Chaney
The last two stamps on the third row of this album page show the movie characters, Wolf Man and the Phantom of the Opera. The first was played by Lon Chaney, Jr. and the second by his father.
Lon Chaney
Lon Chaney was born Leonidas Frank Chaney on April 1, 1883, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Both of his parents were deaf, so he learned American Sign Language as a child. He started out in vaudeville and theater, then worked mostly in bit and character parts at Universal, and his breakthrough came with The Miracle Man in 1919. At the time, studios had no makeup departments and actors typically applied their own, so Chaney developed his own techniques and used body contortion as well. As a result, he became known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces.” His best known roles are Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and Erik in The Phantom of the Opera (1925). He worked under contract to MGM from 1925 to 1930, and his only sound film, The Unholy Three, came out in 1930. He died on August 26, 1930, at the age of 47, from a throat hemorrhage after being treated for lung cancer.
Lon Chaney Jr.
Lon Chaney Jr. was born Creighton Tull Chaney on February 10, 1906, in Oklahoma City. His early work in film was mostly small roles, serials and stunt work in low-budget pictures, and he was often uncredited. He was credited as Creighton Chaney until 1935, then as Lon Chaney Jr. His career picked up with Lennie in Of Mice and Men (1939), and he became best known as Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941). He went on to play Frankenstein’s monster, Kharis the Mummy and Dracula, which made him a fixture of the Universal horror films. He died on July 12, 1973, at the age of 67, after years of heavy drinking and smoking and a long list of health problems (e.g., throat cancer, heart disease and liver problems).
Father & Son
Chaney’s marriage to Creighton’s mother ended in divorce in 1913, and the boy was raised in various homes and boarding schools. His father discouraged him from acting, so he worked in business and sales until his father died in 1930. Only then did he turn to films. However, the name that his father made famous followed him the whole way. From 1941, Universal dropped the “Jr.” and billed him simply as Lon Chaney, apparently to build on the confusion with the elder star. Basically, the son had to wait until his father was gone to start his career, and then the studio used his father’s name to sell it.
Note
The stamps for the top two rows are the same as those in the block of four at the bottom. The difference is that the top ones were sold on sheets with only one design each, not in blocks of four designs. The way to tell them apart is that the top ones have a perforation of 11 and the bottom ones 11¼.
Contains 13 spots: own 13 – 13 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Stamp Details
The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.
spot |
own |
catalog |
subject |
description |
comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
✓ |
3147 |
32¢ (08 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3148 |
32¢ (08 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3149 |
32¢ (08 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3150 |
32¢ (08 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3169 |
32¢ (09 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3170 |
32¢ (09 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3171 |
32¢ (09 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3172 |
32¢ (09 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3168 |
32¢ (09 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3143 |
32¢ (07 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3144 |
32¢ (07 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3145 |
32¢ (07 1997) |
|||
✓ |
3146 |
32¢ (07 1997) |
Footnotes
Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.
