Happy 141st Birthday to The Man of 1000 Faces
Today, April 1, 2024 marks the 141st birthday of the silent screen icon, Lon Chaney. His ability to transform himself using makeup techniques that he developed, earned him the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Faces."
Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor and makeup artist. 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 films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).
Chaney was born in Colorado Springs, CO. He died of throat cancer on August 26, 1930. His funeral was held on August 28 in Glendale, California. Honorary pallbearers included Paul Bern, Hunt Stromberg, Irving Thalberg, Louis B. Mayer, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Tod Browning, Lew Cody, and Ramon Novarro. The U.S. Marine Corps provided a chaplain and Honor Guard for his funeral. While his funeral was being conducted, all MGM studios and offices observed two minutes of silence. 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.
Both of Chaney's parents were deaf and, as a child of deaf adults, Chaney became skilled in American Sign Language. He entered a stage career in 1902, and began traveling with popular vaudeville 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.
Chaney struggled for several years as an actor, securing only small parts, and 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.
Chaney had a breakthrough performance as "The Frog" in George Loane Tucker'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, often portraying disguised and/or mutilated characters, including carnival knife-thrower Alonzo the Armless in The Unknown (1927) opposite Joan Crawford. 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 films. His final film role was The Unholy Three (1930), a sound remake of his 1925 silent film of the same name. The 1930 remake was his only "talkie" 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. 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 improved 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 who 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."Phantom … became a legend almost immediately," wrote the Los Angeles Times 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.
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, purposefully fostering a mysterious image, and he reportedly intentionally avoided the social scene in Hollywood. Chaney once told reporters, "Between films, there is no Lon Chaney."
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.
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." Chaney gave this advise to a struggling actor, "Find something no one else can or will do. The secret of success in movies lies in being different from anyone else." That struggling actor was Boris Karloff.
Chaney was considered to have the role as Dracula, in Universal's '31 film, but it was not to be.
In '57 Universal studios made the film, Man of 1000 Faces, starring James Cagney as Lon Chaney. The film is highly fictionalized, as Chaney was adamant about his privacy and provided little detail of his family or himself to anyone.
Legacy is a word we use when speaking of ones impact on those left behind. In the realm of movies, especially the silent era, when discussed at length, the names Chaplin, Keaton, Fairbanks, Pickford, Valentino, and Lon Chaney are at the forefront.
As noted, Chaney's parents were deaf mutes. He learned to communicate with them via facial expressions, pantomime, and sign language. He took those skills to the screen, as silent films rely on an actors ability to convey their performance by these means, in lieu of sound.
He became equally renowned for his skill with makeup (even writing on the topic for the 14th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica), a talent he developed because he thought his own features were too ordinary for a star performer. The characters he portrayed were diverse and often macabre, but they were unfailingly moving and poignant due to Chaney’s ability to convey a basic decency beneath a grotesque exterior.
During the height of his popularity, one popular phrase was: "Look out! Don't step on it! It might be Lon Chaney!"
MGM's blockbuster 'talkie' musical, Hollywood Review of 1929, has a song titled 'Lon Chaney's Gonna Get You If You Don't Watch Out!.
Sources: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, TCM, and my personal thoughts, contributed to this entry.
Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor and makeup artist. 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 films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).
Chaney was born in Colorado Springs, CO. He died of throat cancer on August 26, 1930. His funeral was held on August 28 in Glendale, California. Honorary pallbearers included Paul Bern, Hunt Stromberg, Irving Thalberg, Louis B. Mayer, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Tod Browning, Lew Cody, and Ramon Novarro. The U.S. Marine Corps provided a chaplain and Honor Guard for his funeral. While his funeral was being conducted, all MGM studios and offices observed two minutes of silence. 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.
Both of Chaney's parents were deaf and, as a child of deaf adults, Chaney became skilled in American Sign Language. He entered a stage career in 1902, and began traveling with popular vaudeville 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.
Chaney struggled for several years as an actor, securing only small parts, and 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.
Chaney had a breakthrough performance as "The Frog" in George Loane Tucker'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, often portraying disguised and/or mutilated characters, including carnival knife-thrower Alonzo the Armless in The Unknown (1927) opposite Joan Crawford. 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 films. His final film role was The Unholy Three (1930), a sound remake of his 1925 silent film of the same name. The 1930 remake was his only "talkie" 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. 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 improved 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 who 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."Phantom … became a legend almost immediately," wrote the Los Angeles Times 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.
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, purposefully fostering a mysterious image, and he reportedly intentionally avoided the social scene in Hollywood. Chaney once told reporters, "Between films, there is no Lon Chaney."
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.
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." Chaney gave this advise to a struggling actor, "Find something no one else can or will do. The secret of success in movies lies in being different from anyone else." That struggling actor was Boris Karloff.
Chaney was considered to have the role as Dracula, in Universal's '31 film, but it was not to be.
In '57 Universal studios made the film, Man of 1000 Faces, starring James Cagney as Lon Chaney. The film is highly fictionalized, as Chaney was adamant about his privacy and provided little detail of his family or himself to anyone.
Legacy is a word we use when speaking of ones impact on those left behind. In the realm of movies, especially the silent era, when discussed at length, the names Chaplin, Keaton, Fairbanks, Pickford, Valentino, and Lon Chaney are at the forefront.
As noted, Chaney's parents were deaf mutes. He learned to communicate with them via facial expressions, pantomime, and sign language. He took those skills to the screen, as silent films rely on an actors ability to convey their performance by these means, in lieu of sound.
He became equally renowned for his skill with makeup (even writing on the topic for the 14th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica), a talent he developed because he thought his own features were too ordinary for a star performer. The characters he portrayed were diverse and often macabre, but they were unfailingly moving and poignant due to Chaney’s ability to convey a basic decency beneath a grotesque exterior.
During the height of his popularity, one popular phrase was: "Look out! Don't step on it! It might be Lon Chaney!"
MGM's blockbuster 'talkie' musical, Hollywood Review of 1929, has a song titled 'Lon Chaney's Gonna Get You If You Don't Watch Out!.
Sources: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, TCM, and my personal thoughts, contributed to this entry.
