Ron Chaney

Ron Chaney

Ronald Curt Chaney (born November 16, 1955; aka Ron Chaney Jr.) is the great-grandson of film actor and make-up pioneer Lon Chaney, and the grandson of the actor Lon Chaney, Jr.; his father Ronald Creighton Chaney (1930–1987) was a rancher and farmer. He was born in California of French, English, and Irish ancestry.

Aged 17, when he was a junior in high school, his grandfather died. Early in college he took some acting classes. Acting was always something he wanted to do, but due to his involvement in both his personal and professional life, his acting career didn't go very far. He played the Wolf Man in a short film which was dedicated to his famous grandfather; he also played the character of Captain Wallace in the film Mach 2 (2001). He starred as Bela Reinhardt in Eben McGarr's 2009 film House of the Wolf Man, an affectionate tribute to the 1940s Universal horror films starring his grandfather, particularly Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

He has contributed to A Century of Chaneys, a book begun by his grandfather, Lon Chaney, Jr., in 1969. Ron took on the project and researched, interviewed, collected and archived the Chaney family history. The book covers the collective careers of Lon Chaney, Sr., Cleva Creighton Chaney, and his grandfather, Lon Chaney, Jr.. Ron Chaney hopes to someday make a film about the lives of his grandfather and great-grandfather.

An entrepreneur who runs Chaney Entertainment, he lives in Palm Springs, California and often attends film conventions and discusses his grandfather's and great-grandfather's lives and film careers.