Lon Chaney Jr.

Born on February 10, 1906 in Oklahoma City (Oklahoma, USA), Creighton Tull Chaney –his real name– was the son of Lon Chaney , the biggest horror movie star of the silent era, and Frances Cleveland, a female singer. The future actor’s childhood was quite miserable, as his parents divorced when he was seven years old. Devastated by the disintegration of the family, his mother committed suicide. The boy refused to believe that he would never see her again, and he spent a few years in various boarding schools until Lon Chaney married Hazel Hastings, and went to live with them.

As a child he wanted to be an actor like his father, who got him to play an uncredited role in The Trap at the age of 15 , one of his hits. But eventually, he discouraged the boy, as he thought making a living in movies was too difficult, and sent him to business school. The move did not go bad, because the boy began to work for a company in Los Angeles, where everything was going from strength to strength.

Despite everything, after the death of his father, he decided to try his luck in the world of acting. After The Galloping Ghost , he appeared in numerous titles such as Bird of Paradise , The Last Frontier , or Union Pacific , by Cecil B. DeMille ., where he was one of the villain’s henchmen. In his first films, Chaney appeared in the credits with his real name, Creighton Chaney, so that he would not be conditioned for being the son of a well-known actor. But finally his agent convinced him that it was positive that he was known, so in 1935 he decided to call himself exactly Lon Chaney, that is, the same name as his father. The ‘Jr.’ Spectators and critics added it to him to distinguish him from his father.

Although Chaney spent the entire 1930s filming apace, as a character actor, he did not come to the attention of the general public until 1939, when he was one of the leads in The Broken Force , an adaptation of the novel “Of Mice and Men.” , by John Steinbeck , where he played Lennie, the mentally handicapped. In A Million Years Ago , he was the caveman father of Victor Mature .

Just at the moment when he began to see a good career as a character actor viable, terror crossed his life. Universal offered him a permanent contract, and gave him a role in Mad Made Monster , where in the style of his father, he did his own makeup to play a Neanderthal man. The results were so good that he earned the leading role in The Wolf Man . There he played his most remembered character, Larry Talbot, an heir who, after killing a werewolf to save a woman, suffers the effects of an ancient curse.

The success of the tape led to Chaney being typecast in the role of a monster, like his father before. Universal proposed him to repeat as a werewolf, in Frankenstein and the Wolf Man , The Gypsy and the Monsters , Dracula’s Mansion and the comedy Abbott and Costello against the ghosts . He was also Frankenstein’s monster, in The Ghost of Frankenstein , and a mummy in The Mummy’s Tomb , The Mummy’s Ghost and The Mummy’s Curse (1944) . And he played Count Dracula in Son of Dracula . In short, he has the record of having played all the star characters of the factory.

When his contract with Universal ended, he decided to go it alone, and throughout the 50s and 60s he appeared in numerous B-movies, especially horror and science fiction, such as the Mexican La casa del terror , where he was once again the werewolf. He stood out especially in High Noon , where he did some of his best work, as Martin Howe, a close friend of the sheriff played by Gary Cooper , who hides when he goes to ask for help. The film’s producer, Stanley Kramer , was so impressed by his work that he hired him for other titles, such as You Will Not Be a Stranger – with Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra – and Fugitives (1958) .–with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier– .

Divorced from his wife, Dorothy Hinckley, with whom he had two children, he spent many years together with Patsy Beck, who was with him until the end. During the last years of his career, Chaney, who had a difficult and confrontational personality, abused alcohol, which hurt his career. When he worked less and less, he developed throat cancer, the same disease that had killed his mother. Due to the terrible consequences of him, he lost his voice, and in fact in his last work, Dracula vs. Frankenstein , he plays a mute doctor’s assistant to whom the title alludes.

The horror film star finally died on July 12, 1973, in San Clemente (California), due to heart failure.