| All character photos by Gilbert Frazee and costumes designed and created by Chantal Filson. |
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makeup in a prosthetic ally-oriented show, she didn’t hesitate. “I’d love to,” she said. The live-to-tape three-camera docudrama called for seven live performers – four prosthetic makeup characters and three period characters.
Lon Chaney (1883-1930) achieved his greatest fame as an actor in the 1920s, when he created the timeless classics The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). Except for Charlie Chaplin and a select few others, Chaney was one of the biggest stars of the silent era.
To dramatically document his career, the show producers created a narrative whereby Ruth Biery, a newspaper reporter — played by Robbie Troy — interviewed Chaney —played by Mark Arnott. To effectively create their looks Alex devised basic stage makeup techniques, adding a flair for 1930with appropriate useful character makeups and hairstyles. She used reference photos to help her design the stylings, but the day of the show, where she had 4-5 hours to create three likenesses, she used her instincts and ample knowledge of makeup to aid her craft.
During the show, four vignettes took place representing Phantom, Hunchback, He Who Gets Slapped (1924) and London After Midnight (1927). In each vignette, elaborate character makeups created by prosthetic artists were presented onstage. However, for the Phantom vignette, Alex had to realize a Christine character, key to the “unmasking” scene that would be performed onstage. Using actress Devon Davidson, Alex faced her most complex challenge. For that makeup, she needed to create a period 1925 beauty makeup on Davidson but also match the look of Mary Philbin, who played Christine in the original film. Moreover, Davidson is a blonde, but Philbin was a brunette, so Alex had to elaborately style Davidson’s hair to resemble the original.
Of her day-long effort, Alex was pleased with the results, underscored by the audience’s reaction. Her three period characters matched the elaborate prosthetics of the other characters beat for beat. Her period beauty makeups exemplified the power of makeup as a tool when it needs to stand up next to other types of makeup in a show.