February 10 . . .
“Even a man who is pure of heart
And says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms,
And the autumn moon is bright.”
Pity poor Lon Chaney Jr. Doomed for eternity to toil in the Actors Hall of Fame’s B-list, never acknowledged or rewarded in his lifetime, living in the imposing shadow of his legendary father, and stuck in a film genre that was one niche above pornography in the eyes of highbrow critics.
He did have an extraordinary quality, though – unique in his way at mingling brutality and pathos, vulnerability and compulsion – skillfully facilating between playing the innocent victim and the sociopathic brute. He could never be a convincing leading man – too big, lumbering and awkward – but his sincerity was convincing and charismatic in its straightforward way. He was born Chreighton Chaney 104 years ago today in Oklahoma.
His father, of course, was silent screen icon Lon Chaney. After his dad died in 1930, Creighton tried his hand at acting, mostly small roles in B Westerns and Sci-Fi serials for studios like Republic. He was muscular and athletic, handsome in a primitive way, simple in his technique, and possessed of a boomy, helium-inflected voice that projected a vaguely discernible put-upon vulnerability, like a boy’s emotions held captive in a man’s body. He got lucky in 1939, after reluctantly changing his name to the more bankable ‘Lon Chaney, Jr.’ and being cast in the film version of John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’, playing the lumbering simpleton, Lenny – a piece of typecasting that he would drag around and exploit for the rest of his life.
It was his finest moment onscreen, but not his most successful. That would come two years later with ‘The Wolfman’, which established him as the New Kid On The Block in the Horror genre. Chaney played Lawrence Talbot, an American engineer who reunites with father Claude Rains (a bit of improbable casting – the two together looked like Mutt & Jeff) in England and gets bitten by a werewolf. He spends the rest of the film dreading the full moon (no other actor could work his eyebrows like Chaney), transforming into a vicious beast under its spell. ‘The Wolfman’ was a hit, and Chaney – for better or for worse – found himself ensconced as the new King of Horror.
Universal Studios recycled Chaney in the role for several follow-ups – ‘Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman’ , ‘House of Dracula’, ‘House of Frankenstein’ . . until finally putting the proverbial nail in the horror genre coffin with ‘Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein’, wherein Chaney appeared in an obvious lethargic alcoholic haze.
He soldiered on, mostly playing psychotic heavies and dim-witted thugs, until dying in 1972, the end result of a lifetime of hard living, heavy drinking and chain smoking. Celebrate his film legacy by watching him in his signature role – “that was my baby”, he was found of saying in later years – in ‘The Wolfman’.
Click here for a scene from ‘The Wolfman’ . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTNQEd8D4pg
and afterward, go out tonight and howl at the moon for Lon Chaney. In the words of Warren Zevon, “his hair was perfect.”
“Even a man who is pure of heart
And says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms,
And the autumn moon is bright.”
Pity poor Lon Chaney Jr. Doomed for eternity to toil in the Actors Hall of Fame’s B-list, never acknowledged or rewarded in his lifetime, living in the imposing shadow of his legendary father, and stuck in a film genre that was one niche above pornography in the eyes of highbrow critics.
He did have an extraordinary quality, though – unique in his way at mingling brutality and pathos, vulnerability and compulsion – skillfully facilating between playing the innocent victim and the sociopathic brute. He could never be a convincing leading man – too big, lumbering and awkward – but his sincerity was convincing and charismatic in its straightforward way. He was born Chreighton Chaney 104 years ago today in Oklahoma.
His father, of course, was silent screen icon Lon Chaney. After his dad died in 1930, Creighton tried his hand at acting, mostly small roles in B Westerns and Sci-Fi serials for studios like Republic. He was muscular and athletic, handsome in a primitive way, simple in his technique, and possessed of a boomy, helium-inflected voice that projected a vaguely discernible put-upon vulnerability, like a boy’s emotions held captive in a man’s body. He got lucky in 1939, after reluctantly changing his name to the more bankable ‘Lon Chaney, Jr.’ and being cast in the film version of John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’, playing the lumbering simpleton, Lenny – a piece of typecasting that he would drag around and exploit for the rest of his life.
It was his finest moment onscreen, but not his most successful. That would come two years later with ‘The Wolfman’, which established him as the New Kid On The Block in the Horror genre. Chaney played Lawrence Talbot, an American engineer who reunites with father Claude Rains (a bit of improbable casting – the two together looked like Mutt & Jeff) in England and gets bitten by a werewolf. He spends the rest of the film dreading the full moon (no other actor could work his eyebrows like Chaney), transforming into a vicious beast under its spell. ‘The Wolfman’ was a hit, and Chaney – for better or for worse – found himself ensconced as the new King of Horror.
Universal Studios recycled Chaney in the role for several follow-ups – ‘Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman’ , ‘House of Dracula’, ‘House of Frankenstein’ . . until finally putting the proverbial nail in the horror genre coffin with ‘Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein’, wherein Chaney appeared in an obvious lethargic alcoholic haze.
He soldiered on, mostly playing psychotic heavies and dim-witted thugs, until dying in 1972, the end result of a lifetime of hard living, heavy drinking and chain smoking. Celebrate his film legacy by watching him in his signature role – “that was my baby”, he was found of saying in later years – in ‘The Wolfman’.
Click here for a scene from ‘The Wolfman’ . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTNQEd8D4pg
and afterward, go out tonight and howl at the moon for Lon Chaney. In the words of Warren Zevon, “his hair was perfect.”
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