American actor (1883-1930). Born Leonidas Frank Chaney in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Both of his parents were deaf, and Chaney learned American Sign Language at a young age. He became an actor and the co-owner of a theater company.
At 22, he married a 16-year-old singer named Cleva Creighton, and their only child, Creighton Tull Chaney was born. (Creighton eventually went into acting and changed his name to Lon Chaney, Jr.) Marriages between very young people often turn sour, and six years after they married, Cleva went to the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles, which Chaney co-owned, and tried to kill herself by drinking mercuric chloride. Cleva didn't die, but the suicide attempt destroyed her singing career. The scandal and divorce that followed had Chaney leave theater and move into film.
He spent several years playing bit parts in silent films, but he learned makeup skills that made him more attractive for larger roles. His first substantial role was in a 1918 Western called "Riddle Gawne," and he soon got more recognition as an outstanding character actor. By the time he starred in "The Miracle Man" in 1919, he was considered the biggest star in Hollywood. His makeup work was particularly acclaimed -- he played amputees, mutilated characters, clowns, and dual roles, including one film where he played a character who killed another character he was playing. He performed almost exclusively in silent films -- his only sound movie was a remake of one of his earlier films called "The Unholy Three."
Chaney was known as "The Man with a Thousand Faces" because he was so skilled at disguising himself with makeup. Back then, they didn't have latex makeup; when Chaney wanted to make his face look like a skull in "The Phantom of the Opera," he had to use wires -- painful wires -- to draw his lips and nose back and to hold his eyes open. His best known movies include "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "The Phantom of the Opera," and "London After Midnight," but he was also considered an excellent comedian, dancer, and singer, with a very strong and malleable voice.
Chaney died in 1930 of bronchial cancer. He's interred in Glendale, California, but his will required his crypt to be unmarked.
Research from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)