The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Universal's first adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, made in 1923 starred Lon Chaney as the abused bellringer Quasimodo. A mute, half-dead hunchback who lives in the famed Paris cathedral, Quasimodo is coerced into kidnapping the beggar Esmeralda, which runs him afoul of smitten Captain Phoebus.