Remembering westerns and cowboys
Jack brought it up. He recalled riding a street car from his home to Marietta for nine cents, then spent another nine cents to see the Saturday movie.
Hollywood studios ground out B-Westerns with stars we knew but have forgotten.
Allen “Rocky” Lane became “Red Ryder” on TV and was the voice for “Mr. Ed.”
Ben Johnson’s museum is in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, northeast of Tulsa.
Buck Jones came along in the eye-liner and lipstick period of outdoor westerns.
When cowboys started singing, his demand dropped because he couldn’t sing.
Buster Crabbe was an Olympic swimmer who played space heroes “Flash Gordon” and “Buck Rogers” as well as “Tarzan. “
Duncan Renaldo was cast as “The Cisco Kid,” a Latin cowboy. He later roamed the West via television with his sidekick “Pancho,” played by Leo Carrillo, who was a star in his own right.
Lash LaRue was handy with a bull whip, as was Whip Wilson.
The sarsaparilla drinking “Hopalong Cassidy” character got the name from being shot in the leg.
William Boyd, who was never shot, amassed a fortune licensing his “Hoppy” likeness on everything he could from lunch boxes to a theme park and museum. None of that exists today and clean-living Boyd is largely forgotten.
Then there were sidekicks — Gabby Hayes, Fuzzy Knight, Andy Devine, Soapy Jones.
Jack’s favorite cowboy actor, and mine as well, was Charles Starrett, who played a character with an alter ego of “The Durango Kid.”
We don’t recall his costars and leading ladies as he worked his way to the front of the camera.
Some actresses with whom Starrett played were popular in the early 1900s: Billie Dove, Irene Dunn, Constance Bennett and Miriam Hopkins, born and buried in Bainbridge, Ga.
Starrett’s first starring role came in 1933 but had to wait two more years for a sidekick, which came in a bunch, “The Sons of the Pioneers.” In 1938 his sidekick was Bob Nolan and in 1946 “Smiley” Burnette.
“Smiley” moved to television and appeared in “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres.”
Starrett’s gig as “The Durango Kid” lasted until 1952 when the series ended.
To get through a “Durango” film you had to stop thinking. The films used the same sets, characters and locations. As “Durango” he wore a black outfit, black mask and rode a white horse. The same white movie horse carried “The Lone Ranger.”
This “alter ego” casting came long before “Batman,” “Superman,” “The Lone Ranger” and the rest of the crime fighter genre. On radio there were “The Shadow” and “The Avenger.”
We’ll save the multitudinous character actors who played bad guys for another day.
There isn’t much reason to look to the theater for Saturday entertainment any more. Nine cents wouldn’t get you far on a street car, if you can find one.