Lon passed away on August 26, 1930 at the age of 47 in Los Angeles, California, USA. After Lon Sr. died in 1930, Creighton entered movies with an RKO contract, but nothing much happened until, by his own recollection, he was "starved" into changing his name to Lon Chaney Jr. Official Sites, Often played hulking monsters or victims of mad scientists, Often played sympathetic or tormented characters, Frequently portrayed father figures, particularly in his later years, Was a friendly person, despite playing many villains in horror movies, Friendly teddy bear face with heavy eyebrows. Billing Lon Jr. as "the screen's master character actor," Universal cast him as Dynamo Dan the Electric Man in Man Made Monster (1941), a role originally intended for Boris Karloff. In 1962, Chaney gained a chance to briefly play Quasimodo in a simulacrum of his father's make-up, as well as return to his roles of the Mummy and the Wolf Man on the television series Route 66 with friends Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. From his father, he developed skills as a makeup artist. [10] During the live broadcast, Chaney, playing the Monster, apparently thought it was just a rehearsal and he would pick up furniture that he was supposed to break, only to gingerly put it back down while muttering, "I saved it for you." He signed a contract at 20th Century Fox and appeared in Love Is News (1937), Midnight Taxi (1937), That I May Live (1937), This Is My Affair (1937), Angel's Holiday (1937), Born Reckless (1937), Wild and Woolly (1937), The Lady Escapes (1937), Thin Ice (1937), One Mile from Heaven (1937), Charlie Chan on Broadway (1938), Life Begins in College (1937), Wife, Doctor and Nurse (1937), Second Honeymoon (1937), Checkers (1937), Love and Hisses (1938), City Girl (1938), Happy Landing (1938), Sally, Irene and Mary (1938), Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938), Walking Down Broadway (1938), Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Josette (1938), Speed to Burn (1938), Passport Husband (1938), Straight, Place and Show (1938), Submarine Patrol (1938), and Road Demon (1939). [8] He recovered and played Harry Brock in a Los Angeles theatre production of Born Yesterday in 1949. He played number of supporting parts before a producer in 1935 insisted on changing his name to Lon Chaney Jr. as a marketing ploy. Lon Chaney Jr. Death. Most of the parts he played were unmemorable, often bits, until 1939 when he was given the role of the simple-minded Lennie in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1939). The last film he made as Creighton Chaney was The Marriage Bargain (1935) for Screencraft Productions. The six-foot-tall Chaney wanted to play football in Hollywood High School but was turned down because he only weighed 125 pounds. The Mummy's Curse (1944) was Chaney's third and final appearance as Kharis. - IMDb Mini Biography By: The reason given for this, was due to the actor's problem with alcohol. He had one of his best later roles in Spider Baby, made in 1964 but not released until 1968. [citation needed]. The actor once said how his father did all he could to dissuade him from following in his professional footsteps. He was in a Bob Hope comedy My Favorite Brunette (1947), supported Randolph Scott in Albuquerque (1948) and had a support in The Counterfeiters (1948) and played a villain in 16 Fathoms Deep (1948) for Monogram Pictures, a remake of his 1934 film. He was also known to befriend younger actors and stand up for older ones who Chaney felt were belittled by the studios. There's no motivation for how monsters behave. According to co-star Peter Coe, Chaney demanded that Farnum be given his own chair on the set and be treated with respect, or else he would walk off the picture. By the 1950s, he was established as a star in low-budget horror films and as a reliable character actor in more prestigious, big-budget films such as High Noon (1952). In 1957, Chaney was the subject of a biopic titled Man of a Thousand Faces, in which he was portrayed by James Cagney. His father took him outside to an ice-covered lake, broke the ice and put him into the ice-cold water to jump-start his breathing. Chaney's first horror film, it was successful enough for them to offer him a long-term contract. SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., July 13 (AP)—Lon Chaney Jr., the film actor, died yesterday at the age of 67. Weldon, Michael (1983). The film was Chaney Jr's first major role in a film and was a critical success for him. [I've still] got to sit in that chair for 45 minutes while [makeup artist Jack P. Pierce] just about kills me, ripping off all the stuff he put on me in the morning. Chaney was well liked by some co-workers – "sweet" is the adjective that most commonly emerges from those who acted with, and liked him – yet he was capable of intense dislikes. Chaney had English, French, and Irish ancestry, and his career in movies and television spanned four decades, from 1931 to 1971. Chaney also headlined two B-horror series, one based upon radio's Inner Sanctum anthology, and the other a spin-off from the 1932 film The Mummy. Near the end of his life, he made an appearance on "The Tonight Show" with. He became quite popular with baby boomers after Universal released its back catalog of horror films to television in 1957 (Shock Theater) and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine regularly focused on his films. They had two sons: Lon Ralph Chaney and Ronald Creighton Chaney. Due to illness he retired from acting to concentrate on a book about the Chaney family legacy, A Century of Chaneys, which remains to date unpublished in any form. Actor. He was almost killed by a train while filming a bank robbery scene in Jesse James (1939).[5]. Universal kept him in supporting roles for a while: a comedy Too Many Blondes (1941), a musical San Antonio Rose (1941), a serial Riders of Death Valley (1941), the Western Badlands of Dakota (1941) and the "Northern" North to the Klondike (1942). His parents' troubled marriage ended in divorce in 1913 following his mother's scandalous public suicide attempt in Los Angeles. Celebrities and Notable People Who Have Had Coronavirus. The series ended after 39 episodes. The son of actors Lon Chaney and Cleva Creighton, Creighton Tull Chaney was raised in an atmosphere of Spartan strictness by his father. [14] Coronavirus Update. He was in a Western Law of the Lawless (1963), Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1964), Witchcraft (1964), and Stage to Thunder Rock (1964). I am most proud of the name Lon Chaney. [13] He remarried to Patsy Beck in 1937. Unfortunately, he would have little opportunity to do this in the poverty-row quickie films that were his lot in the '30s, nor was his tenure as a 20th Century Fox contract player artistically satisfying.Hoping to convince producers that he was a fine actor in his own right, Chaney appeared as the mentally retarded giant Lennie in a Los Angeles stage production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. In the 1960s, Chaney specialised in horror films, such as House of Terror (1960), The Devil's Messenger (1961) and The Haunted Palace (1963), replacing Boris Karloff in the last of those for Roger Corman. He was in a Western Frontier Badmen (1943), then reprised his role as the Wolf Man in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Your contribution is much appreciated! He wanted to reprise his father's role of Quasimodo in, Like his father, Chaney created his own make-up for the role of Akhoba in, He made headlines in the 1960s when he criticized "Fractured Flickers" for desecrating old film classics like his father's. His grandson, Ron Chaney Jr, was working on completing this project.[12]. With this film and the slew of horror films that followed it, Chaney achieved a kind of stardom, though he was never able to achieve his goal of surpassing his father. Applications of Make-Up Through the 1940s–1960s, Additional Information on Chaney's Career, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lon_Chaney_Jr.&oldid=979414826, Articles with dead external links from July 2020, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from March 2018, All articles needing additional references, Articles lacking reliable references from April 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2019, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 20 September 2020, at 16:32. Lon Chaney Jr. was born on February 10, 1906 and died on July 12, 1973. Chaney Jr's only stage appearance had been as Lennie Small in a production of Of Mice and Men with Wallace Ford. From an early age, he worked hard to avoid his famous father's shadow. |  Despite being typecast as the Wolf Man, the 6-foot 2-inch, 220 pound actor managed to carve out a secondary niche as a supporting actor and villain. Pillow of Death (1945) was the last Inner Sanctum. Always, however, there was the desire to follow in his father's footsteps. A long series of illnesses had put Mr. Chaney in and out of hospitals for the last year. Cleva Creighton's information is not available now. He got bigger film roles in Lucky Devils (1933), Son of the Border (1933), Scarlet River (1933), The Life of Vergie Winters (1934). Universal got him to play a henchman in their serial, Ace Drummond (1937) and he was uncredited in Columbia's Killer at Large (1937). Ballantine Books. Creighton Tull Chaney (February 10, 1906 – July 12, 1973), known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film The Wolf Man (1941) and its various crossovers, Count Alucard (Dracula spelled backward) in Son of Dracula, Frankenstein's monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), the Mummy in three pictures, and various other roles in many Universal horror films.