1.
Harry L. Fraser
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Harry L. Fraser was an American film director. He directed over 80 films between 1925 and 1951, including the 1934 John Wayne film Randy Rides Alone and the Frank Buck 1937 cliffhanger serial Jungle Menace and he had a small acting role in the John Wayne film Neath the Arizona Skies. He also wrote screenplays, including Chick Carter, Detective, in his autobiography, Fraser described filming a scene in Jungle Menace in which a boa constrictor attacks the heroine Dorothy. The villain has tied Dorothy hand and foot and she thrashes wildly, terrified when she suddenly sees the huge snake. Slowly he slithered across the body, while she screamed and struggled. He turned, looking for a spot to slip under her to make his first wrap, I motioned to the reptile crew to get ready, and a split-second later gave them the signal to move in. But now, the maddened snake fought them and did its best to coil around one of the men, before that happened, however, I had cut, and we had a good cliff-hanger with our terror-stricken heroine to close the episode. Fraser at the Internet Movie Database Frank Buck saves Dorothy from a snake in Jungle Menace on YouTube
2.
John Wayne
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Marion Mitchell Morrison, known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed Duke, was an American actor and filmmaker. An Academy Award-winner for True Grit, Wayne was among the top box office draws for three decades, born in Winterset, Iowa, Wayne grew up in Southern California. He found work at film studios when he lost his football scholarship to the University of Southern California as a result of a bodysurfing accident. Initially working for the Fox Film Corporation, he appeared mostly in bit parts. His first leading role came in Raoul Walshs The Big Trail, Waynes career took off in 1939, with John Fords Stagecoach making him an instant star. He went on to star in 142 pictures, biographer Ronald Davis said, John Wayne personified for millions the nations frontier heritage. Eighty-three of his movies were Westerns, and in them he played cowboys, cavalrymen and he is also remembered for his roles in The Quiet Man, Rio Bravo, and The Longest Day. In his final performance, he starred as an aging gunfighter battling cancer in The Shootist. He appeared with many important Hollywood stars of his era, Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison on May 26,1907 at 224 South Second Street in Winterset, Iowa. The local paper, Winterset Madisonian, reported on page 4 of the edition of May 30,1907 that Wayne weighed 13 pounds at birth and his middle name was soon changed from Robert to Mitchell when his parents decided to name their next son Robert. Waynes father, Clyde Leonard Morrison, was the son of American Civil War veteran Marion Mitchell Morrison, Waynes mother, the former Mary Molly Alberta Brown, was from Lancaster County, Nebraska. Waynes ancestry included English, Irish, Scots-Irish, and Scottish, Waynes family moved to Palmdale, California, and then in 1916 to Glendale, California, where his father worked as a pharmacist. A local fireman at the station on his route to school in Glendale started calling him Little Duke because he never went anywhere without his huge Airedale Terrier and he preferred Duke to Marion, and the nickname stuck. Wayne attended Wilson Middle School in Glendale, as a teen, he worked in an ice cream shop for a man who shod horses for Hollywood studios. He was also active as a member of the Order of DeMolay and he played football for the 1924 league champion Glendale High School team. Wayne applied to the U. S. Naval Academy, and he instead attended the University of Southern California, majoring in pre-law. He was a member of the Trojan Knights and Sigma Chi fraternities, Wayne also played on the USC football team under coach Howard Jones. A broken collarbone injury curtailed his career, Wayne later noted that he was too terrified of Jones reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury
3.
Sheila Terry (actress)
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Sheila Terry was an American film actress. She was born Kay Clark in Warroad, Minnesota, Terry first studied dramatics at Dickson-Kenwin academy, a school affiliated with Londons Royal Academy. Later she moved to New York, where she continued her studies, while appearing on Broadway in The Little Racketeer, she was spotted by an alert film scout and given a test which led to a contract with Warner Bros. She played in 1930s for Warner Bros and she appeared with John Wayne in the Western films Haunted Gold, Neath the Arizona Skies and The Lawless Frontier. She appeared with Bette Davis, Louis Calhern and Spencer Tracy in Michael Curtizs film 20,000 Years in Sing Sing and she appeared with Cary Grant and Sylvia Sidney in Marion Gerings film Madame Butterfly. She also played with Loretta Young, Thelma Todd, Gail Patrick, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, William Powell, George Brent, in 1933 she left Hollywood briefly for the New York stage. She married Major Laurence E. Clark, a wealthy Toronto socialite on August 16,1928 and she divorced him February 16,1934. In 1937, she married William Magee of San Francisco, after his death, Terry wanted to return to show business, but couldnt find a job. In 1947, she said in a newspaper-interview, Im going back into business and I need an act, I cant sing, I cant dance. I should be terrific in night clubs and she worked as a press agent for 15 years. In January 1957, her body was discovered in the third floor apartment, a friend and neighbour, Jerry Keating, went to the apartment when he failed to reach her on the telephone. The door was locked, and Terry did not answer the bell, Keating called the police, they broke in and found Terrys body on the bedroom floor, her back leaning against the bed. Five capsules, their contents gone, were on the floor beside her, friends told the police that she returned from a trip to Mexico a few days before her death and that she was ill when she came home. It was later discovered that she died broke, she left only a scanty wardrobe and she was buried in Potters Field in New York City. Border Cities Star, Feb 16,1934, Sheila Terry divorces hubby The Milwaukee Sentinel, April 11,1936, chicago Daily Tribune Tower Ticket, December 27,1948. Los Angeles Times, January 20,1957, Sheila Terry, Starlet and playgirl of the 1920s, www. findagrave. com Sheila Terry at the Internet Movie Database
4.
Monogram Pictures
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Monogram was among the smaller studios--generally referred to as Poverty Row--in the Golden Age of Hollywood. The idea behind the studio was that when the Monogram logo appeared on the screen, everyone knew they were in for action, the company is now a division of Allied Artists International. The original sprawling brick complex that was home to both Monogram and Allied Artists remains in place today at 4376 Sunset Dr. utilized as part of the Church of Scientology Media Center. Monogram was created in the early 1930s from two companies, W. Ray Johnstons Rayart Productions and Trem Carrs Sono Art-World Wide Pictures. Both specialized in low-budget features and, as Monogram Pictures, continued that policy until 1935, another independent producer, Paul Malvern, released his Lone Star Productions westerns through Monogram. The backbone of the studio in early days was a father-and-son combination, writer/director Robert N. Bradbury. Bradbury wrote almost all, and directed many, of the early Monogram, while budgets and production values were lean, Monogram offered a balanced program, including action melodramas, classics and mysteries. In 1935 Johnston and Carr were wooed by Herbert Yates of Consolidated Film Industries, Yates planned to merge Monogram with several smaller independent companies to form Republic Pictures. However, after a time in this new venture, Johnston and Carr discovered that they couldnt get along with Yates. Carr moved to Universal Pictures, while Johnston reactivated Monogram in 1937, producer Walter Mirisch began at Monogram after World War II as assistant to studio head Steve Broidy. He convinced Broidy that the days of low-budget films were ending, at a time when the average Hollywood picture cost about $800,000, Allied Artists first release, It Happened on Fifth Avenue, cost more than $1,200,000. Subsequent Allied Artists releases were more economical but did have enhanced production values, the studios new policy permitted what Mirisch called B-plus pictures, which were released along with Monograms established line of B fare. The Monogram brand name was retired in 1953. The company was now known as Allied Artists Pictures Corporation, for the most part, however, Allied Artists was heading in new, ambitious directions under Mirisch. They pushed the studio into big-budget filmmaking, signing contracts with William Wyler, John Huston, Billy Wilder, Mirisch Productions then had success releasing its films through United Artists. Allied Artists ceased production in 1966 and became a distributor of foreign films, both were critical and commercial successes, but high production and financing costs meant they were not big moneymakers for Allied Artists. King was released in 1975, but received disappointing returns and that same year Allied Artists distributed the French import Story of O, but spent much of its earnings defending itself from obscenity charges. In 1976 Allied Artists attempted diversification when it merged with consumer producers Kalvex and PSP, the new Allied Artists Industries, Inc. manufactured pharmaceuticals, mobile homes and activewear in addition to films
5.
Western (genre)
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Cowboys and gunslingers typically wear Stetson hats, bandannas, spurs, cowboy boots and buckskins. Other characters include Native Americans, bandits, lawmen, bounty hunters, outlaws, mounted cavalry, settlers, Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape of deserts and mountains. Often, the vast landscape plays an important role, presenting a. mythic vision of the plains, specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns, saloons, railways and isolated military forts of the Wild West. Many Westerns use a plot of depicting a crime, then showing the pursuit of the wrongdoer, ending in revenge and retribution. The Western was the most popular Hollywood genre, from the early 20th century to the 1960s, Western films first became well-attended in the 1930s. John Fords landmark Western adventure Stagecoach became one of the biggest hits in 1939, Westerns were very popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the most acclaimed Westerns were released during this time – including High Noon, Shane, The Searchers, the Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor and personal, direct or private justice–frontier justice–dispensed by gunfights. These honor codes are played out through depictions of feuds or individuals seeking personal revenge or retribution against someone who has wronged them. The popular perception of the Western is a story that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, a showdown or duel at high noon featuring two or more gunfighters is a stereotypical scene in the popular conception of Westerns. In some ways, such protagonists may be considered the descendants of the knight errant which stood at the center of earlier extensive genres such as the Arthurian Romances. And like knights errant, the heroes of Westerns frequently rescue damsels in distress, similarly, the wandering protagonists of Westerns share many characteristics with the ronin in modern Japanese culture. The Western typically takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, Westerns often stress the harshness and isolation of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape. Apart from the wilderness, it is usually the saloon that emphasizes that this is the Wild West, it is the place to go for music, women, gambling, drinking, brawling and shooting. The American Film Institute defines western films as those set in the American West that embodies the spirit, the struggle, the term Western, used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article in Motion Picture World Magazine. Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th century popular Western fiction and were firmly in place before film became an art form. Protagonists ride between dusty towns and cattle ranches on their trusty steeds, Western films were enormously popular in the silent film era. With the advent of sound in 1927-28, the major Hollywood studios rapidly abandoned Westerns, leaving the genre to smaller studios and these smaller organizations churned out countless low-budget features and serials in the 1930s. Released through United Artists, Stagecoach made John Wayne a mainstream star in the wake of a decade of headlining B westerns
6.
Yakima Canutt
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Yakima Canutt, also known as Yak Canutt, was an American champion rodeo rider, actor, stuntman and action director. Born Enos Edward Canutt in the Snake River Hills, near Colfax, Washington, he was one of five children of John Lemuel Canutt, a rancher, and Nettie Ellen Stevens. He grew up in eastern Washington on a ranch near Penawawa Creek, founded by his grandfather and operated by his father and his formal education was limited to elementary school in Green Lake, then a suburb of Seattle. He gained the education for his lifes work on the ranch, where he learned to hunt, trap, shoot. He broke a wild bronco when he was 11, as a 6-foot-tall sixteen-year-old, he started bronc riding at the Whitman County Fair in Colfax in 1912, and at 17 he won the title of Worlds Best Bronco Buster. Canutt started rodeo riding professionally and gained a reputation as a rider, bulldogger. It was at the 1914 Pendleton Round-Up, Pendleton, Oregon he got the nickname Yakima when a newspaper caption misidentified him, Yakima Canutt may be the most famous person NOT from Yakima, Washington says Elizabeth Gibson, author of Yakima, Washington. Winning second place at the 1915 Pendleton Round-Up brought attention from show promoters, I started in major rodeos in 1914, and went through to 1923. There was quite a crop of us traveling together, and we would have special railroad cars and cars for the horses, wed play anywhere from three, six, eight ten-day shows. Bronc riding and bulldogging were my specialties, but I did some roping, during the 1916 season, he became interested in divorcee Kitty Wilks, who had won the Ladys Bronc-Riding Championship a couple of times. They married on July 20,1917, while at a show in Kalispell, Montana, he was 21, while bulldogging in Idaho, Canutts mouth and upper lip were torn by a bulls horn, after stitches, Canutt returned to the competition. It was not until a year later that a surgeon could correct the injury. Canutt won his first world championship at the Olympics of the West in 1917, in between rodeos, he broke horses for the French government in World War I. In 1918, he went to Spokane to enlist in the United States Navy and was stationed in Bremerton, in the fall, he was given a 30-day furlough to defend his rodeo title. He was discharged in spring 1919, at the 1919 Calgary Stampede, he competed in the bucking event and met Pete Knight. He traveled to Los Angeles for a rodeo, and decided to winter in Hollywood and it was here that Tom Mix, who had also started in rodeos, invited him to be in two of his pictures. Mix added to his flashy wardrobe by borrowing two of Canutts two-tone shirts and having his tailor make 40 copies, Canutt got his first taste of stunt work in a fight scene on a serial called Lightning Bryce, he left Hollywood to compete in the 1920 rodeo circuit. The Fort Worth rodeo was nicknamed Yaks show after he won the competition three years in a row from 1921 to 1923
7.
George "Gabby" Hayes
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George Francis Gabby Hayes was an American radio, film, and television actor. He was best known for his numerous appearances in Western films as the sidekick of the leading man. Hayes was born the third of seven children in his fathers hotel in Stannards, New York and he was the son of Elizabeth Morrison and Clark Hayes. His mothers brother was George F. Morrison, vice president of General Electric, Hayes did not come from a cowboy background, he did not know how to ride a horse until he was in his forties and had to learn for film roles. His father, Clark Hayes, operated the Hayes Hotel in Stannards and was involved in oil production. George Hayes grew up in Stannards and attended Stannards School and he played semiprofessional baseball while in high school. He ran away from home in 1902, at 17, joined a company, apparently traveled for a time with a circus. Hayes married Olive E. Ireland, the daughter of a New Jersey glass finisher and she joined him in vaudeville, performing under the name Dorothy Earle. Hayes had become so successful that by 1928, at age 43, he was able to retire to a home on Long Island in Baldwin and he lost all his savings the next year in the 1929 stock-market crash. Earle persuaded Hayes to try his luck in films, and the moved to Los Angeles. They remained together until her death on July 5,1957, after his move to Los Angeles, according to later interviews, Hayes had a chance meeting with the producer Trem Carr, who liked his look and gave him 30 roles over the next six years. In his early career, Hayes was cast in a variety of roles, including villains and he found a niche in the growing genre of Western films, many of which were series with recurring characters. Ironically, Hayes would admit he had never been a big fan of Westerns, from 1935 to 1939, Hayes played the part of Windy Halliday, the sidekick to Hopalong Cassidy. In 1939, Hayes left Paramount Pictures in a dispute over his salary, Paramount held the rights to the name Windy Halliday, so the nickname Gabby was created for Hayess character. Hayes was also repeatedly cast as a sidekick of the Western stars Randolph Scott, Hayes played Waynes sidekick in Raoul Walshs Dark Command, which featured Roy Rogers in a supporting role. Hayes became a performer and consistently appeared among the 10 favorite actors in polls taken of moviegoers of the period. The Western film genre declined in the late 1940s, and Hayes made his last film appearance in The Cariboo Trail. He moved to television and hosted The Gabby Hayes Show, a Western series, from 1950 to 1954 on NBC and, in a new version in 1956, on ABC
