Lon Chaney Jr.

Cheney was born prematurely, leading to a number of medical problems in later life. He often told the story that he was born "black and dead" and that his father took him out into the cold of an Oklahoma February, broke the ice on a lake, and plunged him into the freezing water so that the shock would start his breathing. Lon's son, Lon Ralph Cheney, later said that the story was fiction.

Chaney was the only actor to play the Big Four of horror: Count Dracula (in 1943's Son of Dracula), the Frankenstein Monster (in 1942's The Ghost of Frankenstein), the Wolf Man (in The Wolf Man, 1941), and the Mummy (in The Mummy's Curse, 1944). The character that he played in Son of Dracula was actually the titular role (Count Anthony Alucard) but that does nothing to diminish Chaney's achievement.

Chaney was preparing a return to the stage in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace at the time of his death.