Lon Chaney Sr: pioneering practical effects

 

                      

While recognized for the characters he played, not everyone may realize that the face behind the makeup and effects was the same man putting it on. Lon Chaney Sr. is one of the early pioneers in practical effects makeup. With little guidelines on how to create effects at the time, Chaney experimented; creating harnesses and straps to create the illusion of amputated limbs. He used wires to pull his eyelids open and his nose up in order to create more skull- like features in films such as London After Midnight and The Phantom of the Opera. In The Road to Mandalay (1928), to create the appearance of being blind in one eye, Chaney used thin layer of egg whites like a contact lens. Lon Chaney took risks, combining theatrical makeup with practical effects in order to pave the way in effects as we know them.