Indianapolis Times, Volume 42, Number 95, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 August 1930 — Page 12

PAGE 12

Lon Chaney's Life Story; ‘Man of Thousand Faces'

This l the saeond of > scries of lx stories hr Dor Thom**. Hollywood eorresoondent of The Time* and NEA Ser vie*, on the life of Lon Charier, the movie*' greatest character actor. Today. Thoma* tell* of the tar a remarkable renias as a make-ap artist. BY DAK THOMAS NEA Service Writer (Copyright. 1930, by NEA Service, Inc.) HOLLYWOOD. Cal., Aug. 29.—0f all the malformed and evil-looking creatures with which Lon Chaney led movie-goers through a series of delectable nightmares, perhaps his greatest role was that of Quasimodo, the hairy one-eyed dwarf in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” “I covered my face with anew one, blanked out an eye with a shell that I painted over, got a mouthful of false teeth and was strapped in z harness,” Chaney once related in explaining how he made up .for the part. “I actually had nothing of my own but one eye toaplay the part with. Hurt? Os course, it hurt—but it’s all a part of the game'” But Lon Chaney’s art lay not in makeup alone. Victor Hugo, in the novel, made Quasimodo the demon of the middle ages; Chaney, by his powerful interpretation of the little hunchback, gave him a soul. Os course, you remember the picture . . . the hairy bell ringer, creeping ape-like around the sculptured gargoyles, feared by those whb didn’t revile him, half man and half devil, savior of the girl to whom he gave sanctuary in the church and nemesis of the mephitic priest who threatened her.

As repulsive in appearance as the master genius of make-up could devise, audiences nevertheless found •omething to pity in this misshapen lump that might have been a man had the fates been kinder. That “something” was put there by Chaney. a a a AS the legless man in “The Penalty,” Chaney effected the illusion by having his legs strapped behind him. “We had to stop every few minutes,” he explained, “to remove the straps and massage my legs which had grown numb. The pain was pretty tough.” "Thunder,” in rjvhich Chaney played the part of an old railroad engineer, sent hm to a hospital because he insisted on riding in a locomotive cab in near-zero weather with the window open. The price of his slanting eyes in "Mr. Wu,” his greatest Chinese role, was pain that lasted for days, caused by the use of adhesive tape to keep the outer corners of his eyes pulled backward, and upward. SOME sort of a price in the form of self-imposed torture was paid for nearly all his other famous roles. Among those best remembered are: The squirming cripple in ’“The Miracle Man," in which he permanently lamed his should by throwing it out of joint. The one-eyed dive keeper in “On the Road to Mandalay.” The doubled-up crook in “The Blackbird,” which he effected by curving his spine, drawing up one leg and having the tailor accentuate this apparent bodily deformity by making one side of his suit of clothes longer than the other. The armless circus freak in “The Unknown,” in which he had his arms bound closely to his sides. The paralyzed African trader in "West of Zanzibar,” who dragged himself around with his hands. The Dracula-like vampire in "London After Midnight,” in which he used a chemical to distend his eyes after a formula prepared by an oculist. The hideous, slinking creature of the cellar in “The Phantom of the Opera.” The long-haired Sergei in his Russian drama, “Moekery.” The sed-hearted circus clown in “He Who Gets Slapped.” The fiend-like Gaspard the Good in “The Trap,” his north woods drama of revenge. The grandmotherly old woman and Professor Echo, the ventriloquist. whose parts he played in “The Unholy Three.” He made one picture in which he wore no make-up at all—not even powder. That was “Tell It to the Marines,” in which Chaney played the hard-boiled Sergeant O’Hara. It proved one of his greatest successes; his acting did it. tt tt tt CHANEY'S success at make-up was not gained at the price of pain alone. For years after he first tackled Hollywood as an "extra,” he spent several hours each day before his mirror, putting make-up

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on and taking it off just see what he could do. After he got to be a star, he often spent three hours a day making up; in the filming of “Mr. Wu” he arrived at the studio regularly at 6 a. m. so he could have his make-up completed when the cameras began grinding at 9. He visited police courts, waterfront dives and all sorts of places in search of types. The pictures in the rogues’ gallery at police headquarters proved a gold mine; his sinister, leering “Singapore Joe,” whose blind eye he simulated by inserting a milky glass eye under his own lid. was one of the rogue gallery’s products. Layer on layer he built up his face to change its appearance, using putty or plastic wax for the purpose. Lines he graved thereon with a sharp tracer. Scars he imitated with chemicals. Cotton stuffed in his jaws to make his face puff out; bits of rubber worn in his nostrils to make his nose appear flat; hidden face clamps to warp his features; false teeth that fitted over his own; wigs, artificial eyebrows and the like—all these were the implements of his trade. a tt tt CHANEY had none of those eccentricities like Richard Mansfield, his famous predecessor of the legitimate theater, who is said to have compelled stage hands to wear soft-soled shoes so they would not make a sound during his great dramatic moments. Lon was congenial with everybody around the studio. But he was a hard worker—as hard as any Hollywood ever has seen. He went into his roles with an intensity that might lead one to believe he had hypnotized himself into actually living the part of the cripple or the deformed man whom he played. AH else seemed forgotten. But the instant the cameras ceased to grind Chaney was himself again. “He’s just like an electric light —he switches himself on and off,” a studio spectator once described it. a u OF all the horrible demons in human form that Chaney’s fantastic mind conceived and his genius of makeup gave birth, perhaps none was more hideous than the slinking and masked cellar creature, who haunts the memory of

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those who saw “The Phantom of the the Opera." The great moment came when this villain was finally cornered and his mask was withdrawn, revealing a face that nothing less than a grinning, tight-skinned Death Head could equal for pure horror. Movie-goers from coast to coast shivered and gasped when that mask came off. their nerves strained to the breaking point. At a performance in the Strand theater at Birmingham, Ala., according to one of the many odd stories that drifted back here, when the hideous face stood revealed one woman-spectator screamed “Oh, my Godf’—and fainted dead away. tt a THE memory of this and other hideous faces that Chaney gave to the screen still is seared in the minds of millions of moviegoers, but the man himself was of a totally different cast. During an interval in the filming of one of his greatest horror pictures, Peggy Wood caught Chaney replacing some baby birds that had fallen out of their nest, and he acted like a bashful schoolboy. “Don’t tell the gang about it,” he pleaded. “They’ll kid me to death.

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THE' INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

You know I’m supposed to be a opera.” Next Lon Chaney as a man and a husband. . . the little known private life of the screen's best-known actor. HUMAN CANNONBALL INJURED IN ACCIDENT By Cnited Prrn ATLANTIC CITY, N. J., Aug. 23. —Ted Steelman, Baltimore daredevil, was believed dying today from injuries he received when he plunged 2,000 feet into the ocean from a plane in his “human cannonball” stunt. A wore failed to open until too late. Steelman took the place of Harvey Powers, who originated the stunt for .he benefit of sightseers on the steel pier. Powers was killed Aug. 1 n a similar accident. He was shot from a cannon on a plane, and plunged to death when his parachute failed to open. Powers performed the stunt for thousands of watchers twice daily for twenty-seven days before it proved fatal. By strange coincidence Steelman’s accident also occurred on the twenty-seventh day.

ANDREE'S POLE START IS TOLD BY OLDSAILOR Last Man to Shake Hand of Explorer in 1897 Recalls Scene. By Cnitfid Prrts TEOMSOE, Norway. Aug. 29 The last man who shook hands with Salomon Auguste Andree before the Swedish explorer started on his attempt to reach the north pole by balloon in 1897 Thursday described Andree’s last moments before he entered his balloon. Post Galschpedt, an old sailor now employed at the Tromsoe harbor office, proudly recalled the scene of Andree's departure. A veteran of the small ships that brave the treaclKrous ice of the polar seas, Galschoedt has seen

many polar expeditions start from Spitzbergen hoping to solve some of the many riddles of the Arctid regions. t

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"I never will forget the departure of Andree's balloon from Sbnskoe in the summer of 1897.” he said. “? was sealing off Spitzbergen an

RICHMAN BROTHERS ESTABLISHED 1879

_AUG. 29, 1939

brought my ship to Virgo bay to ave myself and the sailor* a chance o witness the preparations for the light."