. He was the complete package. Casting crews knew that they could place him in virtually any part and he would thrive. In some films his skill allowed him to play dual roles. An extreme case of this was the film '' Outside the Law'' (1920), where he played a character that shot and killed another character, whom he also was playing.
As Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, and Erik, the "phantom" of the Paris Opera House, Chaney created two of the most grotesquely deformed characters in film history.[Lussier, Tim]
"The Phantom of the Opera (1925)."
''Silents are Golden'', 2000. Retrieved: May 10, 2016.[Dick 1997, pp. 52–55.] "''Phantom'' … became a legend almost immediately," wrote the ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'' in 1990. "The newspapers of the day reported that women fainted, children bawled and grown men stepped outside for fresh air after the famous unmasking scene." "The unmasking of the titular Phantom is one of the most well-known moments in silent film," wrote Meg Shields in 2020. "Arguably, it’s one of the most horrifying images ever put on screen."
However, Chaney's portrayals sought to elicit a degree of sympathy and pathos among viewers not overwhelmingly terrified or repulsed by the monstrous disfigurements of these victims of fate.
In a 1925 autobiographical article for ''Movie'' magazine, he wrote: "I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity may have within them the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice. The dwarfed, misshapen beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals. Most of my roles since ''The Hunchback,'' such as '' The Phantom of the Opera'', '' He Who Gets Slapped'', '' The Unholy Three,'' etc., have carried the theme of self-sacrifice or renunciation. These are the stories which I wish to do." Chaney referred to his expertise in both makeup and contorting his body to portray his subjects as "extraordinary characterization". Chaney's talents extended beyond the horror genre and stage makeup. He was also a highly skilled dancer, singer and comedian.
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...
once said of Chaney, "He was someone who acted out our psyches. He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen. The history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from."
Chaney and his second wife Hazel led a discreet private life distant from the Hollywood social scene. Chaney did minimal promotional work for his films and for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...
, purposefully fostering a mysterious image, and he reportedly intentionally avoided the social scene in Hollywood.[Fleming 2009, p. 167.]
In the final five years of his film career (1925–1930), Chaney worked exclusively under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, giving some of his most memorable performances. His portrayal of a tough-as-nails marine drill instructor in '' Tell It to the Marines'' (1926), one of his favorite films, earned him the affection of the Marine Corps, who made him their first honorary member from the motion picture industry.[LaSalle 2000, p. 120.]
He also earned the respect and admiration of numerous aspiring actors, to whom he offered mentoring assistance, and between takes on film sets he was always willing to share his professional observations with the cast and crew. During the filming of '' The Unknown'' (1927), Joan Crawford stated that she learned more about acting from watching Chaney work than from anyone else in her career. "It was then," she said, "I became aware for the first time of the difference between standing in front of a camera, and acting."
Death
During the filming of '' Thunder'' in the winter of 1929, Chaney developed pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
. In late 1929, he was diagnosed with bronchial lung cancer
Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...
. This was exacerbated when artificial snow lodged in his throat during filming and caused a serious infection.[Schickel and Hurlburt 1962, p. 133,] Despite aggressive treatment, his condition gradually worsened, and he died of a throat hemorrhage on August 26, 1930, in a Los Angeles, California hospital.
His funeral was held on August 28 in Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents ac ...
. Honorary pallbearers included Paul Bern, Hunt Stromberg, Irving Thalberg, Louis B. Mayer, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery (April 1, 1885 – April 15, 1949) was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in '' Min and Bill'' (1930) opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in '' Grand Hotel'' (1 ...
, Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of vari ...
, Lew Cody, and Ramon Novarro. The U.S. Marine Corps provided a chaplain and Honor Guard
A guard of honour ( GB), also honor guard ( US), also ceremonial guard, is a group of people, usually military in nature, appointed to receive or guard a head of state or other dignitaries, the fallen in war, or to attend at state ceremonials, ...
for his funeral. While his funeral was being conducted, all MGM studios and offices observed two minutes of silence.["Funeral Service For Lon Chaney."](_blank)
''The Telegraph'', August 28, 1930, p. 5. Retrieved: January 26, 2015.
Chaney was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, next to the crypt of his father. His wife Hazel was interred there upon her death in 1933. In accordance with his will, Chaney's crypt has remained unmarked.
Legacy
In 1957, Chaney was the subject of a biopic titled '' Man of a Thousand Faces'', in which he was portrayed by James Cagney
James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, Cagney was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He ...
. The film is a largely fictionalized account, as Chaney was notoriously private and hated the Hollywood lifestyle. He never revealed personal details about himself or his family, once stating, "Between pictures, there is no Lon Chaney."
Chaney's son Creighton, who later changed his name to Lon Chaney Jr., became a film actor after his father's death. Chaney Jr. is best remembered for roles in horror films, such as the title character in '' The Wolf Man'' (1941). In October 1997, both Chaneys appeared on commemorative US postage stamps as the Phantom of the Opera and the Wolf Man, with the set completed by Bela Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in '' ...
as Dracula and Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established ...
as Frankenstein's monster and the Mummy
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...
.
Chaney is also the subject of the 2000 documentary feature, ''Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces''. The film was produced by silent film historian Kevin Brownlow and narrated by Kenneth Branagh
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (; born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has served as its president since 2015. He has won an Academy Award, four BAFTAs (plus t ...
.
In the song " Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon
Warren William Zevon (; January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer, songwriter, and musician.
Zevon's most famous compositions include " Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money", and "Roland the Headless Tho ...
, both Chaney and his son Lon Chaney Jr are name-called in the last verse.
Honors
Chaney has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Calif ...
, located on Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywo ...
. In 1994, Al Hirschfeld's caricature of Chaney was featured on a commemorative United States postage stamp.
In 1929, Chaney built a stone cabin in the remote wilderness of the eastern Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...
near Big Pine, California
Big Pine (formerly, Bigpine) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Inyo County, California, United States. Big Pine is located approximately south-southeast of Bishop, at an elevation of . The population was 1,756 at the 2010 census, up from 1 ...
as a retreat, hiring Paul R. Williams
Paul Revere Williams, FAIA (February 18, 1894 – January 23, 1980) was an American architect based in Los Angeles, California. He practiced mostly in Southern California and designed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Frank Sina ...
. Located in the Inyo National Forest, the cabin still stands, though it is not open to the public. Following his death, Chaney's famous makeup case was donated to the Los Angeles County Museum by his widow, Hazel. The case is occasionally displayed for the public. The stage theater at the Colorado Springs Civic Auditorium is also named after the actor.
Filmography
Approximately 102 of the 157 films made by Chaney are currently classified as lost films. A number of others exist only in extremely truncated form or suffer severe decomposition.
Short subjects
Feature films
Gallery: The Man of a Thousand Faces
File:Lon Chaney Treasure Island 1920 Cropped.png, Blind Pew in ''Treasure Island
''Treasure Island'' (originally titled ''The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys''Hammond, J. R. 1984. "Treasure Island." In ''A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion'', Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. .) is an adventure n ...
'' (1920)
File:Lon Chaney Fagin I.jpg, Fagin in '' Oliver Twist'' (1922)
File:Lon Chaney Phantom of The Opera Cropped.jpg, " Erik, The Phantom" in '' The Phantom of the Opera'' (1925)
File:Lon Chaney London After Midnight Portrait.jpg, "Hypnotist" in '' London After Midnight'' (1927)
Notes
References
Further reading
* Anderson, Robert Gordon. ''Faces, Forms, Films: The Artistry of Lon Chaney''. South Brunswick, New Jersey: A. S. Barnes, 1971. .
* Blackmar, Frank W., ed. ''Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, etc.''. Chicago : Standard Publishing Company, 1912.
* Blake, Michael F. ''The Films of Lon Chaney''. Vestal, New York: Vestal Press, 1998. .
* Blake, Michael F. ''A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney's Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures''. Vestal, New York: Vestal Press, 1997. .
* Blake, Michael F. ''Lon Chaney: The Man Behind the Thousand Faces''. Vestal, New York: Vestal Press, 1997.
* Blum, Daniel. ''Pictorial History of the Silent Screen''. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1953. .
* Dick, Bernard F. ''City of Dreams: The Making and Remaking of Universal Pictures''. Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County. By population, it is the second-largest city in Kentucky and 57th-largest city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 28th-largest ...
: The University Press of Kentucky, 1997. .
* Fleming, E.J. ''Paul Bern: The Life and Famous Death of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Director and Husband of Harlow''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2009. .
* Guiley, Rosemary. ''The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters''. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2004. .
* Herzogenrath, Bernd, ed. ''The Cinema of Tod Browning: Essays of the Macabre and Grotesque''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2008. .
* LaSalle, Mick. ''Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood''. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Press, 2000. .
* Locan, Clarence A. "The Lon Chaney I Knew," ''Photoplay
''Photoplay'' was one of the first American film (another name for ''photoplay'') fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded '' Motion Picture Story,'' a magazine also directed at fans. For ...
'', November 1930, p. 58.
* "Lon Chaney's Make-up," ''Photoplay'', March 1922, p. 43.
* Riley, Philip J. ''MagicImage Filmbooks Presents The Wolf Man''. Chesterfield, New Jersey: MagicImage Filmbooks, 1993. .
* Sangster, Margaret E. "Lon Chaney" (poem), ''Photoplay'', October 1930, p. 40.
* Schikel, Richard and Allen Hurlburt. ''The Stars''. New York: Bonanza Books, a division of Crown Publishers, 1962. .
* Slide, Anthony
Anthony Slide (born 7 November 1944) is an English writer who has produced more than seventy books and edited a further 150 on the history of popular entertainment. He wrote a "letter from Hollywood" for the British ''Film Review'' magazine from ...
. ''Silent Players: A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses''. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2010. .
* Smith, Don G. ''Lon Chaney Jr.: Horror Film Star, 1906–1973''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2004. .
* Vogel, Michelle. ''Olive Borden: The Life and Films of Hollywood's 'Joy Girl'.'' Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2010. .
External links
*
The Lon Chaney Home Page
Lon Chaney Sr. Man of 1,000 Faces – Facebook
*
*
*
''Feast Your Eyes: The Terrifying Genius of Lon Chaney.'' Filmstruck Extras, on YouTube
rare portrait; Spanish collectors card
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chaney, Lon
1883 births
1930 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American film directors
American make-up artists
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male silent film actors
American male stage actors
American people of English descent
American people of French descent
American people of Irish descent
American people of Scottish descent
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
Deaths from lung cancer in California
Male actors from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players
Silent film directors
Vaudeville performers
Screenwriters from Colorado
20th-century American screenwriters
20th-century American male writers