Happy Birthday to Lon Chaney JR

Hi to all,

Wishing a very Happy Birthday to Creighton Tull Chaney, born on this day in 1906. Ofcourse most of us know and love him under the professional name he eventually came to be known as - Lon Chaney Jr. As MANY of you know, we (that's myself, Anthony Magnoni, Jenny Rae Mettee, Bill Fleck and other sympathetic souls) are working on “The Chaneys: Hollywood's Horror Dynasty”, which looks not only at Creighton's life and career but also that of his even more legendary father Lon Chaney the elder.

Later today, POSSIBLY MuCH LATER (!!) we”ll BE postING clips of A SEQUENCE FOR this - ALL OF YOU WILL BE ABLE TO VIEW A CLIP BUT IGNITION GROUP MEMBERS WILL GET TO SEE THE WHOLE sCENE, So keep your eyes peeled, and check out our Voltage Films Site for more info on the project.

But for now let's remember Lon Jr in the part, that more than any other, WAS uniquely his own - no not Larry Talbot (aka THE WOLF MAN), but the part that launched him as an actor to be taken seriously his sublime, poignant turn as Lenny Small (here seen with Burgess Meredith as George) in the 1939 version of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men".
Whilst other versions have come closer to the original language in Steinbeck's text, this remains the most potent of them all - partly because of Lewis Milestone's direction, the evocative music of Aaron Copland and the performance of Mr Lon Chaney Jr. - which by all rights should have won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1940.

Many Happy Returns to you, sir.