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Leigh Brackett
(Deceased)Leigh Brackett, writer, was born on Dec. 7, 1915 in Los Angeles, CA. Brackett was a prolific writer, particularly in the Science Fiction field. She won the Jules Verne Fantasy award in 1957. She also won a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America in 1963.
Leigh Brackett's Western books included Rio Bravo (novelization), Follow the Free Wind (Golden Spur Award winner), and Black Mountain Man. Her credits for Western Screenplays included: Rio Bravo, with Jules Furthman & B. H. McCampbell [1959]; Rio Lobo, with Burton Wohl [1970]; El Dorado; and Gold of the Seven Saints, with Leonard Freeman [1961] .
She was married to another Science Fiction writer, Edmond Hamilton. Leigh Brackett died of cancer on March 18, 1978.
[My thanks to Western fan Larry Flynn for providing most of this information on Leigh Brackett]
Curley Bradley
(Deceased)
Western actor Curley Bradley was born as George Courtney in 1910. . He appeared in some of Gene Autry's movies.Curley Bradley died in 1985, and is buried in the Cherry Blossom Garden (Lot 62, Grave B) of the Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, CA.
Pat Brady
(Deceased)
Pat Brady, singer and actor, was born December 31, 1914, as Robert G. Brady. He played the bass fiddle and sang with the Sons of the Pioneers, then became a sidekick to Roy Rogers in Roy's TV series. He drove that lovable and cantankerous jeep named Nellybelle.Brady was in the right place at the right time. Roy Rogers was forced to leave the Sons of the Pioneers when he signed his own contract to star in movies with Republic Picutres because the Pionners were under contract with Columbia Pictures to appear with competing cowboy star Charles Starret. Brady and this group of the Sons of the Pioneers were in some 20 movies with Charles Starrett, ending in 1941. That's when they were signed to Republic Pictures and saddled back up and rode with their old pard, Roy Rogers, through 1948. Pat Brady served in the Army during World War II, returning to the Sons of the Pioneers in 1946.
Pat Brady died in his room at The Ark (a rehab center for alcoholics) on February 27, 1972 in Green Mountain Falls, CO. He is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery (Military section, Plot 139-B) in Colorado Springs, CO. [My thanks to Dan Hughes for info regarding the nature of Pat's death.]
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Pat Brady.
Scott Brady
(Deceased)
Scott Brady, actor, was born on September 13, 1924.
He died of emphysema on April 16, 1985, and is buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery (Mausoleum, B7, B156) in Culver City, CA.
William F. Bragg, Jr.
(Deceased)
Bill Bragg was born in Casper, Wyoming on May 15, 1922 and died at his home there in May, 1988, with a memorial service conducted in the Gertrude Krampert Theatre at Casper College. He was 65. As early as 1981, he had experienced heart problems brought on by heavy smoking. But he quit smoking, cold turkey, in April, 1981.William F. Bragg, Jr. took up his father's pen and continued the family tradition. While still in high school, he worked as a printer's devil for the Thermopolis Independent Record, working a 40-hour week for 17 cents per hour. Along the way, though, he served as an infantry sergeant in the Pacific with the Marines (received a Purple Heart when he got the end of his nose shot off), worked as a bartender and as an oilfield roughneck.
In 1949, he married a nurse named Rita Dean Reesy. And he went back to college and received his degree in history from the University of Wyoming (where he received the William Robertson Cole Yale American Studies Program Fellowship). Returning for his M.A., Bill took the position in his thesis that the famous Indian guide Sacajawea was really buried at Fort Manuel Lisa on the banks of the Missouri River, rather than at Fort Washakie, Wyoming, as all the historians stated.
William F. Bragg, Jr., taught history at Torrington College, then worked for the Wyoming Travel Commission. And in 1957 he became the executive secretary of the National Dude Ranchers Association in Montana. In 1959 he took a job with the Jackson, Wyoming Fine Arts Foundation. It was there that he got financially involved--and as a research man, location director, etc.--in the production of such movies as "Spencer's Mountain," "Shane," "Jubal," and others.
From 1964 to 1967, he worked as the executive secretary of the Wyoming Republican Party. And in 1975, he became the Information Officer at Casper College, holding that position until he had to retire in 1987. He also served in the Wyoming legislature (elected to the House of Representatives in 1978), had been president of the Wyoming Historical Society, and was a member of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
In addition, he wrote, acted in, directed and narrated more than 40 documentary films. One he wrote and starred in for Paramount, "Snapshoot," won the 1964 "Best Outdoor Motion Picture Award". And he wrote, narrated and produced 175 short stories for radio about Wyoming's history.
Bill Bragg wrote hundreds of stories for such magazines as The Western Story, Western Magazine, and News from the Plains. He was the author of four books, including two novels--Enemy in Sight (Dorchester, 1985) and The War Horses (Dorchester, 1980)--and two history books which have been used as textbooks, Wyoming's Wealth and Wyoming--Rugged But Right.
He won a Spur Award in 1983 from WWA for his short story, "The Ten Sleep Mail". Bragg wrote fiction under the name of "Bill Bragg" and nonfiction under "William F. Bragg, Jr.". (WWA member Jean Mead did a four-page profile of Bill, Sr. and Bill, Jr. in the Sept. 9, 1979 issue of Empire Magazine.)
William F. Bragg, Jr., was survived by his widow; by his children--Laura Dean Gaddis of Laramie, Robert Fredrick Bragg of Tucson, Az., Barbara Lee Bragg of New York City, and Betty Ellen Flood; and by four grandchildren. He was buried in the Worland, Wyoming cemetery. A memorial scholarship fund--the William F. Bragg, Jr. Scholarship--was established at the University of Wyoming in history or journalism for a Casper College graduate.
William F. Bragg, Sr.
(Deceased)
William F. Bragg, Sr. was an early-day member of Western Writers of America. He was the descendent of pioneer Wyoming families, his father having settled in Green River, Wyoming in 1868. Frederick Bragg and his three sons named their ranch "The Big Tepee" and eventually ran 40,000 sheep and 2,500 Durham cattle and 1,500 head of horses. But in 1920, having over-extended during World War I's demand for food, the sons had to sell the ranch to pay their debts.William F. Bragg, Sr. turned to writing and accepted a job as the night editor for the Casper (Wyo.) Herald in 1921. And five years later he sold his first story to West Magazine for $25. He promptly quit his journalism job and moved the family back near the family homestead at No Wood, Wyoming, thereby becoming Wyoming's very first native-born full-time author. There they lived in a cabin with a dirt floor. And both Bill, Sr. and his wife, Mary Coburn, kept the mails hot, sending off stories (She worked as the society editor for the Northern Wyoming Daily News and was President of the Wyoming Pressmen's Association.
Bill Bragg, Sr. sold articles to the New York Daily Mirror, Wild West, Weekly Ranch Romances and West. When he started getting $300 per article, he packed up the family and went to Hollywood and wrote for the Hopalong Cassidy movies at a salary of $300 per week. They lived across the street from a fledgling little girl actress, Shirley Temple (Bill, Jr. often admitted with a smile that he was the one who taught Shirley's older brother, George Temple, how to cuss and roll cigarettes). However, they returned to Wyoming after two years and when the heyday of western magazines ended in 1941 (the war effort used most of the pulp for manufacturing gunboxes, packaging and so forth), Bill Bragg, Sr.'s career ended for the moment. He finally got back into writing in 1948, and he sold 21 Western novels from then to 1958. But he was also working as the Justice of the Peace in Worland, from 1954 to 1964.
After Mary's death in 1963, William F. Bragg, Sr., lived with his son, Bill, Jr., in Casper. He returned to Worland to visit friends and died in his sleep at the Worland Hotel on Jan. 25, 1967. (See his photo and obituary in the May, 1967 issue of The Roundup.)
Neville Brand
(Deceased)
Neville Brand, military hero and actor, was born on August 13, 1920.
Brand joined the Army at the tender age of 16. He became the fourth most decorated soldier in the US Army during World War Two, just behind fellow actor Audie Murphy and two other soldiers. The Army actually gave him his first acting credits, in training films. Then after the War, he went to college on the GI Bill and studied acting.
His rough-cut features and deep, gravelly voice meant he was a natural for tough guy or bad guy roles. He even played Al Capone in two movies and in the TV series “The Untouchables”.
Brand was something of a rounder who often did not have his lines memorized when it came time to film. That did not endear him to either his fellow actors or the directors. Still, he had a following. And his role as the elder Ranger named "Reese Bennett" in the TV Western series "Laredo" was popular with viewers.
Neville Brand died on April 16, 1992, and his remains are in the East Lawn Memorial Park (Niche # 1327 Section L-L, Morning Glory Room) in Sacremento, CA.
Rebecca Brandewyne
Rebecca Brandewyne is the author of several books for Warner Books, including Roses of Rapture (1985), And Gold Was Ours (1984), Forever My Love (1982), The Outlaw Hearts (1986), No Gentle Love (1984).
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr., was born on April 3, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents sent him off to a military school, but in his senior year he quit and moved to New York to study acting.
Marlon Brando made his Broadway debut in "I Remember Mama" (1944). His big break came when he performed in "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1947. That led to a movie contract and to his first film, "The Men" in 1950 and to the big screen version of "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1952.
In 1961 started his own production company. He hired first Stanley Kubrick and then Sam Peckinpah to direct him in the Western, "One-Eyed Jacks". They both quit after disputes with Brando, so he decided to direct and star in the film. He made it a long (originally four hours worth) and extremely expensive production, but one which returned a decent profit. His other Westerns included "The Appaloosa," and "The Missouri Breaks".
Through the years Marlon Brando behaved in ways considered odd even by Hollywood standards. He won his second "Best Actor" Academy Award for "The Godfather," but refused to accept it . Brando wrote an autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Marlon Brando.
Joyce Brandon
Joyce Brandon is the author of three books for Ballentine: The Lady and the Outlaw (1985), The Lady and the Lawman and The Lady and the Robber Baron.
George Brandsberg
George Brandsberg's byline has appeared on articles in Successful Farming, Farmer's Digest, Beef Magazine, and Farm Journal. He has had some nonfiction books published as well.
Marley Brant
Marley Brant is a writer/producer in the entertainment industry and has worked on such productions as "Hee Haw," "Country Comes Home," "Marco Polo," and "Shogun". She was the associate producer of "Legends", a film biography of outlaw Bob Younger, and she has a large collection of material on the Younger family, including a booklet she wrote, Families of Charles Lee and Henry Washington Younger: A Geneological Sketch. Her articles have appeared in True West and Frontier Times.
Matthew Braun
Born in Oklahoma in on Nov. 15, 1932, Matthew Braun attended military schools (even fighting in Golden Gloves competition) and then in 1954, with a B.A. in journalism, he became a Second Lieutenant in the Army. During his time in the service, he completed Ranger training and began training others in combat methods. He wrote The Save-Your-Live Defense Handbook (Devin, 1977).
Braun began writing Western fiction in 1969. He now has more than 33 books to his credit. He is the author of Mattie Silks (1972), Black Fox (1972), The Savage Land (1973), El Paso (1973), Noble Outlaw (1975), Bloody Hand (1975), Cimarron Jordan (1975), Kinch (1975), Buck Colter (1976), The Kincaids (1976, Spur Award), The Second Coming of Lucas Brokaw (1977), Lords of the Land (1979), Hangman's Creek (1979), The Stuart Women (1980), Jury of Six (1980), Tombstone (1981), The Spoilers (1981), The Manhunter (1981), Deadwood (1981), The Judash Tree (1982), Indian Territory (Pinnacle Books), The Brannocks (Signet), Windward West (Signet), Rio Hondo (Signet), Buck Colter (1975) Braun also wrote a non-fiction book, The Save-Your-Life Defense Handbook (Devin-Adair, 1977).
The above photo shows Matt Braun and Stan Paregien
receiving their Stirrup Awards at the Western Writers
of America Convention in San Diego in June, 1988.Matt Braun's awards include a Spur from WWA for The Kincaids, and a Stirrup Award in 1988 for his articles in The Roundup. On June 29, 1984, Matt Braun was named a "territorial marshal" by the Governor of Oklahoma, George Night, at a ceremony held at the State Capitol Building in Oklahoma city. (See a profile of Braun by Dick House in the Nov.-Dec., 1987 issue of The Roundup, and another profile by Dale L. Walker in the March, 1985 issue.)
This listing is far from complete and may contain errors. Therefore, all Western entertainers and/or their agents are requested to submit recommended changes by contacting Stan Paregien .
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind. " This is the first
and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:
"Love your neighbor as yourself." All the Law and the
Prophets hang on these two commandments.
--- Jesus the Christ (Bible: Matthew 22:37-40)
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
