Hotel California Radio Show: Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, And Buster Crabbe

TERRI
I’d like to speak with you Mr. Chaney, regarding your amazing career. What do you think has been the secret to your success and the success of your son, Lon Chaney Jr.?

Lon Chaney

LON CHANEY
I started my career like so many before and after me with the blood, sweat, and tears of hard work, fortitude, and a blindingly bright talent beyond the capabilities of most of the mainstream Hollywood swine who flung off the roles that I dreamed of playing. I was bound to destiny you know, because no one understood why I would take the role of a cripple or a monster. I was not a romantic lead! And that drove them crazy, I think.

TERRI
Yes. It’s not too often, in your humble beginnings, for an actor to want to play almost any of the roles that you accepted. It’s interesting, too, that acting seems to be in your blood, as your own son Lon Chaney Jr. also played many similar roles to yours, and has certainly proven himself to be of Super Cult Stardom as you yourself have.

LON CHANEY
Well, I guess that you could say that by proxy he and I have had similar roles, but he is in no way an original person. I made the toolbox, I made the roles, and I made the stories!

TERRI
Yes, Mr. Chaney. Now I have heard some people describe your son as “the son of a genius,” and they say that therefore, he is himself a genius himself. How do you feel about this statement?

LON CHANEY
Of course! But he was my son! The son of a genius! We need not explain to you any more about my son! Every time-

TERRI
Oh come on Mr. Chaney—surely you did not come here this morning to talk about your son?!

LON CHANEY
No one did it like me! It was all me!! The genius of all geniuses! I had easily the most brilliant ideas film had ever seen! The makeup case fit for a God! Who is it!? Who decides to be great through the guise of standard tooth and ignorant skin?! Who is it who can wear a size five boot with ease as he acts as a leprous amputee! Who can wire open his own urinary canal and have a small Chihuahua jump out of it and through a flaming hoop in an elegant gown?!! Who is it who can prostitute his own daughter to spite a woman who spited him, then have her lover eaten by a tiger backstage at the circus, and still get the girl?! And who zips upside down on a high-wire over a crowded theatre, wheel attached to a beanie upon his cranium, while smoking a stogie, to save a strongman, and still win the woman of his dreams?!! No one but me!

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