About Lon Chaney Jr.
Creighton Tull Chaney (February 10, 1906 – July 12, 1973), known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film The Wolf Man (1941) and its various crossovers, Count Alucard (Dracula spelled backward) in Son of Dracula, Frankenstein's monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), the Mummy in three pictures, and various other roles in many Universal horror films, including six films in their 1940s Inner Sanctum series, making him a horror icon. He also portrayed Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men (1939) and played supporting parts in dozens of mainstream movies, including High Noon (1952), The Defiant Ones (1958), and numerous Westerns, musicals, comedies and dramas. Originally referred to in films as Creighton Chaney, he was later credited as "Lon Chaney, Jr." in 1935. After Man Made Monster (1941), beginning as early as The Wolf Man later that same year, the studio insisted that he would almost always be billed under the name of his more famous father, the deceased cinema giant Lon Chaney. Chaney had English, French, and Irish ancestry. His career in movies and television spanned four decades, from 1931 to 1971. The film was Chaney Jr's first major role in a film and was a critical success for him. Chaney's first horror film, it was successful enough for them to offer him a long-term contract. In 1957, Chaney went to Ontario, Canada, to costar in the first ever American-Canadian television production, as Chingachgook in Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans, suggested by James Fenimore Cooper's stories.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.