Right after he [
Lon Chaney Jr.] and I had finished
Il figlio di Dracula (1943), I think, the studio invited the major magazines to a dinner party on the lot to meet all the horror stars. Everybody was there--
Boris Karloff,
Bela Lugosi and
George Zucco. Lon, seated near my husband [
Richard Denning] and me, proceeded to direct a number of rude, uncalled-for remarks toward Dick. Being a gentleman, Dick ignored them. Until . . . "How come", I recall Lon saying to Dick, "you're in the Navy and still in Los Angeles?" Dick replied, "It's a lot better than not being in the service at all during wartime"--which was Lon's situation. A while later, Lon said, "I've got a little ice cream on my sleeve", and wiped it on Dick's dress blues. That did it. Dick took his ice cream--which was pistachio green, in keeping with the horror motif--and pushed it in Lon's face. With all that green dripping from his face, he looked as if he were back in make-up for one of his monster characters.
