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, including six films in their 1940s Inner Sanctum series, making him a horror icon. He also portrayed Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men (1939) and played supporting parts in dozens of mainstream movies, including High Noon (1952), The Defiant Ones (1958), and numerous Westerns, musicals, comedies and dramas.
Originally referred to in films as Creighton Chaney, he was later credited as "Lon Chaney, Jr." in 1935. After Man Made Monster (1941), beginning as early as The Wolf Man later that same year, the studio insisted that he would almost always be billed under the name of his more famous father, the deceased cinema giant Lon Chaney. Chaney had English, French, and Irish ancestry. His career in movies and television spanned four decades, from 1931 to 1971.
Creighton Tull Chaney was born on February 10, 1906, in Oklahoma City, the son of then-stage performer Lon Chaney and Frances Cleveland Creighton, a singing stage performer who traveled in road shows across the country with Chaney. In a 1965 interview, Chaney Jr. claimed that he was a stillborn baby. "I was all black and not breathing when I was born," he shared. "My father ran out of the house with me and broke a hole in the ice in a nearby lake, and dunked me in time after time until he revived me". His parents' troubled marriage ended in divorce in 1913 following his mother's scandalous public suicide attempt in Los Angeles. Many articles and biographies over the years report that Creighton was led to believe his mother had died while he was a boy, and he only learned that she was still alive after his father's death. Creighton always maintained he had a tough childhood.
Young Creighton lived in various homes and boarding schools until 1916, when his father (now employed in the film industry) married Hazel Hastings and could provide a stable home.
From an early age, he worked hard to avoid his famous father's shadow. In young adulthood, his father discouraged him from show business, and he attended business college and became successful in a Los Angeles appliance corporation. Creighton, who had begun working for a plumbing company, married Dorothy Hinckley, the daughter of his employer Ralph Hinckley. They had two sons (both now deceased): Lon Ralph Chaney and Ronald Creighton Chaney. Ronald Chaney's son (Ron Chaney Jr.) is still alive however.
Creighton's life changed when his father was diagnosed with throat cancer and died on August 26, 1930, at the age of 47.
It was only after his father's death that Chaney began to act in films, billed under his own name. He began with an uncredited bit part in the serial The Galloping Ghost (1931) and signed a contract with RKO where he was given small roles in a number of films, including Girl Crazy (1932), Bird of Paradise (1932), and The Most Dangerous Game (1932) (from which Chaney's few scenes were edited out before the film was released).
RKO gave him the starring role in a serial, The Last Frontier (1932). He got bigger film roles in Lucky Devils (1933), Son of the Border (1933), Scarlet River (1933), and The Life of Vergie Winters (1934). Over at Mascot Pictures he supported John Wayne in a serial, The Three Musketeers (1933), which was later re-edited into a film entitled Desert Command (1946).
"I did every possible bit in pictures" said Chaney later. "Had to do stuntwork to live. I bulldogged steers, fell off and got knocked off cliffs, rode horses off precipices into rivers, drove prairie schooners up and down hills."
He had the lead in the independent film Sixteen Fathoms Deep (1934), and a memorable part in which his character sings in Girl o' My Dreams (1934) at Monogram. The last film he made as Creighton Chaney was The Marriage Bargain (1935) for Screencraft Productions. After this point he was billed as Lon Chaney, Jr. until 1942, when he was usually billed, at the insistence of Universal Studios, with his iconic father's name, although the "Jr." was usually added by others to distinguish the two.
He had the lead in A Scream in the Night (1934) made for Commodore Pictures, a crime thriller. He played small roles at Paramount: Hold 'Em Yale (1935), Accent on Youth (1935) and Rose Bowl (1936). A small outfit, Ray Kirkwood Productions, gave him a lead, The Shadow of Silk Lennox (1935).
At Republic, he featured alongside Gene Autry in The Singing Cowboy (1936) and The Old Corral (1937). He was a henchman in a serial for Republic, Undersea Kingdom (1936). Universal got him to play a henchman in their serial, Ace Drummond (1937), and he was uncredited in Columbia's Killer at Large (1936). He lent his name to a café which was embroiled in a liquor scandal.
Chaney Jr. was the main villain in Cheyenne Rides Again (1937) and also played a villainous part in a serial, Secret Agent X-9 (1937).
Chaney Jr. signed a contract at 20th Century Fox and appeared in Love Is News (1937) with Tyrone Power, Midnight Taxi (1937) with Brian Donlevy, That I May Live (1937), This Is My Affair (1937) with Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck, Angel's Holiday (1937), Born Reckless (1937) with Brian Donlevy, Wild and Woolly (1937) with Walter Brennan, The Lady Escapes (1937) with Gloria Stuart, Thin Ice (1937) with Tyrone Power, One Mile from Heaven (1937) with Claire Trevor, Charlie Chan on Broadway (1938), Life Begins in College (1937) with the Ritz Brothers, Wife, Doctor and Nurse (1937) with Loretta Young, Second Honeymoon (1937) with Tyrone Power and Loretta Young, Checkers (1937), Love and Hisses (1938) with Walter Winchell, City Girl (1938), Happy Landing (1938) with Ethel Merman, Sally, Irene and Mary (1938) with Fred Allen and Jimmy Durante, Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938) with Peter Lorre, Walking Down Broadway (1938) with Claire Trevor, Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938) with Tyrone Power, Josette (1938) with Don Ameche and Robert Young, Speed to Burn (1938) with Lynn Bari, Passport Husband (1938), Straight, Place and Show (1938) with the Ritz Brothers, John Ford's Submarine Patrol (1938) with Nancy Kelly, and Road Demon (1939). He was almost killed by a train while filming a bank robbery scene in Jesse James (1939). Jesse James also coincidentally featured Henry Hull, the star of Werewolf of London (1935), in a supporting role.
Chaney Jr. later made Charlie Chan in City in Darkness (1939) with Lynn Bari and Frontier Marshal (1939) with Randolph Scott and Nancy Kelly.
Chaney Jr's only stage appearance had been as Lennie Small in a production of Of Mice and Men with Wallace Ford. He was cast in that role in the 1939 film adaptation, which was produced by Hal Roach Studios. The film was Chaney Jr's first major role in a film and was a critical success for him. Chaney had a screen test for the role of Quasimodo for the remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), a role which his father played back in 1923, but the role went to Charles Laughton.
Hal Roach used him in his third-billed character role in One Million B.C. (1940) as Victor Mature's caveman father, after which Chaney began to be viewed as a character actor in the mold of his father. He had in fact designed a swarthy, ape-like Neanderthal make-up on himself for the film, but production decisions and union rules prevented his following through on emulating his father in that fashion. Cecil B. DeMille used him in a supporting role in North West Mounted Police (1940) and MGM used him in Billy the Kid (1941) with Robert Taylor as Billy and Brian Donlevy as Pat Garrett. That studio considered putting Chaney Jr in a remake of his father's hit He Who Gets Slapped but decided not to make it.
Universal Pictures offered Chaney Jr the lead in Man-Made Monster (1941), a science-fiction horror thriller originally written with Boris Karloff in mind. Chaney's first horror film, it was successful enough for them to offer him a long-term contract.