Sam says on 29/Dec/11
Rob, would you consider adding this guy's father? He is often listed as 5'9" but could look closer to 5'8" and was supposedly rather shorter than his son?
[Editor Rob: don't really know much about his height]
guyfrommars says on 14/Oct/11
Chaney towered over Claude Rains in The Wolf Man, as Rains was only 5'6". But he looked average height next to the other male actors, who were probably in the six-footer range. And 6'1" Bela Lugosi looked nearly as tall as him. I'd say Chaney was 6'1.5" and was considered much taller because of his big bulky frame and because of playing characters like Lennie in Of Mice and Men and Frankenstein's monster. (Legend says he wore big lifts both times.) Sam says on 19/Jul/11
By the 1950s, he looked a bit shorter but not by much. He looked maybe 6'1.25"-6'1.5" next to Gary Cooper in High Noon and about the same next to Sidney Poitier (marginally taller) and Claude Akins (marginally shorter). M2 says on 1/Jun/11
Russ Jones, the writer of a really awful 1960s epic called "Dr. Terror's Gallery of Horrors," which starred Chaney, said in an interview that he was about 6'2, but also said that he had an uncanny ability to "downsize" his height naturally when playing opposite a shorter actor. |
