Classic Horror Behind the Scenes: Ankers vs. Chaney
In spite of their incredible on-screen chemistry—especially in THE WOLF MAN (1941)—the two actors intensely disliked each other. But why?
By Bill Fleck, author of the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards-nominated book, Chaney’s Baby, available here.
“He didn’t like her,” Patsy Chaney—widow of actor Lon Chaney, Jr.—told film historian Gary Dorst late in life. “He called her Shankers—Evelyn Shankers.”
For her part, actress Evelyn Ankers wasn’t thrilled with Lon Chaney, Jr., either. She, in fact, was convinced that he was a bully.
They worked in six films together: North to the Klondike, The Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Son of Dracula, Weird Woman, and The Frozen Ghost. The most successful of these—artistically and financially—was, of course, The Wolf Man. Chaney as the doomed werewolf Larry Talbot and Ankers as his tragic love Gwen Conliffe crackle in their scenes together…so much so, that when Ankers as Gwen offers to run off with Talbot—leaving behind a fiancé, no less—we believe her. One hundred percent.
But behind the scenes was a different story.
Evelyn “Evie” Ankers had just turned 23 when she met 35-year-old Chaney on location in Big Bear, California, in September of 1941 to begin North to the Klondike. But she’d endured a world of pain in such a short time.
Born in Chile to English parents, Evie was the youngest of two—she had a brother ten years older. Allegedly, as a child, she saw her father—a mining engineer—get shot in the stomach by a disgruntled employee. Her father survived, only to abandon the family a short while later to pursue a new life with a new girlfriend.
With finances suddenly an issue, Evie’s mother pushed her into acting…a development Evie wasn’t thrilled by—her desire was to become a ballerina. But her preferences didn’t matter. There were mouths to feed.
“Evie became one of those child actresses whom the mother kept pushing and pushing and pushing,” Evie’s future husband Richard Denning would explain to Gregory William Mank in the late 1990s. “Evie never really liked the business.”
[Above. Evelyn “Evie” Ankers wanted to be a dancer. Her mother forced her into acting to support the family. Evie resented acting as a result.]
Like it or not, Evie acted in Columbia beginning at the age of ten. Her mother moved her to London, where she eventually racked up more than twelve screen credits. By the time she was eighteen, she’d signed with producer Alexander Korda. She was even up for the lead in Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
When Chips fell through, she hosted her own radio show out of Buenos Aires. By 1940, she was on Broadway in New York City, appearing in Ladies in Retirement. This led to a brief film contract with 20th Century Fox.
She eventually got engaged, to actor Glenn Ford—a development of which her mother definitely did not approve.
“Her mother didn’t want Evie to ever get married,” Denning said. “To put it bluntly, she thought this might be the end of her meal ticket.”
As a result, Evie increasingly resented the career she felt forced to pursue.
“Evie never really liked acting, period,” Denning insisted. “She didn’t like the work…it was a real strain on her. Evie was a wonderful, wonderful gal, but she had a very strong personality, and a very definite temperament—she could take just so much.”
Her limit would be reached thanks to her interactions with Lon Chaney, Jr.
By any stretch of the imagination, Evelyn Ankers had crawled through broken glass by the time she signed a seven-year contract with Universal in January of 1941.
But her life had been a cake-walk in comparison to Chaney’s.
[Above. Creighton Chaney was the only child of film star Lon Chaney. Creighton’s parents divorced, and the boy was told that his mother was dead. He only learned after his father’s death that he’d been lied to—his mother was very much alive. Creighton became an actor to defy his father—who, in life, had forbidden it—and attempted to top him.]
Born out-of-wedlock on February 10, 1906 in Oklahoma, the story of Creighton Tull Chaney’s life is one of rejection.
His parents were Leonidas Frank “Lon” Chaney and Frances Cleveland Creighton. Lon was an actor; Frances, better known as Cleva, was a singer. Though they married after Creighton’s birth, they were often miserable.
Lon Chaney was a man of his word—an honorable man. But he was tough. Shrewd. Suspicious. He had exacting standards and surrounded himself with like-minded people.
Cleva, on the other hand, was unsure of herself. Needy. Concerned that, deep down, she was no good. She was incredibly attractive—tall, with dark hair and blue eyes—and possessed of an angelic singing voice. But she never believed that her talents were genuine.
Ironically, at the beginning, Cleva was the bigger success. She sang in numerous clubs, and her growing notoriety made Lon jealous. Too, she was expected to drink with the male clientele after shows—which she did, to excess. Lon was no stranger to alcohol, but his wife’s tendency to drink herself into oblivion drove him nuts.
Lon withdrew. Cleva felt abandoned. When they did talk, it was too often in anger.
Young Creighton absorbed all of this. Conflict settled into his system at a bone-deep level.
Cleva drank more heavily. Began having affairs. And, one night—after a blow-out with Lon—she attempted suicide.
Lon rallied around her at first. But then, he found evidence of her affairs. He cut her off. Divorced her. Moved to Hollywood to try to make it in films, leaving his son with various relatives, friends, and/or institutions along the way. Creighton would be nine before he had a stable home.
So bitter was Lon with Cleva that he committed an unforgivable sin:
He told Creighton that his mother was dead.
In Creighton’s mind, Cleva had somehow rejected him by dying. He became distrustful of women. He longed for the approval of his father—for the approval of a strong man.
Lon eventually remarried. Hazel Hastings Chaney became Creighton’s new—and only—mother. She was good to him at first. Lon eventually became a huge star in films. Suddenly, the heretofore struggling Chaneys were materially wealthy—though neither Lon nor Hazel were extravagant.
The trappings of wealth agreed with Chaney. The cabins. The cars. The fishing trips. The private parties attended by studio technicians—not other stars—where alcohol flowed. But Lon never trusted that it would last, and his son would inherit this skepticism.
On a lark, Creighton approached Lon about acting himself. Lon strictly forbade it. He told Creighton it was a tough business; Creighton should become someone respectable, like, maybe, a banker. But Creighton sensed that something else was up. Something his father feared.
He was right.
Lon Chaney had attempted to cut Cleva Creighton completely out of his life. But every day, he was reminded of her existence. He saw her in their son.
He was tall with dark hair and sad hazel eyes. He had a great singing voice. He had Cleva’s soft chin.
But he was soft inside as well. Self-conscious. Vulnerable. Later in life—like his mother—he would have affairs, drink too much, and attempt suicide.
Lon Chaney feared that show business would crush his son.
[Above. Lon Chaney was a huge star and an honorable man, but tough. He saw traits of his ex-wife in their son…traits that worried him. He tried to tough-love these qualities out of the boy, but the sensitive Creighton felt alienated and abandoned as a result.]
So, Lon tried to use tough love on Creighton. Tried to purge Cleva’s qualities out of him. Make a man of him.
To Creighton, however, Lon’s tactics came across as rejection. Why didn’t his father love him?
Creighton married at age 20. Had two sons. Got a good job with his father-in-law’s company. He seemed happy.
But the Great Depression hit. And his father—aged 47—suddenly died.
Creighton learned two horrible things after his father’s death.
One—he had been pretty much cut out of his father’s will.
Two—his father had lied to him about Cleva’s death. She was very much alive, but had given up seeking him out.
Lon’s lie tainted every memory Creighton had about him. What could he believe? And as for his mother? Was he so horrible that she didn’t want to see him?
He sought Cleva out. They struggled at first. Eventually, they made peace. He took care of her when she allowed it. But he never mentioned her in public.
As for his father?
Creighton was capable of frightening rage, especially when something threatened his fragile ego. Anger masked his pain. As such, he fought Hazel on Lon’s will—even as she was dying of cancer herself. And he also decided to stick it to his father in another way…
He decided to become an actor. To top his father.
He tried to make it under his own name. Tried for two years. He made a lot of westerns, but not a lot of money. He got nowhere near to stardom.
Rejection.
He bowed to conventional wisdom and changed his name to Lon Chaney, Jr. He hated the idea, but did it anyway. His career remained stagnant.
Rejection.
He began having affairs with women at the studio. His drinking got worse. His marriage crumbled. He remarried—Patsy Beck, a girl he’d known from school—but his career went nowhere.
Lightning struck in 1939, when he starred as Lennie Small in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. His truly original, sensitive performance in both the play and the film put him on the map. But the film didn’t make money, so follow-up plans to star him in Steinbeck’s Cup of Gold were scrapped.
Success…and then rejection.
Universal, however, saw an opportunity…
With Boris Karloff out on Broadway in Arsenic and Old Lace, why not see if Chaney might work as the star in a new line of horror flicks?
[Above. Creighton—now known as Lon Chaney, Jr.—broke through in OF MICE AND MEN in 1939 (opposite Burgess Meredith). Universal tested his horror potential in 1941 with MAN MADE MONSTER. The film was a modest hit, and the studio signed him to a contract.]
Man Made Monster was shot on the quick and the cheap in December of 1940. But box office returns were good, and Chaney’s authentic charm encouraged studio execs. Chaney plays Dan McCormick, a big, good-natured lug who likes to eat, tell a story, and play with animals—all aspects of Chaney’s character, putting the role right in his wheelhouse. The Wolf Man was set to shoot next. But script changes postponed the production until October, so Chaney was assigned North to the Klondike opposite Broderick Crawford, Andy Devine…and Evelyn Ankers.
In Crawford and Devine, Chaney found fast friends. Both were big, hard-drinking guys who—like Chaney—rough-housed for fun.
“They used to get together and do a lot of drinking,” producer Paul Malvern remembered years later. “When we went on location to Big Bear, the three of them didn’t have to worry about keeping warm. If they weren’t beating the hell out of each other, they drank enough to generate enough heat to keep us all warm.”
To make things more interesting, Crawford had also portrayed Lennie Small, originating the part on Broadway. But he admired Chaney’s take.
“He made it completely different from mine,” Crawford noted, “and it was a damn fine role.”
The two former Lennies shared a beautiful dressing room on the Universal lot…which they allegedly trashed on the regular by drinking and beating each other up.
This is the Chaney Evie Ankers first encounters in the fall of 1941—vulnerable, desperately seeking approval, wanting to be “one of the boys,” nursing a drinking problem, and cautiously optimistic about what his new Universal contract might bring.
“He seemed to have a need to be liked by people,” she observed. And she was certainly right.
The way he went about it with her, however, didn’t work.
It all began with a laugh.
As Paul Malvern noted, Chaney, Crawford, and Devine were a handful on set. Ankers was no prude, but rowdy behavior tested her patience—she’d already survived the annoying practical jokes of Abbott and Costello, stopped a randy Dead End Kid cold with a sharp knee to the groin, and wasn’t above chewing out studio execs with some choice words. So, the frat-house—sometimes drunken—atmosphere created by this version of The Unholy Three was sure to bug her.
What put her over was a punch.
Sure, Brod Crawford probably meant no harm when he said something in greeting like, “Hiya, kid,” and slugged her on the arm.
But Crawford didn’t know his own strength. Evie—as tough as she was—got hurt. She cried.
And Lon, Jr. laughed at her.
Evie couldn’t have known how important the approval of someone like Crawford was to Chaney—a strong, seemingly secure, genuine tough guy. Like his father.
Evie couldn’t have known how important it was to Chaney that he could hold his own in physical combat with a powerhouse like Crawford. His dad didn’t think he was tough enough, eh? Could Pop have taken a kick from Brod Crawford?
At the same time, Chaney couldn’t have known how tough it was for an actress in Hollywood. The misogyny. The constant pressure for sex. The obsession over looks and weight.
Chaney also couldn’t have known how much Evie hated having to act. How much her mother pressured her. How being on a film set was unpleasant for her under the best of circumstances, and how his behavior piled on.
Strangely, both Ankers and Chaney were victims of dominating parents, and had gotten into acting as a result. Perhaps this explains their on-screen chemistry. Had they recognized what they had in common when the cameras stopped, they might have become allies. But they never did.
Instead, the punch and the laugh convinced Evie that Crawford and Chaney were bullies.
Evie’s behavior thereafter convinced Chaney that she was stuck up.
It went badly from there.
[Above. The bad blood between Ankers and Chaney began on their first film, NORTH TO THE KLONDIKE (made in 1941, but not released until 1942.). Co-star—and Chaney pal—Brod Crawford “hello-punched” Evie, causing tears. Chaney’s reaction—he laughed—convinced Evie that he and Crawford were bullies. Chaney thought Evie was stuck up.]
By the time cameras rolled on The Wolf Man, Chaney and Crawford had been kicked out of their deluxe dressing room. Universal gave it to Evie and Anne Gwynne—saying it was a reward for their good work, never explaining it had been Chaney’s.
When Chaney accused her of swiping his dressing room on the first day of shooting, insisting it was “a hell of a thing to do,” she was so clueless—and shocked—that she agreed with him.
Chaney couldn’t have known she didn’t know. So, he tried to cut her down to size.
He continually jumped out at her and grabbed her when in full Wolf-Man harness, causing her to jump and scream.
He told stories within her earshot that Brod Crawford told an interviewer he “couldn’t repeat.”
[Above. Their definite on-screen chemistry in THE WOLF MAN did not exist backstage. Ankers was generally nice, but did have a temper, and Chaney—who also had a sweet side—had a tendency toward sophomoric humor that offended her. He was also a drinker, which he didn’t hide on the set. “When he wasn’t drinking, he was the sweetest,” Evie noted.]
Later, on The Ghost of Frankenstein, Chaney complained that Evie was too heavy and demanded a special harness to carry her—a device that was unkindly dubbed, “The Evelyn Ankers Strap.” What does it say when a man of Chaney’s size and strength complains that an actress is too heavy? He had to know the implications. Had to know it would hurt her.
Still, Evie found that Lon could be sweet…when not drinking. Sweetness was as much a part of his personality as was anger. But, of course, he drank. He had to self-medicate to cope. Everyone knew it was his beloved blended whiskey in that flask he carried around, not “iced tea” as he claimed.
All of this got Evie “to the end of her tether,” as her husband explained, “which was not unusual for Evie.”
[Above. Chaney complained about carrying Ankers around in THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942), claiming the actress was too heavy. Since Chaney was big and strong in real life, this was a hurtful remark. The studio didn’t help by creating an “Evelyn Ankers strap” to help take some of her weight off of Chaney’s arms.]
The nadir occurred in 1944. Boris Karloff came back from Broadway, and Universal threw a press junket to show off their gallery of horror stars. Karloff. Bela Lugosi. Chaney. George Zucco.
Some genius seated Evie with the Chaneys.
By now, Evie had broken off with Glenn Ford and married actor Richard Denning. Denning had recently joined the Navy. Following Pearl Harbor, Chaney had attempted to enlist in the Marines. But a medical exam revealed a heart problem he hadn’t known about, and he was classified as 4-F. Much to his regret.
As the press gathered around, Chaney drank. Maybe he was angry that Universal was throwing a party featuring Karloff. Maybe he was angry at Lugosi being there—he was never a big fan of Bela. Or maybe he was angry that he was seated next to “Shankers,” and that her husband got to serve in the military while he couldn’t.
Whatever the reason, he decided to take it out on Denning.
“Of course, you’re wearing the uniform, which looks beautiful,” Chaney slurred, “but you’re not at sea, you’re not doing anything to win the war.”
In reply, Denning explained that he went where his superior officers sent him.
“And I figure that’s better than just not being in the service, and making a good living as an actor,” he added.
Denning couldn’t have known that he’d touched a nerve, had pointed out yet another Chaney rejection. But Chaney’s anger accelerated.
“That’s not a very nice attitude to have,” Chaney replied. “I can’t make the service.”
Denning probably knew how patriotic Chaney was, how many War Bonds he’d sold, how much he desired to serve his country. But he also knew how Chaney had treated his wife. Perhaps his anger over that influenced his reply:
“Well, that’s your problem, not mine.”
“Drop dead,” Chaney retorted, throwing his ice cream on Denning’s dress blues.
In return, Denning smooshed his bowl of ice cream right in Chaney’s face.
“He looked as if he were back in makeup for one of his monster characters,” Evie cracked later.
Both men—big men—stood up. Chaney was about to toss his hot coffee in Denning’s face.
But Evie screamed.
Somehow, the would-be combatants were shocked into inaction. They calmed down, and there was no fight. Denning never saw Chaney again.
[Above. Evie was long married to actor Richard Denning. But an unkind remark at a 1944 studio party from a drunken Chaney almost caused the two men to come to blows. Evie basically retired a few years later; Chaney continued to work until his death. Ironically, both Evie and Lon died at the age of 67. They had a great deal in common, but—sadly—never understood each other.]
And Evie? She worked on two more films with Chaney without incident. She soon gave birth to a daughter, retired from her dreaded acting career, and lived a happy life with her family in Hawaii. She died there of cancer, too young at 67. But she’d at least achieved peace.
Creighton Tull Chaney, by then calling himself Lon Creighton Chaney, created two immortal characters—Lennie Small and The Wolf Man—and, in his prime, earned the equivalent of $2.5 million per year, as of this writing. By any measure, he was very successful.
But he never topped his father, and that ate at him in the years he had left. He even attempted suicide in 1948…and almost succeeded. Later, he feared becoming a “has-been.”
Still, like Evie, he enjoyed his family in his later years. And, like Evie, he died too young at 67.
Unlike Evie, he never achieved a permanent peace.
Still, separately, but especially together, Evelyn Ankers and Lon Chaney, Jr. have achieved an immortality that is rare among film stars. That people are still interested in their work—and in their contentious relationship offscreen—is a testament to the magic they created, particularly in The Wolf Man.
It’s a shame that their unhappy early lives prevented them from being able to understand each other better.
[Above. Evie Ankers and Lon Chaney, Jr. remain immortal thanks to THE WOLF MAN (1941).]
Sources
Fleck, Bill. Chaney’s Baby. Wurtsboro, NY: Just Pay the Ransom Music, 2021. Print.
Gourley, Jack and Gary Dorst. “A Man, A Myth, and Many Monsters.” Filmfax, May 1990. Print.
Mank, Gregory William. Women In Horror Films, 1940s. MacFarland and Company, 1999. Print.
“North To the Kondike (1942).” AFI Catalog of Feature Films. www.catalog.afi.com. Web.
Smith, Don G. Lon Chaney, Jr.: Horror Film Star. Jefferson NC: MacFarland and Company, 1996. Print.
The pictures herein are meant for educational purposes only; I do not own the copyrights.
Imagine being at that press junket in 1944. And Imagine how the near throw down between Denning and Chaney would have been sensationalized if Entertainment Tonight or TMZ had existed. What must Karloff and Lugosi have thought? I don't know if Lugosi was ever asked about his relationship with Chaney, but when Karloff was, I've heard he sort of deflected and spoke positively about Chaney SR, who had once given a struggling Karloff some kind and shrewd career advice.