Biography Lon Chaney was born with the name Leonidas Frank Chaney in Colorado Springs, Colorado, son of Frank Chaney and Emma Alice Kennedy, his father was of mostly English descent and some French, and his mother was of Irish descent. Both parents were deaf as a child Chaney learned to communicate through pantomime. In 1902 he began his stage career, touring with popular actors and vaudeville theater. In 1905 he met and married singer Cleva Creighton and in 1906 she had her first and only son, Creighton Chaney (aka Lon Chaney Jr.). The Chaney continued touring, settling in California in 1910. Unfortunately there were marital problems, and in April 1913, Cleva went to the Majestic Theater located in downtown Los Angeles, where Lon was managing the Kolb and Dill.There, she attempted suicide by swallowing mercury bichloride. The suicide attempt failed and ruined her singing career, the scandal and divorce forced Chaney to leave the theater and into film. It ignores the time spent there, but between 1912 and 1917, Chaney worked under contract to Universal Studios in small roles. At this time, Chaney befriended the pair of directors Joe De Grasse and Ida May Park, who gave him more important roles in their productions. Chaney also became friends with William Dudley Pelley, who later formed the Silver Legion, an American Nazi organization. While in Hollywood, Pelley wrote sixteen scripts which Chaney starred in two. Furthermore, Chaney was married to a former colleague of the Kolb and Dill company tour, a girl named Hazel Hastings, who sang in the choir of the work. Little is known of Hazel, except that her marriage to Chaney was solid.After marrying, the couple had custody of Chaney's son who already had ten years and had resided in various homes and boarding schools since Chaney's divorce in 1913. By 1917, Chaney was a prominent actor in the studio, but his salary did not reflect their status. When Chaney asked for a raise, studio executive William Sistrom replied, "'ll never be worth more than a hundred dollars a week. After leaving the studio, Chaney struggled as an actor throughout his first year. It was not until 1918 when a considerable role in the film of William S. Riddle Gawne Hart, Chaney's talent as an actor was actually recognized by the film industry. In 1919, Chaney had a breakthrough performance as "the Frog" (a man pretending to be a cripple to miraculously cure) in The Miracle (The Miracle Man) by George Loane Tucker. The film not only displayed the Chaney's acting ability but also his talent as a master of makeup.The critical acclaim and a collection of more than 2 million Americans put Chaney on the map as the main player character of America. Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera. Chaney is remembered as a pioneer in silent horror films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and, especially, for The Phantom of the Opera (The Phantom of the Opera). His ability to transform himself using makeup techniques of his own invention earned him the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Faces." In an autobiographical 1925 article published in Movie magazine, Chaney referred to his specialty as "extreme characterization." Also exhibited this adaptability with makeup in more conventional films, crime and adventure, such as The Penalty, where he played a gangster without legs.She appeared in several films directed by Tod Browning, often playing disguised or mutilated characters, including the knife thrower Alonzo the human Claw Without Arms (The Unknown) with Joan Crawford. In 1927, Chaney starred alongside Conrad Nagel, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall and Polly Moran in the horror classic House of horror (London After Midnight) by Tod Browning is perhaps the most famous lost film ever. His last film was a sound remake of his silent classic The Unholy Three (The Unholy Three) (1930), his only sound film and the only one who used his versatile voice. Chaney signed a sworn statement declaring that five of the leading voices in the film (the ventriloquist, old woman, parrot, the doll and girl) are actually theirs.Although Chaney created two of the most grotesquely deformed characters in film history (Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame, and Erik, the "ghost" of the Paris Opera), representations seeking a reaction of sympathy and sadness between the audience and make them feel not to panic or rejection of those characters that just were disfigured victims of fate. "I wanted to remind the public that even those who are lower on the scale of humanity may have within them the ability to sacrifice," Chaney wrote in Movie magazine.
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