- Born
- Died
- Birth nameLeonidas Frank Chaney
- Nicknames
- The Man of a Thousand Faces
- The Master of Horror
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- 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. 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." He only filmed one movie with
sound: The remake of one of his earlier films
The Unholy Three (1930). His
son, Lon Chaney Jr., became a famous
actor of the horror genre.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Volker Boehm
- SpousesHazel Hastings(November 1914 - August 26, 1930) (his death)Frances Chaney(May 31, 1905 - April 1914) (divorced, 1 child)
- Children
- ParentsFrank H. ChaneyEmma Alice Kennedy
- Known as the Man of a Thousand Faces. Master of early screen
make-up techniques. - Macabre, menacing characters who nonetheless always have an undercurrent of pathos and melancholy
- Extremely expressive performances in silent horror films
- A quiet soul by nature, he valued his privacy highly. Granting few interviews and disliking the Hollywood social whirl, he much preferred spending quiet time with his family and a few close friends, often at his cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This avoidance of publicity led to his being unfairly labeled by some as strange and unfriendly. However, those who knew him best always described him as a good, loving husband, father, and friend. Similarly, his co-stars, among them Loretta Young and Joan Crawford, remembered him as being very cooperative and helpful, especially to those performers without much experience.
- Were it not for his death, he rather than Bela Lugosi would have been
Tod Browning's choice for the starring role in Dracula (1931). - His father, Frank H. Chaney, was not born deaf, but was rendered so by
a childhood illness when he was not quite two. He ultimately became a
successful barber, and always claimed he could remember some sounds.
His mother, the former Emma Alice Kennedy, was born deaf, and was a
teacher at a school for the deaf before her marriage. When her most
famous son was nine years old, she was stricken with inflammatory
rheumatism which left her an invalid. Lon Chaney himself was the second
of four children, three boys and a girl. All of his siblings survived
him, and were generously provided for in his will. - 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. - A popular joke of the era was "Don't step on it; it might be Lon Chaney!".
- Between pictures, there is no Lon Chaney.
- My whole career has been devoted to keeping people from knowing
me. - When a makeup is as painful as that which I wore as Blizzard in The Penalty (1920), when I had my legs strapped up and couldn't bear it that way
more than 20 minutes at a time - when I have to be a cripple, as in
The Miracle Man (1919) or have to keep a certain attitude of body, as I
did in Shadows (1922), it sometimes takes a good deal of imagination to
forget your physical sufferings. Yet, at that, the subconscious mind
has a marvelous way of making you keep the right attitudes and make the
right gestures when you are actually acting. - 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 of Notre Dame (1923), such as The Phantom of the Opera (1925), He Who Gets Slapped (1924), The Unholy Three (1925), etc., have carried the theme of self-sacrifice or renunciation. These are the stories which I wish to do.
- There's nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.
- The Unholy Three (1930) - $3,750 Per Week
- The Penalty (1920) - $500
- The Miracle Man (1919) - $150 /week
- Riddle Gawne (1918) - $125 per week
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