SILENT STAR GETS HIS DUE

For Colorado Springs, silent screen star Lon Chaney was a hometown legend, one of the biggest to ever come out of the Pikes Peak region.

But the only visible nod to “the man of a thousand faces” is a small theater in the City Auditorium that bears his name.

In 2006, the City Council proclaimed April “Lon Chaney Month,” but few people knew about it. But this year, the month will close with a festival honoring Chaney.

Hollywood’s first “Phantom of the Opera,” the man memorable as the hideous, frightening, yet pitiable “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” was born April 1, 1883, in Colorado Springs.

His great-grandson, Ron Chaney, plans to be in great-granddad’s hometown to participate in the weekend event. Ron Chaney will share fascinating things about his famous family from his research for a book he’s writing and as president of Chaney Entertainment, Inc.

In the 1880s, Emma Chaney, who was deaf, taught at the school founded by her parents, the Institute for the Education of Mutes, which is now the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind. Her husband, Frank, also deaf, was for 25 years “The Millionaires’ Barber” at Phil Strubel’s Barber Shop and Baths, listed in the 1900 city directory at 12 S. Tejon St.

Emma and Frank’s son, Lon (full name Leonidas), developed his own language, a combination of pantomime, sign language and facial expressions, to creatively communicate with his parents. When his mother became bedridden with rheumatism, he quit school at about the age of 10 to become her caregiver and to help with the three younger kids.

He also became his mom’s entertainer. Little Lon spent time walking around downtown, watching people and visiting the barber shop where his dad (fondly called “Dummy Chaney”) worked, gathering material he’d turn into skits for the family, frequently poking a bit of fun at the townspeople and the city.

As a teen, Chaney used his storytelling skills while guiding tourists on burro trips up Pikes Peak. He was a prop boy and stagehand at the Colorado Springs Opera House on Tejon Street and hung wallpaper and laid carpet at the Antlers Hotel to help support the family.

Starting in 1905, he went on the road with vaudeville and touring companies, marrying his first wife, a pretty singer named Cleva Creighton, who was the mother of his son, Creighton. Creighton later took the name Lon Chaney Jr., followed his father and gained cinematic fame as the Wolf Man.

In 1913, Lon went to Hollywood, where he met his second wife, Hazel, a chorus dancer. Between 1913 and 1930, Lon Chaney had more than 150 roles in silent movies. He played villains, “cripples,” pathetic creatures and clowns, using his pantomime creativity and skills with makeup so effectively that he became known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces.”

Ron Chaney said in his great-grandfather’s biography that he often suffered for his roles to make them more realistic. In “The Penalty,” his legs were bound behind him in a harness to make stumps, damaging the circulation in his legs and bursting blood vessels.

As Quasimodo, he was harnessed and wore a heavy hump to twist his body painfully so he could feel the hunchback’s tortured existence.

“My great-grandfather’s last role in 1930 was his one and only talking film, a remake of 1925 ‘The Unholy Three,’” writes Chaney on lonchaney.com. “He played Echo a crook ventriloquist and used five different voices in the movie, thus proving he could make the transition from silent films to the talkies, but less than two months after the film’s release on Aug. 26, 1930, he died from a throat hemorrhage.”

Lon Chaney and his father, Frank, are buried in California, but his mother, Emma, wanted her final resting place to be in Colorado Springs. She’s buried at Evergreen Cemetery.

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THE LON CHANEY FILM FESTIVAL

Four Lon Chaney silent films will be shown during the two-day festival at the City Auditorium, 221 E. Kiowa St.: “The Unknown” (1927) and “Oliver Twist” (1922), 3-7 p.m. Saturday; “Laugh, Clown, Laugh” (1928) and “The Penalty” (1920), 3:30-7 p.m. Sunday.

The on-screen action and those wordless tearful moments will be accompanied by Tom O’Boyle and Bob Lillie on the 1927 Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ from the now-demolished Chief (Burns) Theater downtown. They will use a combination of original music and music from the 1920s. In addition, O’Boyle will play “Laugh Clown Laugh,” from the film’s score.

The Saturday program includes time to tour the 1923 building and view a special Lon Chaney Memorial Showcase.

The fundraiser benefits the Friends of the Historic Colorado Springs City Auditorium, Inc., and the Pikes Peak Area Theatre Organ Society.

Admission, which covers both days, is $8; $5 for seniors and children younger than 12.

Ron Chaney, who is writing a book about his great-grandfather and grandfather, Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney Jr., plans to talk about his famous relatives at the festival.

For more information: historiconline.org.