Lon Chaney

Leonidas Frank Chaney was born April 1, 1883, and spent the silent era proving that transformation was an art form. He developed makeup techniques no one had seen, earning the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Faces" by becoming characters so tortured and grotesque that audiences forgot the actor underneath. The starring turns that defined him came in 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and 1925's The Phantom of the Opera — roles that demanded he disappear into affliction and disfigurement. His power wasn't just in the prosthetics but in the humanity he found inside them. Chaney died August 26, 1…