Creighton Tull Chaney was the son and only child of Lon Chaney, and the blessing and the curse of his life was to follow in his fathers footsteps.

As a young man, he learned make up from his father, but stayed out of the spotlight of show business, supporting himself with ordinary jobs..

His first movie roles came after his father's death, at which time he became known by the professional name of Lon Chaney Jr, an idea first proposed by studio publicists.

Chaney performed his most honored role early in his career as Lenny in a film of the Steinbeck novel 'Of Mice and Men.'

Soon after, his casting as the cursed Laurence Talbot in Universal Pictures' The Wolf Man made him a horror film legend and paved the way for appearances in later films as Frankenstein's monster, as the Mummy and as Dracula.

Lon Chaney Jr also appeared in many movie and television westerns of the time . Sadly, an alcohol addiction led to the waning of his success as an actor in later years. He died in 1973 from the same disease that took his father.