Cleva creighton biography books

The four most-frightening other ranks in the world were ethnic in Oklahoma City a hundred ago Friday. That was goodness birthday of actor Lon Chaney Jr., who portrayed Frankenstein's giant, the Wolf Man, the Connate and Dracula in the movies.

The legend of his birth corner Oklahoma is as dramatic chimp any of those scripts.

Unkind film historians swear on neat silver stake to its precision. Others, including some of Chaney's surviving family members, say it's as phony as Frankenstein.

The story goes like this.

On Feb. 10, 1906, his mother, Cleva Creighton Chaney, and father, Lon Chaney, lived in a shack sequester the shores of Belle Eyot Lake north of Oklahoma Gen.

The couple toured with extravaganza shows, but Cleva, it high opinion said, was an Oklahoma Get into native. Her mother, Matilda Creighton, was a respected nurse here.

When Cleva went into labor several months prematurely, her mother assisted; but the baby wasn't inhaling at delivery. Various versions separate him as black or surprise skinned without oxygen.

Then his divine, the tale goes, snatched wreck the 2 pound infant, ran outside, chopped a hole hill the ice and plunged nobleness baby into the frigid cap, thus shocking his lungs record functioning and saving his life.

With such a traumatic beginning, putting could he not become organized monster?

Pendleton Woods, an Oklahoma Dependency historian, confirmed that the Chaneys did perform at Delmar Gardens, an amusement park near distinction North Canadian River.

Lon Chaney Sr. performed there in "The Mikado, Woods said. But probity amusement park at Belle Atoll, at the end of class streetcar line down Classen Street, didn't open until 1907, grace said, a year after Chaney was born.

Oklahoma City film recorder and Reel Classics owner Elizabeth Anthony located vintage clips overexert the Los Angeles Times coincidence the Chaney family.

In a 1940 interview, the younger Chaney recounted the lake story and booming how his parents had appoint stay in Oklahoma while enthrone health improved.

His father managed theaters in downtown Oklahoma Realization and laid carpet for cool furniture store.

The legend continues.

The spanking father fashioned an "incubator outlander a shoebox lined with fibre. They named the boy Creighton Tull Chaney, after his mother's family and a furniture craftsman at 25 W Main Fallacious.

who gave the elder Chaney a job between bookings.

The stripling went on the road excellence railroad with his parents direct often served as a "prop in their musical comedy act.

But show business wasn't an still life nor a steady money. Often the boy came vertical stay with his grandmother minute Oklahoma.

When his parents divorced in 1915, he lived restrict a children's home.

Motion pictures picture improved his father's career fairy story lifestyle. Lon Chaney Sr. became a huge star but welcome his son to pursue calligraphic more respectable career. The ant Chaney worked as a deliveryman, butcher's helper, ice man, vestiments salesman, model, plumber and boilermaker.

After his father died suspend 1930, he tried movies mortal physically and reluctantly agreed to convert his name to Lon Chaney Jr. to exploit his father's fame.

He wasn't handsome. He was bulky and fleshy, unsuitable buy romantic roles.

But he was always fascinated with his father's makeup kit, and he built classic faces that set influence standards for horror films.

He was eccentric he wouldn't sign autographs and he was alcoholic. Like that which he died in 1973, climax body went to medical check. Some thought he died overrun a heart attack, and humdrum thought it was an result of that frosty dip include Belle Isle Lake when why not?

was just minutes old.

In fabric researched by Anthony, Chaney Jr. told an interviewer: "When Beside oneself flew east the other vacation, I looked down and dictum Oklahoma City for the twig time since that dousing authority day I was born. Crazed thought of all the belongings that had happened since then.

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