Early life The daughter of Leon Lipetz, Chaney was born Fanya Lipetz () on July 23, 1915, in Odessa, Russian Empire. While still a child, she emigrated with her family to the
U.S., and settled in
the Bronx, New York. and
Mr. District Attorney. She co-starred in
House in the Country, a serial on
NBC-Blue (1941-1942). She portrayed Marion Kerby on
The Adventures of Topper. During
World War II, she acted in programs produced by the
Armed Forces Radio Service. An article about her in the November 1945 issue of
Radio Romances noted: "Busy as she was, Frances frequently gave up important roleshigh-paying rolesin order to appear on the radio shows put on by the Armed Forces Radio Service. She worked steadily on the
Assignment Home series, for instance, giving that preference over any other shows."
Marriages In 1941, Chaney married
David Lardner, a journalist and the son of famous American author
Ring Lardner. They had a son and daughter. While serving as a World War II correspondent for
The New Yorker magazine, David Lardner was killed in France shortly after
D-Day, when a
land mine exploded under a
jeep he was riding in. and they remained wed until his death in 2000; they had one son.
Blacklisting In 1947, Ring Lardner Jr. was one of the "Hollywood Ten" screenwriters and directors who refused to cooperate with the
House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation into subversion in the film industry. The ten men were cited for
contempt of Congress and served 6–12 month sentences in federal prison. After Lardner was released from prison, he and his family lived in Mexico for a short while before moving to
Connecticut in July 1952.) as the Jewish
cantor's unmarried niece in the "
Holiday Song" episode of
The Philco Television Playhouse. The episode, written by
Paddy Chayevsky, received positive notices and the show's producer
Fred Coe sent Chaney a note saying she was now "an official member of
Philco Playhouse." By spring of 1953, Chayevsky had authored a new
Philco Playhouse script, "
Marty", with a part written especially for Chaney. She was asked to come to New York to give her script approval. Then, as she explained in a 1980s interview, "the process started": That's when she learned that "Holiday Song" was going to be performed again on
Philco Playhouse, with every single cast member returning from the September 1952 broadcast, except for Chaney. In the ensuing years, she did sporadic stage work. She understudied for actresses
Claudette Colbert,
Kim Stanley, and
Maureen Stapleton. She appeared in a short-lived Broadway production of
The Lovers in 1956, and in the
Ben Hecht play,
Winkelberg, in 1958. In a 1997 retrospective article, her son James Lardner argued that in some ways, his mother had a harder struggle under the blacklist than his more publicized father. As an actress, she was completely barred from appearing on screen, whereas his father obtained a few writing assignments in the 1950s, mostly for British TV series, by using pseudonyms. Chaney's return to television came in the late 1950s when she was cast in the daytime soap opera,
The Edge of Night." She also had
off-Broadway acting jobs, such as in the
Clifford Odets play
Awake and Sing,
Anton Chekhov's
Three Sisters, and the
James Lapine-directed
Table Settings.
Later years Starting in the 1980s, Chaney worked more steadily in TV and film. She was a witch in the pilot episode of
Tales from the Darkside (1983). She portrayed a long-married wife in the documentary portion of
When Harry Met Sally... (1989). She appeared in two episodes of
Law & Order, and had a minor supporting role in
Life with Mikey (1993). Chaney died of
Alzheimer's disease on November 23, 2004, in New York City. She was 89. ==Filmography==