KTRAORDINARY FIGURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 258, 21 January 1928, Page 23

KTRAORDINARY FIGURE

lON GHANEY’S CAREER

ME SHUNS PUBLICITY

Chaney is the most extruordinfigure in the most extraordinary in the world. As a star he folowa non© of the rules. Ho .shuns publicity. Fie does not gnawer fan mail. He is not young or awidsome. Ho started as a star in 1919. and *• ■washing all precedent by being

more popular toJ*y than he was nvo years ago. the gen®r3“ Hollywood he is an inaividuai as a cliff JSJjw* the sky, as «*toctive as black wonder over a west field. Toe man who ,OH »y is regarded the greatest character*ctor in the world

k° r u in Colorado Springs. Colo;*S\ A Pril 1, ISB3. the son of deaf «v? Umb P 4Lrent s. from his present prominence Lon 2?*® to say, “There is no Lon Chaney, ‘nere is only the character I am creatmg. He ia sincere in that remark, but he inaccurate. There is no character Lon is creatThert- Is only Lon himself, tua out his experience he transcends r °le he plays with emotion and From birth, by birth, he was ' r c«a to be a character if he was to anything at all. Most people talk happily about their JJUdhood. Lon does not. He hates 4,** about himself in any way. A ”* e . n times as he ami the interviewer in his dressing-room while w j 1 0! Californian sun slanted in the v, and the subdued noise of the Metro lot when he >vas playing went on, Lon answered questions about his boyhood years, ”° n 1 remember * 1 don’t recr>- sounded like an echo of ij- , c Yet Lon protested. of sympathy. He refuses When it was insinuated that horL^ tLSon he has forgotten his chiUlh%!L? as because it had been unhappy •t k the idea impatiently. *° w °rk hard, but I had time Sy* to play football,” he demurred. bl» m obtained his greatest gift from nedv ate^? a * grandmother, Emma KenFrom her he inherited tlie mina that defeats failure.