Lon Chaney Junior

I guess it's easy to look amazing when you're in your 20s.  As a kid I remember Lon Chaney Junior as either a pudgy 40s B movie star aside Lionel Atwill in Man-Made Monster (second-billed!) or a scraggy bloated Igor in 60s schlock drive-in horrors.  Not to mention his many turns as The Wolfman, with that amazing silver cane.

When I stumbled upon this photo I was literally taken aback.  The dude is gorgeous.  It is signed Creighton Chaney, fully Creighton Tull Chaney.  The Man of a Thousand Faces did not want his son to go into the picture business, but after he died Creighton wet his feet, and the studios thought it best as a selling angle to adopt a stage name - leaning on the reputation of his silent star father.  So Lon Chaney Junior it was, and stayed.

I am only guessing at the age of the photo.  Creighton was born in 1906.  Of itself the picture is in the style of the 20s where, if you notice, the plane of the eyes is sharply in focus but any feature beyond that falls into a blur.  The depth of field is very small, just a sliver really.  This is achieved using a much more open lens and slower film ISO.  This technique lends an intense aspect to the eyes, as is clearly evident - and what arrested me when I first came across this picture of Creighton.