Lon Chaney Jr. adopted the dog he worked with on the set of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
The Wolf Man and his furry friend!
Though he played a tortured antihero, you couldn’t find a kinder man than Lon Chaney Jr. in Hollywood.
The son of famed performer Lon Chaney Sr., the younger Chaney made his mark on cinema starring in films like Of Mice and Men (1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942).
However, the role that made Chaney a star was that of Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941). Chaney reprised the role in several sequels, including the 1943 film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).
While working on the film, Chaney was actually able to work alongside a few furry friends when the script required his character to act alongside “wolves.”
“The script said I had to wrestle a wolf, so the studio rounded up some dogs it said looked like wolves,” said Chaney Jr. during an interview with The Journal Herald. “Only they wouldn’t wrestle.”
Luckily, there was another dog on set. “There was a studio watchman who had this Moose, the police dog,” said Chaney. “I said, why not try him?”
Luckily, Moose was not only an excellent watchdog, but a talented actor. “Moose got in there with me and gave me a real fight because he was a smart dog and knew what to do,” said Chaney.
Moose and Chaney bonded while working together, and Chaney revealed that afterward, he adopted the dog as his own.
“So, Moose and I, we fell in love,” said the actor. “I bought him from the watchman, and he is a very wonderful dog.”
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