Author: Bill Fleck
Genre: Biography/Entertainment
Paperback; Digital Book (Audiobook Available)
ISBN #: 9798450666204
Independently Published
226 Pages
$6.99; $2.99 Amazon
September 23, 2021
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On April 22, 1948,noted horror film star Lon Chaney, Jr. (THE WOLF MAN) tries to commit suicide. While his life hangs in the balance, his wife, attorney, and agent attempt damage control. But the question remains: why would one of the more successful actors in Hollywood history -- aged only 42 -- try to take his own life? Author and lifelong Chaney fan Bill Fleck believes he has the answer. CHANEY'S BABY tells this heartbreaking story.
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As a lifelong classic movie fan (thanks to my Dad), I own thousands of them. I don't even watch new movies. They're just not as good. But every Halloween season, I watch my beloved horror films, and how can you have that without Lon Chaney, Jr.? In Chaney's Baby: Lon, Jr., The Wolf Man, 1948, and the End of a Dream, author Fleck gives us the background story of how Lon became one of Hollywood's finest horror stars, even though he didn't really want to be.
It's the story of Lon Chaney, Jr's signature Wolf Man, his baby if you will, and how he made the part his own. I have seen all the Universal horror films countless times and own them all, and it is only the Wolf Man's story that is sad.. What people might not know -- beginning with Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931, and ending with House of Dracula in 1945, there is a story there. I would urge you to watch them all in order. In the beginning, The Wolf Man does not want his fate and only wants to die, making him a sympathetic creature as he tries over and over, but somehow survives; and his constant attempts to find either help or death is nonetheless sad, but I will not tell you the end of the tale. Watch the films. It's worth it.
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Having said that, I must also add that this is a very sad book. Born Creighton Tull Chaney, Lon had a rather sad childhood, never having a stable one until he was nine. He never really felt that his father, famous silent actor Lon Chaney, loved him, and he struggled with this throughout his life. When he became an actor he tried using his own name, but it wasn't until he changed it to "Lon, Jr." that he received acclaim. It was his role as Lenny in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men that those in Hollywood began to sit up and take notice. Here was a tall, striking, dark-haired man who could act, and it was Universal who decided to put him to good use.
Chaney was happy at first, and enjoyed it. But his personal life wasn't as happy; he had a failed marriage and two sons; however, his second marriage was happy, so he was at least given something in that. But pain and insecurity followed him, and it shows in Mr. Fleck's writing. I was actually depressed for Mr. Chaney throughout a lot of the book, but I knew some of his background so kept reading.
In the end we have book that tells the story of how Chaney came to be the Wolf Man, and his life in film afterward. The book ends in 1948, but does tell us the rest of Mr. Chaney's life in brief. The author has done a lot of research, and while the book is short, I would still recommend it to others who love reading about the actors in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Recommended.
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