Lon Chaney Jr. is a living legend and in many horror flicks that became remakes or influenced future one's to have similar themes. His father the late silent film star Lon Chaney portrayed horror characters himself like the Phantom so his son followed in his footsteps but yet sometimes portrayed the leading romantic types but then becomes a victim to a beast like in 'The Wolf Man' as the role of Larry Talbot who is faithful to his woman Gwen Conliffe (Played by Evelyn Ankers) but is attacked by a beast and kills this monster so he then takes on the shape of a werewolf when there's a full moon. So he portrays both someone who is a level headed person in day but then a monster at night which is different than what his father usually does. This was the film that was a follow up to ''Werewolf of London' aas well as reprising his role in 'Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman' along with two remakes to top it all off. All of this was filmed at Universal Studios in Hollywood, California which is very historical there for tourists to this day.
This was the film that made him a horror icon too leading to more role in other one's in the same genre.

However like his father he has played a horror character all the way through in sequels or follow up such as the Monster in 'The Ghost of Frankenstein', Kharis the Mummy in 'The Mummy's Tomb', 'The Mummy's Ghost' and 'The Mummy's Curse', Count Dracula in 'Son of Dracula' and others like that.

Still he was versatile by the characters he portrayed as he even portayed a mad scientist such as Dr. Mungo Munroe in the 1956 cult film 'The Black Sleep' who kidnaps his victims and cuts open their brains in an effort to discover a means to cure his wife's brain tumor as he worked with Bela Lugosi once again since their onscreen scene in 'The Wolf Man' along with other horror greats like Basil Rathbone and John Carradine.

Due to his fame in horror he got to host a brief TV series in 1959 titled '13 Demon Street' as two episodes of that show were released on 'The Veil DVD: The Vine of Death' and 'The Black Hand'. The series was unaired, but a movie was made by reediting and released as 'The Devil's Messenger'.

He played the werewolf in a comedy-horror a year later and went to Mexico to do this called 'La casa del terror' which spoofs his part in 'The Wolf Man' along with combining other of those classics like 'Frankenstein' and so fourth.

To top it all off he got to share on screen with another horror legend named Vincent Price in 'The Haunted Palace' as the role of Simon Orne which was directed by Roger Corman and based on a poem by Edgar Allen Poe.
The film was loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"

Following up later on due to his fame in 'The Mummy's Tomb' and 'The Wolf Man' a filmmaker decided to combine the two of them in a flick called 'The Face of the Screaming Werewolf' as the role of the Mummified Werewolf which seemed to be suitable for the characters that he portrayed in both of these films.

His last film would be 'Dracula Vs. Frankenstein' in 1971 as one of the lead roles named Groton an axe-wielding homicidal maniac working for Dr. Durray (Played by J. Carrol Naish), who is really the last of the Frankenstein's and is now running a house of horrors by the beach and is performing experiments on Gorton's victims.

His later years were bedeviled by illness and problems with alcohol. When he died from a variety of causes in 1973 at the age of 67, it was as an actor who had spent his life chasing the fame of his father, but who was much beloved by a generation of filmgoers who had never seen his father.

He appeared in tons of western shows along with doing comedies, crime and adventure shows. Plus he has spoofed his horror character roles the odd time on 'The Red Skelton Show'