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"Don't step on that spider! It might be Lon Chaney!" That's a joke, which once swept like wildfire about the man on our cover, the incredible master of disguises Lon Chaney. No one knew in what form Chaney would show up next. In one film he played a man with no legs, in another he had no arms, in others he was a vampire, a demented ape man, a schizophrenic ventriloquist, a crazed cripple and on and on including, of course, his two most famous creations: the misshapen hunchback who lived in the bell tower of Notre Dame and the facially-disfigured phantom who holed up in the bowels of the Paris Opera house. Chaney's name eventually became so synonymous with Halloween and all things Frankensteinish that the mere mention of it induced shudders - something particularly ironic since off screen, away from his makeup box, Mr. Chaney couldn't have been a gentler soul. He was known to be extremely warm and likeable, always adored by his coworkers, as famous for his lack of temperament as he was for his uncanny ability to twist his body into awkward shapes to create his on-screen repertoire of fictional misfits. Further, few behaved less like the Hollywood superstar than he did. Chaney's pals described him as "the star who lived like a clerk" because he never attended premieres or industry parties, rarely gave interviews and spent his free time in a cabin he built in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, accessible only by an hour's walk on foot or on a pack horse. And because his face was usually hidden behind a mask or a mound of makeup in his films, he had the rare distinction of being one of the few world-famous personalities who could walk down any street at anytime and not be recognized. The events that shaped his short life (he died at age 47) make for a fascinating story, including the fact that he was born to deaf parents and learned much about mime and the creation of vivid characters when, while still a boy, his mother became bedridden with a long illness and young Lon would, without words, relay the events of the day to her. He made only one talking picture (The Unholy Three) and was one of the last holdouts against talking pictures, not out of fear of the new medium but because talkies would, for one thing, shut the door on filmgoing for the deaf. Another reason was that talking would severely limit his ability to contort his face into some of the monstrous shapes he desired for the roles he played. Quite an interesting fellow, Mr. Chaney, and thanks to TCM's October look at his life and films, we'll have the best chance to learn more about him and witness his magic than has been available to anyone since Lon Chaney's 12-year heyday between 1919 and 1930. In the meantime, do avoid stepping on spiders, just in case.
- written by Robert Osborne, TCM host & film critic
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