Labels:text | human face | man | person | document OCR: Lon Chaney Jr. by Michael H. Price 1906 - 1973 The jury remains out as to whether Lon Chaney, Jr ., was a bona fide actor or merely an arresting screen presence. Clearly, he did not inherit his father's dramatic ferocity or even versatility, but when the role was right - as in several man-into- beast portrayals running from The Wolf Man through Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, or as the doomed Lenny Small in Of Mice and Men - the younger Chaney was a force to reckon with. On screen from 1932, at first under his christened name, Creighton, Chaney spent almost a de cade in generally undemanding parts until the Mice and Men breakthrough. Then Universal Pictures, eager to develop a new generation of horror stars, brought Chaney to prominence during the war Major Genre Movie Credits years with such vehicles as Man Made Monster and Son of Dracula, as well as a variety ofsuave 1940 Of Mice and Men and vaguely sinister star turns in the Inner 1941 The Wolf Man Sanctum weird mystery series. The 1950s found 1941 Man Made Monster Chaney in decline, though his sad-eyed, seething 1943 Son of Dracula intensity worked to striking advantage. Chaney 1948 InnerSanctum achieved one late-in- life great performance, as 1955 I Died a Thousand Times the tormented caretaker of a houseful of 1956 The Indestructible Man dangerous misfits in Spider Baby. 1959 The Alligator People 1964 Spider Baby
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