The son of actors Lon Chaney and Cleva Creighton, the man destined to star in classic horror movies was born Creighton Tull Chaney. Old man Chaney raised his son in an atmosphere of Spartan strictness and absolutely forbade young Creighton to enter show business, wanting his son to prepare for a more "practical" profession. This may have deprived the movies of the world’s greatest Wolfman but it gave Chreighton the chance to join the world’s greatest profession. He trained to be plumber. It was only after Chaney Sr. died in 1930 that Creighton entered movies with an RKO contract, but nothing much happened until Creighton was (by his own recollection) "starved" into changing his name to Lon Chaney Jnr. The roles quickly followed including Man Made Monster, the Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein, the Son of Dracula and The Mummy. These horror films apart, his greatest roles were in High Noon, Of Mice and Men and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Lon Chaney Snr. was known as The Man with a Thousand Faces but his son achieved greater fame. Lon Jnr. always put his success down to the time he spent as a plumber.