Lon Chaney Jr., born in Oklahoma City in 1906 as Creighton Chaney and son of the silent-era master Lon Chaney, was one of the definitive faces of Universal horror. He gave a tender lead performance as Lennie in Lewis Milestone’s Of Mice and Men (1939) that many still consider his finest work. But he became a household name as Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941), reprising the role across several forties monster crossovers, and also stepped in as Dracula, the Mummy and Frankenstein’s Monster during his years at Universal. His later career included the memorable town-drunk deputy in Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952) before he died in 1973, a working actor to the end. Read more