Lon Chaney Sr.

Movie Actor

Lon Chaney Sr. was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States on April 1st, 1883 and is the Movie Actor. At the age of 47, Lon Chaney Sr. biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

  Report
Date of Birth
April 1, 1883
Nationality
United States
Place of Birth
Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States
Death Date
Aug 26, 1930 (age 47)
Zodiac Sign
Aries
Profession
Actor, Film Actor, Film Director, Make-up Artist, Screenwriter, Stage Actor
Lon Chaney Sr. Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 47 years old, Lon Chaney Sr. physical status not available right now. We will update Lon Chaney Sr.'s height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Height
Not Available
Weight
Not Available
Hair Color
Not Available
Eye Color
Not Available
Build
Not Available
Measurements
Not Available
Lon Chaney Sr. Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Not Available
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
Not Available
Lon Chaney Sr. Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Frances Cleveland ("Cleva") Creighton, ​ ​(m. 1905; div. 1913)​, Hazel Bennett Hastings, ​ ​(m. 1915)​
Children
Lon Chaney Jr. (born Creighton Tull Chaney)
Dating / Affair
Not Available
Parents
Not Available
Lon Chaney Sr. Life

Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (1883 – 1930) was an American stage and film actor, make-up artist, producer, and screenwriter.

He is known as one of early cinema's most versatile and influential actors, known for his portrayals of tortured, often grotesque, and afflicted characters, as well as his groundbreaking work with makeup.

Chaney is best known for his appearances in silent horror films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).

His ability to transform himself with makeup techniques he invented earned him the nickname "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 descents. Jonathan R. Kennedy, Chaney's maternal grandfather, founded the "Colorado School for the Education of Mutes" (now Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind) in 1874, and Chaney's parents attended. John Chaney, the congressman, was his great-grandfather.

Both of Chaney's parents were deaf, and Chaney became an expert in pantomime as a child of deaf adults. He began working on stage in 1902 and then began traveling with well-known vaudeville and theater acts. Chaney, 22, married Cleva Creighton, a French Creighton, in 1906, and their only son, Creighton Tull Chaney (later known as Lon Chaney Jr.), was born. The Chaneys toured the states after settling in California in 1910.

Cleva's mother suffered, and on April 30, 1913, Cleva went to the Majestic Theater in downtown Los Angeles, where Lon was directing the "Kolb and Dill" display, and attempted suicide by swallowing mercuric chloride. The suicide attempt was unsuccessful, but it ended her singing career; the following scandal and divorce pushed Chaney out of the theater and film to theater.

Chaney worked in Universal Studios doing bits or characters, although the time spent there is not well known. His makeup skills earned him many roles in the highly competitive casting industry. Chaney befriended the husband-wife production team of Joe De Grasse and Ida May Park, who gave him substantial roles in their films, and encouraged him to act macabre characters during this period.

Chaney married Hazel Hastings, a newly divorced chorus girl, in 1915. The new couple took custody of Chaney's 10-year-old son Creighton, who had lived in various homes and boarding schools since Chaney's divorce from Cleva in 1913.

Source

Lon Chaney Sr. Career

Career

Chaney was a well-known actor in the studio by 1917, but his compensation did not reflect this position. "You'll never be worth more than one hundred dollars a week," studio producer William Sistrom said as Chaney asked for a raise. Chaney struggled for the first year as a character actor after leaving the studio. Chaney's talents as a character actor were not fully recognized by the industry until he appeared in William S. Hart's film Riddle Gawne (1918).

In The Piper's Price (1917), Universal included Chaney, Dorothy Phillips, and William Stowell as a team. In succeeding films, the men alternated between lover, narcologist, or some other man to the beautiful Phillips. Claire DuBrey will often accompany them in a trio of recurring actors from film to film, making the trio a quartet of recurring actors from film to film. The films starring this group were so popular that Universal released fourteen films from 1917 to 1919, including Chaney, Stowell, and Phillips.

Joe De Grasse or his wife Ida May Park, both Chaney's at Universal, were most likely directed by him or her partner Ida May Park. Stowell and Phillips will continue as a pair as Chaney continues to film from Riddle Gawne and The Beast of Berlin (both 1918). Stowell and Phillips produced The Heart of Humanity (also 1918), bringing Erich von Stroheim to play a villain who might not have been played by Chaney.

Paid in Advance (1919) was the group's last film together, when Stowell's chiseled featured Stowell was sent to Africa by Universal to scout locations for a film. Stowell was in the queue from one train to another when it was struck by a locomotive from another train; he was killed instantly. The majority of these films have been lost, but a few, including Triumph and Paid in Advance, are in private collections or in Russian or Russian archives, but a few of them, including Triumph and Paid in Advance, are unrestored in European or Russian archives.

In George Loane Tucker's "The Frog" (1919), Chaney had a breakthrough role as "The Frog." The film showcased not only Chaney's acting skills, but also his talent as a makeup artist. Chaney's most prominent character actor was praised thanks to critical praise and a gross of more than $2 million.

In more traditional crime and adventure films, like The Penalty (1920), in which he played a gangster with both legs amputated, Chaney demonstrated remarkable flexibility with makeup. Chaney appeared in ten films directed by Tod Browning, often depicting disguised and/or mutilated characters, such as carnival knife-thrower Alonzo the Armless in The Unknown (1927) opposite Joan Crawford. Chaney appeared in the Tod Browning horror film London After Midnight (1927), one of the most coveted after lost films, around the same time. His last film role was a sound remake of his silent masterpiece The Unholy Three (1930), his only "talkie" and the only film in which Chaney used his versatile and versatile voice. Chaney signed a sworn statement claiming that five of the film's key voices (the ventriloquist, the old woman, a parrot, the dummy, and the child) were his own.

Makeup in the early days of cinema was virtually non-existent, with the notable exception of beards and moustaches to denote villains. The bulk of what the Hollywood studios knew about film stemmed from their experience with theater makeup, but it didn't always translate well to the big screen, particularly as the film quality improved over time. It's also important to note that make-up services were not operating at the time of Chaney's time. Artists were supposed to do their own makeup before the mid-20s.

Chaney's talents gave him a competitive edge over other actors in the absence of such specializations. He was the complete package. Casting crews knew that they could place him in virtually every area and that he would thrive. In some films, his ability made him appear in multiple roles. Outside the Law (1920), an extreme example of this, where he portrayed a character that shot and killed another character who was also playing.

Chaney created two of the most grotesquely deformed characters in film history as Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, and Erik, the "phantom" of the Paris Opera House. In 1990, Phantom... became a hero almost immediately," the Los Angeles Times wrote. "After the famous unmasking scene, women screamed, children bawled, and mature men stepped outside for fresh air," the day's newspapers reported. "The unveiling of the titular Phantom is one of the most well-known scenes in silent film," Meg Shields wrote in 2020. "Irrespectively, it's one of the most frightening images ever shot on film." Nonetheless, Chaney's portrayals attempted to elicit a degree of compassion and compassion among viewers who were not overwhelmingly worried or repulsed by these victims of fate.

"I wanted to tell people that the lowest forms of humanity have the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice," he wrote in a 1925 autobiographical article for Movie magazine. The streets' dwarfed, misshapen beggar may have the noblest ideals. The bulk of my performances since The Hunchback, including The Phantom of the Opera, He Who Gets Slapped, The Unholy Three, etc., have all been based on self-sacrifice or renunciation. These are the stories that I want to do. Chaney referred to his experience in both makeup and contorting his body to portray his subjects as "extraordinary characterization." Chaney's talents extended beyond horror and stage makeup. He was also a highly trained dancer, actor, and comedian.

"He was someone who brought out our emotions," Ray Bradbury once said of Chaney. He somehow climbed into the shadows of our bodies; he was able to put down some of our worst fears and brought them on film. Lon Chaney's past is a tale of unsatisfied passions. Since you fear that you are not loved and you are unlikely to be loved, you worry that there is some portion of you that is gross, that the world will move away from," says the poet.

Chaney and his second wife Hazel lived a quiet private life away from Hollywood's social scene. Chaney did minimal promotional work for his films and for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, purposefully creating a mystic image, and he evidently avoided Hollywood's social scene.

Chaney performed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer under his exclusive control for the past five years (1925-1930), giving some of his best performances in his film career (1925–1930). In Tell It to the Marines (1926), one of his favorite films, his portrayal of a tough-as-nails marine drill instructor earned him the Marine Corps' first honorary member from the motion picture industry.

He also gained the respect and admiration of several young actors, to whom he provided mentoring assistance, and, as the film industry expands, he was always willing to share his professional experiences with the cast and crew. Joan Crawford, who appeared in The Unknown (1927), said she learned more about acting from Chaney's work than from any other person in her career. "It was then that I became aware for the first time of the difference between standing in front of a camera and acting," she said.

Source