Lon Chaney Jr.Monster of all Trades

[RCMerchant]

Creighton Tull Chaney (Feb 10,1906-July ,Friday the 13th,1973).
As Andrew pointed out,Lon Chaney Jr. was the only actor to play all of Universals big 4-Frankenstien,Dracula,the Mummy and,of course ,the WOLFMAN,-his baby alone.
A little Lon Jr. Trivia...
In 1939,he auditioned for the part of Quasimodo in RKO's version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
In the original theatrical release of the WOLFMAN, the Wolfman wrestles with a bear.Years later,when the film was sold to TV,the scene was deleted,and has been lost.
In an episode of Route 66 which also featured Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre, he reprised  his roles as the Wolfman,the Mummy,and in a nice touch,his father's Quasimodo.
Shortly before he died,he did a commercial about the dangers of ciggerettes and cancer.He was a heavy smoker.
Oh, my favorite is SPIDER BABY.Then Of Mice and Men(if you hav'nt seen it,do yourself a favor!),Man Made Monster and Frankenstien meets the Wolfman.

[Shadow]

Hard for me to choose since I haven't seen most of his work from the 40's in ages. I suppose I'd have to go with The Wolfman, then his turn as the drunk Manon, owner of the worst hook hand in cinema, in The Alligator People.

[Scott]

RCMerchant I went with THE WOLFMAN with honorable mention also going out to ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEETS FRANKENSTEIN and even THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE.

[Automan2000]

Didn't he also make a movie thats been lost forever?? Something about the orginal prints being destryed.

[Scott]

SPIDER BABY was considered lost for a while, but now you can get it on DVD. SPIDER BABY was an excellent surprise for me when I rented it from Netflix. Everyone here will enjoy it.

[Doc Daneeka]

Didn't he also make a movie thats been lost forever?? Something about the orginal prints being destryed.

No, that's Chaney Sr. The film featuring this handsome chap is London after Midnight.

Yeah, someone has made an imitation version (video-comic-book style! ) but sadly it is, just an imitation. Still, if they found the one where he played the Oriental man, there is always hope.

[Yaddo 42]

When SciFi used to still show Retro TV, a lot of those old B&W shows from the Wade Williams collection, one of the episodes was a condensed (maybe serialized?) version of Frankenstein with Jr. as the monster. He had a booze problem as well, and apparently thought the live broadcast was the dress rehearsal, he would rage around the set and pick up chairs and props but then set them back down gently. Good minimal makeup on him, different from the Universal (Jack Pierce?) best known style. It was shot almost like he was stalking the camera. Shame it didn't come off the way it was intended, instead of a a sad oddity documenting the man's troubles with the bottle.

American Masters did a show on Lon Chaney Sr. they mentioned that there are way more of his films that are considered lost (like so many films from the silent era) than ones we have copies of. They also pointed out that we mistakenly remember him as a horror and genre actor, when he used his makeup abilities for roles in straight dramas as well. Often making himself unrecognizable but not monstrous. They had stills from lost films of him in lots of costume dramas. they also pointed out that if he a performer active and working today like in his own time, ironically because of specialization and trade unions, he probably wouldn't be able to act and do his own makeups and character designs for studio films regardless of his talents.

[RCMerchant]

Lon SR. played an Oriental in a number of films,such as BITS of LIFE(1921),SHADOWS(1922) and MR.WU(1927).
An interesting bit of trivia:Lon chaney Sr. was famous for doing all his own fantastic makeup,and it seem like Lon Jr. had a knack as well.In the movie ONE MILLION BC, he devised his own makeup for the role of the scarred leader of the Rock People,Akhoba. But the studio's wouldn't allow it to be used,because of the union rules of the makeup department.I saw a picture in an old magazine...it's quite good!

[RCMerchant]

 The Frankenstien story was an episode of TALES from TOMMORROW,a tv program from 1952!

[Yaddo 42]

I thought it might have been but was afraid to take a guess. I remember they had an episode of a serialized version of one of the Captain Nemo stories (probably 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), but don't remember them showing any of the others. Maybe no kinoscopes were made or survive of them.

[RCMerchant]

Another TV series he was involved with(hosted,in fact) was in Sweden! It was 13 Demon St,in 1960.3 episodes were combined with new footage of Lon as Satan to form the movie the DEVIL'S MESSENGER. I believe the whole series is avalible from Something Weird Video.

[Doc Daneeka]

Shadows was the one I was thinking of, thanks for the jog RC