Broncho Billy Anderson
(Deceased)
G.M. Anderson, actor, was born Max H. Aronson in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1880. He made his initial theatrical debuts on Broadway and in Vaudeville. It was during this time in the early 1900s that he adopted the name George M. Anderson. And he was billed in his Western films as "Broncho Billy".Broncho Billy Anderson he first actor to actually make a career of playing a movie cowboy hero on the screen. He starred in a series of westerns from 1908 to 1915. Most of his movies were one- and two-reelers (10 to 20 minutes), although he did make a few features toward the end of his starring days. He directed and starred in more than 300 films.
In 1903, the Thomas Edison Company filmed what became the first picture to tell a story, The Great Train Robbery. Twelve minutes in length and very low budget, this "movie" was lengthy in comparison to the typical one-minute productions of that time period. Anderson played several parts in the film, and it was a huge success.
After a brief stint directing films for the Selig Polyscope Company, Anderson entered into a partnership with George Spoor in 1907, and the pair began working together to build Essanay Film Company. He then changed his name again to Gilbert M. Anderson and began producing, writing and directing their company's first films.
In 1910, Anderson completed scenes for a film he had worked on in El Paso called Broncho Billy's Redemption, which he starred in as "Broncho Billy." By 1913, Anderson was well- known as "Broncho Billy," making more than 130 of the series. The films carried classic western situations: defeating the villain, saloon-bar brawls, shootouts, and the cowboy getting the girl, then riding off into the sunset. The last film in the series, titled Broncho Billy's Sentence, was released in 1915.
Several years later, Anderson made a brief attempt to return to the film industry, but by then, Western movies were becoming dominated by Tom Mix and William S. Hart. He received an honorary Academy Award in 1958 for his efforts in the development of motion pictures. And in 1965, Anderson made a cameo appearance in his first talking picture, The Bounty Killer.
Broncho Billy Anderson died in his sleep on January 20, 1971.
Starley Talbot Anderson
Starley Talbot Anderson has worked as a reporter-photographer for the Saratoga Sun, a weekly newspaper in the North Platte Valley. She is a past-president of the Wyoming Writers, and won that groups 1983 Nonfiction Success Award. Her articles have appeared in magazines such as Empire, Cow Country and Livestock Market Digest.
Dana Andrews
(Deceased)
Dana Andrews was a major movie star during the 1940's and 1950's. He was one of thirteen children of a Baptist minister. Andrews studied business administration at Sam Houston State Teachers College in Texas, but quit in 1929 to work as a bookkeeper for Gulf Oil Company.Dana Andrews hitchhiked west to Hollywood in 1931 to try to break into acting. While pursuing that dream, he made a living as a ditch digger, school bus driver, gas station attendant, and picking oranges in the orchards around Los Angeles.
It was the owner of the gas station who finally gave Dana Andrews his first real break. He agreed to underwrite his acting/singing education, just asking to be repaid if he hit the big time. In that way Andrews was able to study opera and to attend the Pasadena Community Playhouse.
At the Playhouse he appeared in many different plays during the 1930s. He finally was offered a contract by Samuel Goldwyn. It was a long two years later before Goldwyn and 20th Century Fox actually placed him in a film. His roles were primarily in top quality Western films such as "The Westerner" (1940), "Lucky Cisco Kid" (1940), "Kit Carson" (1940)and "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943). Those and his roles in "Laura" (1944) "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) assured his stardom.
However, for the most part, his significant movies were done by then. And Dana Andrews slowly regressed into making lower budget films such as "Canyon Passage" (1946), "Smoke Signal" (1955), "Comanche" (1956), "Town Tamer" (1965), and "Johnny Reno" (1966) . And somewhere along the way he also became an alcoholic. He finally beat his addiction, though, and became an active spokesperson for the National Council on Alcoholism.
Dana Andrews was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1963. He retired from films in the 1960's and took up the real estate business. He and his second wife, actress Mary Todd, lived quietly in Studio City, California. Andrews had Alzheimer's Disease late in his life. He died of congestive heart failure and pneumonia in 1992.
His brother, William Forrest Andrews, also became an actor. He used the stage name of "Steve Forrest" and appeared in a number of "Gunsmoke" TV shows.
Patrick E. Andrews
Patrick E. Andrews and Mark Roberts worked together on many novels. Andrews's books include Ride, Pistolero!, Sabers West, Desperado Run, Lighthorse Creek, Apache Gold, Oklahoma Showdown, The Bent Star (Dorchester, 1982), Proud Guidons, The Mestizo, and Kiowa Flat Raiders (Woodhill, 1980).
Slim Andrews
Slim Andrews was born as Lloyd Andrews in 1917 in Arkansas. His father was a farmer and Slim grew up working hard. So in 1924, at the age of seventeen, Slim didn't hesitate when a traveling "medicine man" asked him if he wanted to get into show business. He got $35 a week for doing a "country hick" role in town halls all over the south. Slowly he padded his part with singing and the playing of several instruments.
After a year, he graduated from that independent operation and spent the next six years with the Chick Boyes Players, based in Hebron, Neb. As chance would have it, he crossed paths with a new cowboy movie star and singer--Tex Ritter--when they each were doing their own shows (competing) in Monticello, Arkansas. Ritter invited him to look him up, for a possible deal as his sidekick, if he ever got to Hollywood.
That winter he and his wife, Lucille, headed their 1938 Ford down the highway to Hollywood. But Tex Ritter had already found a sidekick, so Slim Andrews went to work in a theatre in Long Beach. One night Tex Ritter and his producer, Ed Finney, went and saw Slim perform to a full-house. Soon he had a seven-year contract with Monogram Pictures to be in the movies. He was billed as Slim Andrews or as Arkansas Slim Andrews.
Slim Andrew's movie credits with Tex Ritter included "Rhythm of the Rio Grande" (1940), "Pals of the Silver Sage" (1940), "Cowboy from Sundown" (1940), "The Golden Trail" (1940), "Rainbow Over the Range" (1940), "Arizona Frontier" (1940), "Take Me Back to Oklahoma" (1940), "Rollin' Home to Texas" (1940), "Ridin' the Cherokee Trail" (1941), and "The Pioneers" (1941).
His sidekick roles with Tom Keene included "Wanderers of the West" (1941), "Dynamite Canyon" (1941), "The Driftin' Kid" (1941), and "Ridin' the Sunset Trail" (1941). And his parts with Don "Red" Barry at Republic Pictures included "The Cyclone Kid" (1942) and "The Sombrero Kid" (1942).
Of course, having a contract and actually making much money with it are sometimes two different things. He received $25 for his work in the first movie he was in, and never got more than $250. He often played as "Arkansas Slim", more of a hillbilly sidekick than a traditional Western sidekick. And he rode a mule named "Josephine".
He played the sidekick role in support of Tex Ritter, Tom Keene and Don "Red" Barry. Barry, though, took an instant disliking of his new sidekick and seldom spoke to him off camera.
However, Slim was well-liked by Tex Ritter and together they did concerts across the country from 1940 to 1950. Tex only paid him $50 a week during those tours, until Slim finally threatened to quit and received a raise to $100 a week.
Slim Andrews later did a children's program on a TV station in Los Angeles. Then he moved to show to Fresno, Calif., for ten years. And, finally, to Pittsburg, Kansas, not too many miles from where he was born and reared in northwest Arkansas.
Stanley Andrews
(Deceased)
Stanley Andrews, actor, was born on August 18, 1891. Stanley Andrews played the part of an old prospector on television's "Death Valley Days".
His other movie credits included: Treasure of Ruby Hills (1955) , Hot Lead (1951), Streets of Ghost Town (1950), Northwest Stampede (1948) , Michigan Kid (1947), Hi-Yo Silver (1940), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington(1939), Shine on Harvest Moon (1938), The Mysterious Rider (1938), Wild Brian Kent (1936), In His Steps (1936), and Escape From Devil's Island (1935).
He died on June 23, 1969, and is buried at Glen Haven Memorial Park in San Fernando, CA.
Alex Apostolides
Alex Apostolides was born on Nov. 29, 1923 at San Francisco, Calif. He married his wife, Patricia, on Jan. 1, 1986. He earned the MFA degree.You'll have to hang on to your Stetson to stay with Alex's exciting career. He states, "Freelance writer, narrator...when you wear several hats, it's very hard to give a chronological summary of employment. Writing, being a desert rat and explorer, carrying two Nikons, doing radio and video--none of it fits into any accepted pigeonhole. And that's just the way we like it."
From 1958 to 1969, Alex Apostolides was a field director for UCLA doing salvage excavations and archaeological surveys, mainly along the Pacific coast and in the Mojave desert. From 1963 to 1967 he was the Senior Museum Preparator in the Museum and Lab of Ethnic Arts and Technology at UCLA. From 1969 to 1974, he worked in Mexico as an archaeologist, photographer and feature writer. And from 1976 to 1979 he worked in El Paso and in Saudi Arabia as a narrator, writer and producer of video training films.
Since then, he has worked as a columnist for the El Paso Herald-Post, as the writer and producer of "The Edge of Texas," heard on KTEP radio, and as the Science Museum Curator for Wilderness Park Museum (2000 Transmountain Road, El Paso, TX 79924).
His articles have appeared in Westways, Arizona Highways, New Mexico Magazine, Adam, This Month, Early Man, Astounding/Analog, If/Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Galaxy, Heritage (Texas Historical Foundation), and Saturday Review of Literature.
His short stories appear in nine of the "Best of the Year" anthologies of science fiction, dating from 1954 to 1956. He did the cover and text photos for The Treasure of the Superstition Mountains, by Gary Jennings (1973). And he has contributed material for Beginning of the Rockies: The Franklin Mountains (1988).His memberships include Western Writers of America, Texas Historical Foundation, Texas Folklore Society, Institute of Texas Cultures, Texas Association of Museums, Arizona Archaeological & Historical Society, Arizona Historical Society, Museum Association of Arizona, Mountain-Plains Museum Association, South American Explorers Club, Archaeological Society of New Mexico, New Mexico Association of Museums, New Mexico Museum Foundation, El Paso Historical Society, Texas State Historical Association, Australian Rock Art Research Association, and the Westerners (he is an ex-sheriff of the El Paso Corral, 1986-87).
Alex Apostolides won two awards in 1986 for his radio program, "Edge of Texas", a weekly half-hour look at the history of the Southwest, originally started in 1984. The first came from the El Paso Historical Commission. The second, for excellence in the media, came from the El Paso Arts Alliance. He was a Winedale Fellow in 198l. Apostolides gives some 30 lectures a year on prehistoric rock art and archaeology, as well as on folk and treasure tales of Mexico and the Southwest.
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This listing is far from complete and may contain errors. Therefore, all Westerners and/or their agents are requested to submit recommended changes by contacting Stan Paregien through his e-mail address.
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© 2000 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
