“That’s all there is to life – just a little laugh, a little tear.”
- Lon Chaney Unholy Three 1930

            He is referred to as “The Man of a Thousand Faces” because of his profound ability in make-up artistry.  His art was almost like a painting in a movie; his make-up a framework of the character roles he played.  A private life he chose which made his appeal on the screen even more mysterious.  When Lon Chaney passed away, the movies lost a great star. Hollywood held a two-minute silent vigil for him as well as a squad of marines lowered the studio flag and blew taps.  It is interesting that his characters were some of the most famous caricatures ever constructed in movies.   In some manner, there was always the flirtation that he would reveal his true self to his audience, and yet this only truly happened on a rare occasion.  The possibility that he would suddenly show himself created an anxiety and suspense to his characters that made him irresistible to his audience.

 The country was going through many changes during the silent film era.  There was a great war, rise in the crime and violence rates due to prohibition and other unpopular laws combined with economic problems.  During this time, many minorities and especially women were ‘coming out’ to the rest of the world and revealing their personhood, staking their claim to rights and a part in society, and perhaps rebelling against the Victorian dictates of a former era.  The film industry was no exception to this; it went through many changes of its own during this time.  At the beginning of the 20^th century, movie audiences had already experienced many changes in cinema; they were ready for cinema as art, not just as entertainment.  Lon Chaney is the nexus between the early cinematic era and the modern era of film, and in this way he had changed and influenced film forever.

           Leonard Francis Chaney who later became Lon Chaney. He was born on April Fools day in 1883 to Frank and Emma Chaney in Colorado Springs.  His parents both became deaf due to high fevers in their childhood.  He was the second of five children none of whom were deaf.  He left home at the age of 17 to tour as an actor, traveling across the country.  He met his wife Cleva Creighton in his theater group and married her in the year 1906.  According to Michael Blake, “Lon Chaney had not made the successful mark in theater he had hoped for”(21). However, his ability to dance on stage was being recognized.  In 1912 he decided to head out for Hollywood to give the upcoming medium referred to as ‘flickers’ a chance.  His talent sprang from his amazing ability to communicate with his deaf parents through body and facial gestures.  He mastered the art of pantomiming and because of his theater background; Lon Chaney became the most widely known and most popular character actor that there ever was.  He established himself in westerns, gangster pictures and slapstick comedy as an extra. His career experience in vaudeville, professional dancing, and stage-managing, greatly helped him latter in his film career.  From 1916-1918 most of his films were directed by Joseph DeGrasse.  Chaney worked for Universal doing supporting and secondary lead roles, but he chose to leave, which turned out to be one of the wisest decisions he made for his career.  His decision to free-lance managed to create a niche for himself because of his ability to portray unusual characters.  He felt he always had a solid future as a character actor.

 Lon Chaney truly revolutionized make-up for movies. Because of him, people used make-up more for character parts. Movies were not really an ‘art form’ then, they were more of a pastime, or even an interesting invention, but not art; but after him, they were.  In American film Chaney was certainly the first to popularize the casting of a person who would be able to act the role and not necessarily look the role. This is where the art of make-up entered.  Most films were casting a pretty boy if a pretty boy was needed or a cripple if a cripple was needed.  It was Lon Chaney who demonstrated that through make-up an actor could be whoever they needed to be according to the script.  It was not the make-up that made the character, but the actor who performed with the help of the make-up.  He then caused people to think of make-up as a prop.  Actors now wear a foam rubber or latex prosthetic mask made up by the special effects department, but Chaney amazingly made his own make-up designs as well as applied his own make-up to become the imitation of the prescribed character he was to perform.   For example, the face of Erik from The Phantom of the Opera shocked the audience into remembering it.  Chaney worked with the contours of his own face and simply exaggerates his features with the help of grease paint, nose putty, spirit gum, crape hair, lighting and camera angles.  Author Michael F. Blake describes to us Chaney’s art of applying his make-up for his character role as Erik.  “Lon strove to come as close to Gaston Leroux’s novel’s description of the Phantom as possible”(132). There are many myths on how Lon Chaney did his make-up some of the most outrageous is the story that he “…placed celluloid discs in his cheekbones…(or)…placing wire pins in his nose to distend his nostrils…”(133).  The truth is Lon Chaney used his “…cotton and collodion technique for the raised cheekbones.  The up-lifted nose effect was done by gluing a strip of fishskin onto the top of the nose with spirit gum, pulling it up until the desired look was achieved, and then gluing the rest of the strip of fishskin to the bridge of his nose and lower part of the forehead”(133). The use of dark eyeliners penciled around his eyes gave the hollowed eye effect that Gaston Leroux described.  This look was emphasized with a thin line of highlight under the lower eyelids.  “The jagged teeth were made of gutta-percha, which, in turn, was accented by using a dark lining color on the lower lip”(133).  For Phantom’s receding hairline Chaney used a skullcap with a wig sewn onto it and a “…fine piece of muslin on the edge of the cap.  Gluing the muslin edge allowed it to blend easily into the forehead”(133).  He glued his ears back with spirit gum to give himself a more skull-like appearance.  Chaney also knew it was not just make-up that made his characters effective; it was also lighting.  It was all in the right placement of the right shades of greasepaint in the right places and the lighting which he learned from his days on the stage.  I have noticed how his techniques influenced later films.  Again, in The Phantom of the Opera, he mounted the camera on the organ facing him for a more intimate and shocking unmasking scene.  Il Fantasma dell’Opera directed by Dario Argento utilized this technique during the underground scene in which he mounted the camera to the pipe organ.  Ironically, there was no need as the Phantom was not deformed so there was no unmasking scene.  Likewise, Frenchman Jean Cocteau who directed Beauty and the Beast in 1946 was greatly influenced by Chaney’s Phantom’s persona as well as the black looming shadows and dark underground sequences.  A great many remakes of The Phantom of the Opera have tried to recreate the dramatic impact that Chaney made in the unmasking scene but pale in comparison.  Chaney was also able to demonstrate the pain of rejection and agony of years of loneliness through the use of his skull-like make-up to make it much more believable.  Another example of Chaney’s influence on later films, I believe, was the inspiration for the character of Dracula from Bram Stoker’s Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola.  Chaney’s lost film, London After Midnight, directed by Tod Browning we see for first time on film a vampire that was dressed in a top hat and dapper clothes as well as stood upright as a more suave and cunning character rather than the previous gnarled creature from Nosferatu. This characterization I believe greatly influence Francis Ford Coppola. Interestingly, Gene Simons from the band KISS designed his whole costume around Lon Chaney’s vampire right down to the bat wing cap.  Another movie that was inspired by Chaney was Fredric March in Jekyll and Hyde 1931. “One of Mr. Hyde’s test faces was a close cousin to that of Lon Chaney’s vampire in London After Midnight …”(Skal 142).  In my opinion, the final make-up for Hyde was inspired by Chaney’s ape-man from A Blind Bargain 1922.  The make-up and even the facial expressions in The Clown at Midnight 1999 were based upon Chaney’s He Who Gets Slapped 1924. 

            Not only did Lon Chaney revolutionize make-up for movies, he also achieved success as an actor. Joan Crawford starred with Chaney in The Unknown.  In an interview with Crawford she said, “ …it was as if God were working, he had such profound concentration.  It was then I became aware for the first time of the difference between standing in front of a camera, and acting” (Skal 73).   Film historian David Thomson said about Chaney, “There is not a screen performer who so illustrates the fascination for audiences of the idea, promise and threat of metamorphosis…Chaney’s fluctuating appearance seethed with the audience’s lust for vacariousness” (Skal 70). There was a popular joke attributed to director Marshall Neilan about Chaney, “Don’t Step on That Spider! It Might Be Lon Chaney!”(Blake 85).

            The profoundness of Chaney’s character portrayals was achieved through his imagination, emotion and make-up.  He had a unique ability to convey emotions to an audience without overacting. To demonstrate his sincerity about acting, he would go out in public without being noticed for the sole purpose to study people of different nationalities to better his performances.    His physical gift of contortion was first displayed in The Miracle Man (1919) as a phony cripple.  He was a true artist seeking to perfect his art.  Lon Chaney was willing to ‘sweat blood and tears’ and ‘bend over backwards’ to achieve his character roles.  This sometimes was perceived as masochism by the press.  Chaney willingly sacrificed physical comfort in pursuit of his art.  His physically demanding role in The Penalty as an amputee below the knees firmly established him as a highly significant star.  Michael Blake writes regarding The Penalty, “Lon designed a leather harness to strap his legs behind him, which actually allowed him to walk on his knees with the aid of crutches” (53). 

            Lon Chaney became the safe ground, an embodiment of a fragmented version of the men who were deformed by the war left to a life of being social outcasts.  Both The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera bore an eerie resemblance to the faces of more than 5,000 war-ravaged veterans.  These two films of the mid-twenties each juxtaposed stories of physical deformities against the backdrop of the grand Parisian landmarks.  The Phantom of the Opera brought about subconsciously the horrors of war, even though the subject was never brought up directly.  Chaney’s character as an amputee in The Penalty also speaks suggestively of the war veterans who are being fitted back into society.  “(Chaney) was able to project the humanity of each character, so that whether his deformity was man-made or nature-made, he was believable to the audiences and therefore was real and evoked sympathy” (Anderson 7).  Chaney’s ability to portray humanity was demonstrated in his role as Quasimodo in whom he created a very realistic character who would have otherwise been played as a ‘dummy’ by another actor.  I liken the careful portrayal of Quasimodo to that of The Elephant Man.  The way that John Hurt played Joseph Merrick walked a fine line between someone who would easily be mistaken for a mentally retarded person and an undiscovered genius.

The horror genre during the 1920’s largely belonged to Lon Chaney.  His most influential and famous performance was that of a disfigured Erik in The Phantom of the Opera, a Universal-Jewel production.  He shocked the audience with a disturbing horrific, almost pornographic, psychological striptease.  His unmasking scene by Christine verged on visual rape.  There are accounts of women fainting in the aisles and people screaming.   Chaney titillated his audience by always coming to the brink of revealing his true character, and sometimes he did, as in Phantom.  This created a suspense and psychology and depth to his characters not seen before in movies.  This is particularly one of the ways he influenced the horror film genre the most because ever afterwards it was one of the most psychological genres.  Sci-Fi movies often have this same type of suspense. 

The story of how Lon Chaney influenced the film industry would not be complete without mentioning his relationship with Director Tod Browning.  In 1925 the director and actor Chaney met at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the making of The Unholy Three one of the major hits of that year.  This was the beginning of a long working relationship.  Browning would come up with a story challenging Chaney to act out its powerful character. Browning learned to never really ‘direct’ Chaney, but to allow him to act according to his emotions. “Following The Unholy Three came The Blackbird (1926) and The Road to Mandalay (1926), in which Chaney again was crippled and hideously scarred” (Skal 71).  Between 1924 to 1929 Browning directed eleven films, eight of which Chaney starred in.

 Throughout Chaney’s lifetime, he only made one talkie film, The Unholy Three 1930, which was a remake of his 1925 version While filming the movie Thunder 1929 Chaney experienced throat irritation and was hospitalized. He soon returned to work. Following his sneak preview of The Unholy Three his health took a dramatic turn for the worse. On August 26, 1930 Lon died at 47 from complications of bronchial cancer due to years of chain smoking. Ironically, with his death came one of the biggest changes in film history.  While in the hospital, he signed a contract with Universal to play the role of Dracula. He died one month later.  His death gave other actors their place in history as horror film actors, specifically, Bela Lugosi (Dracula), Boris Karloff (Frankenstein), and Lon Chaney, Jr. (The Wolfman). Truly, Lon Chaney changed and influenced film forever and will always be my hero.

Works Cited

Anderson, Robert G. Faces, Forms, Films The Artistry of Lon Chaney. New York:A.S.

            Barnes and Co., Inc.1971.

Blake, Michael F. Lon Chaney The Man Behind The Thousand Faces. Vestal, New York:

            The Vestal Press, Ltd.1993.

Riley, Philip J. The Making of The Phantom of the Opera. Absecon, New Jersey:

            MagicImage Filmbooks.1999.

Skal, David J. The Monster Show A Cultural History of Horror. New York, N.Y.: W.W.

            Norton & Company.1993.

Chaney sported drag as Mrs. O'Grady in The Unholy Three

Laugh Clown Laugh Was one of two clown movies Chaney was in. It has been reported that his clown roles where his favorite.

Outside the Law Lon Chaney made a great point to studied people of ethnicity so he could respectfully and properly portray them.

Hunchback of Notre Dame Chaney fashioned a hump of plaster that weighed around 20 ponds and a leather harness to prevent him from being able to stand up right. The whole make-up process too him three hours to apply.

Chaney played a double role in Mr. Wu a stunt rarely done back then.

The Phantom of the Opera has become one of Chaney’s most widely recognized charters and strangely he barley used any make-up for the role.