[2] At first he worked in his father's real estate business, later moving to Detroit where he founded the Theatre Arts Magazine in 1916 and edited it until 1921.
His father, Warren Cheney, was an author of poetry and fiction, and served as editor of the popular California magazine, Overland Monthly, and his mother, May L. Cheney, organized a teacher placement office at the University of California, Berkeley and was the founder of the National Association of Appointment Secretaries (NAAS) now known as the American College Personnel Association.
The younger Cheney had a passion for the art of bookmaking and, while studying architecture at Berkeley, founded a quarterly journal for designers and collectors of bookplates—his first foray into the field of magazine publishing.
In the years immediately following his graduation, Cheney married Maud Maurice Turner and found intermittent work as an art and theatre critic.
He joined the Actor's Theatre in New York briefly, but there is no record of Cheney’s actual participation in any professional work with the group.