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Quick pop quiz: What do Dracula, Frankenstein‘s monster, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy all have in common? If you said “Universal Studios,” that is indeed one of the things they have in common, as the frightful four make up Universal’s Classic Monsters. The second thing they have in common may not be so easy, but here’s a clue: an actor named Creighton. Still stuck? You might know him by his stage name: Lon Chaney Jr. Here’s the connection: Chaney Jr. is the only actor who has played all four of Universal’s monster movie icons.
Lon Chaney Jr. Carved His Own Hollywood Path
Creighton Chaney, the son of Frances Cleveland Creighton and Lon Chaney, the Hollywood legend known as the “Man of a Thousand Faces,” was born in February 1906 under traumatic circumstances. As Chaney Jr. himself explains, “I was all black and not breathing when I was born. 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.” Creighton joined his father on the vaudeville stage by the time he was six months old, exhibiting strength and ability beyond his age.
But Chaney Sr. discouraged Creighton from entering show business, which wasn’t a hard sell; Creighton didn’t want to act, choosing to attend business school. But after the death of his father in 1930, offers to appear in films proved too tempting to pass up, and he began his film career quietly, and often uncredited. The first real breakthrough for Creighton — who was being credited as Lon Chaney Jr. by then — came with the 1939 film interpretation of John Steinbeck‘s Of Mice and Men, where his hulking stature was a perfect fit for the slow-minded, giant character. His performance was critically acclaimed and Of Mice and Men would open the door to what would be Chaney Jr.’s definitive role, that of Larry Talbot, a.k.a the titular monster of 1941’s The Wolf Man.
Lon Chaney Jr. Became the Ultimate Universal Monster Legend
The Wolf Man, like Of Mice and Men, presented Chaney with a character that played to his strengths. His Larry Talbot is haunted by what he becomes, with a sense of defeat, loss, and panic in his eyes as a man, and pure nightmare fuel as the titular monster. As recounted in the New York Times, Chaney explains what set the Wolf Man apart from his monstrous peers: “They [the other monsters] all won the audience’s sympathy. The Wolf didn’t want to do all those things. He was forced into them.” The film was a hit and revived the Universal monster movies, a franchise that had grown stagnant after the critical and commercial success of 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein.
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The success of The Wolf Man turned Chaney in to the new, well, Lon Chaney (Universal even dropped the “Jr.” from his name in the credits), and he became the go-to for monster roles. In 1942, Chaney took over from Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster for The Ghost of Frankenstein, and in that same year played the mummy, Kharis, in The Mummy’s Tomb. With 1943’s Son of Dracula — which actually doesn’t feature the son of Dracula, just Dracula — Chaney Jr. became the only actor to play all four of Universal’s classic monsters. Chaney would revisit both Larry Talbot and Kharis in other films over the next six years, but he wouldn’t approach the heights of The Wolf Man again. He would ride out the rest of his career primarily playing monsters and villains in B-grade films, with the occasional appearance in more prominent fare, like 1952’s High Noon.
To date, Chaney’s claim to fame has not been matched, but it doesn’t mean there haven’t been other actors who’ve come close. Boris Karloff played two of the four Universal monsters — the original monster in Frankenstein and the titular Imhotep in The Mummy. He would also play a vampire, but not Dracula, in 1963’s Black Sabbath. Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula in the classic 1931 film Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, which also stars Chaney. One would have to go overseas to another famed house of horror, Hammer Films, to find another actor that comes close with three of the four film monsters: Christopher Lee. The legendary actor first appeared as The Creature (Frankenstein’s monster) in 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein, Count Dracula in 1958’s Dracula, and landed a trifecta playing Kharis in 1959’s The Mummy. Ultimately, however, Chaney remains unmatched in his legacy. It remains to be seen if anyone will ever play all four monsters again, but it seems unlikely as the Universal Monsters Universe has failed to recapture the magic of those early years.
The Wolf Man is available to rent or buy on Prime Video in the U.S.
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