One actor who helped pave the way for the change in outlook and acceptance of the horror genre was Lon (Alonso) Chaney, Sr., known as “the man of a thousand faces” because of his transformative, grotesque makeup and acting genius as a pantomime artist. He appeared in numerous silent horror films beginning in 1913 at Universal Studios. He was soon to become the first American horror-film star and Hollywood’s first great character actor. His first grotesque character role as a fake cripple (a contorted figure named the Frog), his breakthrough role, was in The Miracle Man (1919) (a film that only partially survives). Chaney’s films, collaborating with director Tod Browning on ten feature films over a decade, included these examples of lurid melodrama (and horror) and crime:
* Universal’s The Wicked Darling (1919) – Chaney’s first film partnering with Tod Browning, portraying a thief named Stoop Connors
* Universal’s Outside the Law (1920) – a crime drama with Chaney in a dual supporting role as Black Mike Sylva and Ah Wing
* MGM’s The Unholy Three (1925) – with Chaney as a criminal ventriloquist named Professor Echo; it was later remade by MGM in 1930 by director Jack Conway (again with Chaney) – it was Chaney’s first and only talkie before he died of throat cancer
* MGM’s The Blackbird (1926) – Chaney portrayed the dual roles of Dan ‘The Blackbird’ and The Bishop
* MGM’s The Road to Mandalay (1926) – Chaney took the role of Singapore Joe
* MGM’s London After Midnight (1927) – the first Hollywood vampire film (a lost film) in which Chaney starred as a sunken and dark-eyed vampirish character
* MGM’s The Unknown (1927) – Chaney portrayed Alonzo the Armless Knife-thrower, a circus performer, with an obsession for a carnival girl (Joan Crawford in an early role) in its tale of a love-triangle
* MGM’s West of Zanzibar (1928) – Chaney was cast as English magician named Phroso, now crippled and bald-headed and known as ‘Dead-Legs’ in “A Story of Love and Revenge in African Jungles!”
* MGM’s The Big City (1928), a lost film
* MGM’s Where East is East (1929) – the last collaboration between Browning and Chaney (a film that only partially survives); Chaney starred as Indochinese animal trapper “Tiger” Haynes