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Phyllis Coates
Phyllis Coates, movie actress, was born in Texas in 1927 as Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell. Her closest friends still call her "Gypsie". She moved to California to attend college and soon found Hollywood more interesting. She actually started out on the vaudville stage in 1942. Then she played in Westerns and a wide range of other films. Today's audiences probably know her best as "Lois Lane" in the original "Superman" TV show in the 1950's.
However, she performed in numerous Western films. She had this to say about some of her fellow actors and the Western genre: "Most of the cowboys were great. Johnny Mack Brown was really sweet. A very sweet, loving man. Another good cowboy -- probably the best cowboy -- even better than some of the guys I'd worked with who were bigger names and better looking -- was Wild Bill Elliott. He was the best cowboy. The only cowboy I ever worked with that was no fun was that awful guy, Whip Wilson. All he had was his whip -- and his ego. I would do two westerns back-to-back for Monogram. Then I'd have to take a week off and go to Palm Springs and recuperate. It was awful. They lit the horse -- they didn't give a damn about the leading lady."
Her Western films included: Death Valley Days (1966), Blood Arrow (1958), El Paso Stampede(1953), Marshal of Cedar Rock (1952), Fargo (1952), Wyoming Roundup (1952), and Canyon Raiders (1951).
Phyllis Coates is show here with Johnny Mack Brown
in the 1952 Western movie, "Canyon Ambush".
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George Reeves as "Superman" and Phyllis Coates as "Lois Lane"
in the 1958 film, "Superman and the Mole-Men".
Edmund Cobb
(Deceased)
Edmund Cobb, movie actor, was born Edmund Fessenden Cobb on June 23, 1892 in Albuquerque, NM. Edmund was the son of William Henry Cobb and Edwinna Ross. He was the grandson of Edmund Gibson Ross, Governor of the Territory of New Mexico (and a former Kansas Senator ).
Sit down for this one. Edmund Cobb appeared in 426 films. His career stretched from his first film in 1915 to his last in 1966. And he appeared in such diverse films as Superman, Zorro and even some Tarzan films.
Cobb started off playing bit parts in silent films, then in the 1920's found himself playing starring roles in Westerns. His "hero" days were limited, however. He spent most of the rest of his his extraordinarily long career playing one of the "bad guys" or appearing in just a small speaking role.
Edmund Cobb's credits in Western films include too many to list here. But here is a sample: Riders of the Range (1923), The Lone Rustlers (1923), AT Deveil's Gorge (1923), A Rodeo Mixup (1924), The Galloping Cowboy (1926), The Man from Oklahoma (1926), Wolf's Trail (1927), The Four-Footed Ranger (1928), The Indians Are Coming (1930), Wild Horse (1931), Sunset Trail (1932), Ride Him, Cowboy (1932), Rusty Rides Alone (1933), The Westerner (1934), The Red Rider (1934) and Rustlers of Red Dog (1935). NOTE: He appeared in 18 movies in 1935, alone!
Edmund Cobb (left) with Reb Russell and Yvonne Pelletier
the 1935 film, "Lightning Triggers".Code of the Range (1936), The Cherokee Strip (1937), The Lone Ranger (1938), Riders of Black River (1939), West of Carson City (1940), Tonto Basin Outlaw (1941; he was in 27 movies this year!), Hills of Oklahoma (1950), Winchester 73 (1950), Montana Desperado (1951), Carson City (1952), Gunsmoke (1953), Broken Lance (1954).
Timber Country Trouble (1955), The Oklahoma Woman (1956), The True Story of Jesse James (1957), Requiem for a Gunfighter (1965), and Johnny Reno (1966).
Edmund Cobb died of a heart attack on Aug. 15, 1974 in Woodland Hills, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Edmund Cobb. It is truly amazing.
Lee J. Cobb
(Deceased)
Lee J. Cobb, actor, was born as Leo Jacoby on December 8, 1911. He played the part of Judge Henry Garth in the popular TV Western series, "The Virginian," from 1962-66. He also appeared in "Gunsmoke" and "Zane Grey Theater".
Lee J. Cobb, on the leftCobb's first movie was "The Vanishing Shadow" in 1934. His Western credits include "North of the Rio Grande" (1937), "Rustler's Valley" (1937), "Down Rio Grande Way" (1942), "Buckskin Frontier" (1943), "The Tall Texan" (1953), "The Road to Denver" (1955), "Mackenna's Gold" (1969), "Lawman" (1971), and "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing" (1973).
Lee J. Cobb died on February 11, 1976. He was buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery (Garden of Shemot Lot 421) in Los Angeles, CA.
CLICK NOW to see the complete filmography of Lee J. Cobb.
James Coburn
James Coburn, actor, was born on Aug. 31, 1928 in Laurel, Neb. His role: Nick Nolte's alcoholic, abusive father in Affliction. Previous Academy honors:
Coburn studied acting at Los Angeles City College and The University of Southern California. He appeared in stage productions in both New York and California before making his first movie in 1959.
His Western movies included "Ride Lonesome" (1959), "Face of a Fugitive" (1959), "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), "Waterhole #3" (1967), "The Honkers" (1972), "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973), "The Last Hard Men" (1976), "Young Guns II" (1990), and "Maverick" (1994). His made-for-TV Westerns included "The Cherokee Kid" (1996), "Ben Johnson: Third Cowboy on the Right" (1996).
In 1999 James Coburn won an Oscar as "Best Supporting Actor" for his role in the movie "Affliction" (see photo).
James Coburn died of a heart attack in Beverly Hills, California on Nov. 18, 2002.
CLICK HERE to see James Coburn's complete filmography.
Walt Coburn
(Deceased)
He was born in Montana, the son of early pioneers who came into the Territory of Montana in 1863 and established the Coburn Cattle Company on Beaver Creek in the valley east of the Little Rockies. Following the sale of the ranch, he and his brothers moved to a ranching operation near Globe, Ariz.
Coburn served in the air service branch of the signal corps in California during World War I. And it was in 1922, while a life guard at the Del Mar, California, beach that he received his first check for a published story (It took him two years and lots of rejection slips to make that $25 sale.) He went on to write for a dozen or more Western pulp magazines, and to write several books. His books included Barb Wire (1931) Guns Blaze on Spider Web Range (1958), Branded, La Jornada and The Way of a Texan. (See his photo & bio in the April, 1955 issue of The Roundup.)
Buffalo Bill Cody
(Deceased)
William Frederick Cody was born in LeClaire, Iowa on February 26, 1846. And he hit the ground running. By the time he was 15, Cody had worked as a bullwhacker, a mounted messenger, a trapper, a gold prospector and a Pony Express rider.
In spring of 1859, Buffalo Bill made his first trip to Colorado as part of the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. He passed through the new town of Denver on his way to the gold fields near Black Hawk where he searched for gold for two months, meeting with little success. On his return to Kansas he stopped in Julesburg, Colorado, where he was recruited to ride in the Pony Express. Most of his time with the Pony Express was spent in Kansas, although occasionally he traveled across northeast Colorado. The Pony Express route did not go to Denver but cut north into Nebraska and Wyoming.
He served 18 months in the Civil War as a scout for the 7th Kansas Cavalry. Following the Civil War, Cody briefly operated a hotel, drove a stage, and hunted buffalo for a railroad company. His skill as a buffalo hunter earned him his famous nickname, "Buffalo Bill."
However, it was his work as a scout that propelled him into fame and prosperity. By 1870 several novels ("dime novels") gave glowing and highly exaggerated accounts of his bravery and expoits on the wild Western frontier. In 1872 he was given one of this nation's highest awards, a Medal of Honor.
On Dec. 17, 1872 Buffalo Bill Cody began appearing on stage as himself doing a little acting with fellow scout "Texas Jack" Omohundro in "The Scouts of the Prairie," a play written by Ned Buntline, the dime novelist. Cody was just 26.
The following season Cody organized his own troupe, the Buffalo Bill Combination. The troupe’ show "Scouts of the Plains" included Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack, and Cody’s old friend "Wild Bill" Hickok.
Then, for a period, Cody went back to his work as a scout. On July 17, 1876, just three weeks after Custer and the 7th Cavalry met disaster at Little Big Horn, Buffalo Bill had his most famous encounter. Cody led a squad of soldiers and scouts in a reckless charge on a group of Cheyenne Indians. Cody himself fought hand-to-hand with Cheyenne sub-chief Yellow Hair. He killed the Indian leader and took "the first scalp for Custer." This event had an electrifying affect on the American people.
In one action Buffalo Bill Cody, the Indian fighter, had validated Buffalo Bill Cody the actor. And his life moved from legendary to a mythical level.
In 1883, Cody created his own traveling vaudville show called "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show". It was an outdoor spectacle, designed to both educate and entertain, using a cast of hundreds as well as live buffalo, elk, cattle, and other animals.
And he used real cowboys and cowgirls, recruited from ranches in the West. At first, few people shared Cody's admiration of the cowboys. Most people regarded them as coarse cattle drivers and used the term "cow-boy" as an insult. But by the end of the 19th century, the cow-boy became the much more popular "cowboy," thanks in large part to the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. The Show demonstrated bronco riding, roping, and other skills that would later become part of public rodeos.
The Wild West Show went to England in 1887 to be the main American contribution to Queen Victoria’s "Golden Jubilee" celebration. "Buffalo Bill’s Wild West" was the hit of the celebration, visited by nobility, commoners, and by Queen Victoria herself. The show was credited with improving British and American relations. "Buffalo Bill’s Wild West" rose to international fame and returned two years later to tour the European Continent.
Today there is a lot of confusion about the relationship between Buffalo Bill and the Indians. Cody treated his former foes with great respect and dignity, giving them an opportunity to leave the reservation and represent their culture when many were trying to destroy it. Wild West show posters frequently portrayed the Indian as "The American."
Buffalo Bill stated in 1885 that "The defeat of Custer was not a massacre. The Indians were being pursued by skilled fighters with orders to kill. For centuries they had been hounded from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again. They had their wives and little ones to protect and they were fighting for their existence." These are not the words of an arrogant and bloodthirsty Indian killer, a manner in which he is sometime incorrectly portrayed.
Buffalo Bill Cody had a great love and concern for people, particularly children. Many free passes were distributed to orphanages when the Wild West show came to town. He also was a champion of women’s rights, advocating equal pay and voting rights for women. The women in his show received comparable pay for comparable work to the men in the show.
While he traveled around the world, he made his home in the tiny town of North Platte, Nebraska (his home and barns are now open to the public).
In 1908 he combined his show with Pawnee Bill’s under the title "Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Far East".
In 1912 Buffalo Bill needed financing for his show and went to Harry Tammen of Denver for a $20,000 loan. In 1913 the combined show arrived for a Denver performance date at the time the $20,000 loan was due. To their surprise the show was seized by the sheriff’s and held to pay off the $20,000 debt. Since Cody did not have that much cash available at the time and Tammen would not extend the loan, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Far East was sold off at auction in Denver. Continuing to use the debt as leverage, Tammen then forced Buffalo Bill to appear in Tammen’s Sells-Floto circus. It was clear that had been his objective all along. In 1915, Buffalo Bill finally got out of his coerced agreement with Tammen.
Buffalo Bill never retired, even though he had hoped to do so. He did two years of farewell performances while his show was combined with Pawnee Bill’s in 1908 but discovered at the end of the second year that he could not retire. Growing personal debts due to bad investments left him with little to retire on. Even after Cody left the Sells-Floto circus, his financial situation kept him performing with other wild west shows.
In 1917 Buffalo Bill Cody went to Denver to visit his sister, and he died of uremic poisoning on January 10, 1917. On June 3, 1917, Buffalo Bill was buried on Lookout Mountain, a promontory with spectacular views of both the mountains and plains. His wife, Louisa, who had married Buffalo Bill back before he became famous, was buried next to her husband four years later. Both graves are now within the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum in Golden, CO.
CLICK HERE to go to the official page of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum in Golden, CO.
CLICK HERE to go to the official page of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.
CLICK HERE to read the complete autobiography of Buffalo Bill Cody, posted online.
Iron Eyes Cody
Iron Eyes Cody did a "Keep America Beautiful" public service announcement in 1971 in which he shed a tear as he looked at a junky environment. That PSA became the most successful and long-running in TV history. "It is certainly funny how things work out," Cody wrote in his autobiography. "Here I’d struggled in the movie business all my life … and just as I get into the big time … I become recognized as the Indian who cried in a TV ad. The Great Spirit moves in mysterious ways."
(NOTE: One source says that he was actually of Italian descent and was born as Oscar DeCorti on April 3, 1907 in Gueydan, Louisiana. I lean toward the information below. But I would be glad to hear from someone who has some inside scoop.)
Cody’s father, Thomas Longplume Cody, had been in Buffalo Bill Cody’s touring cowboy and Indian show. He raised cattle, too. And when a film crew showed up at the family’s Oklahoma ranch in 1919 and offered to pay cash to use it to shoot scenes in a movie, Thomas Longplume agreed. Later, invited by Hollywood moviemakers to work in westerns, Thomas Longplume and young Iron Eyes moved to Hollywood.
In Hollywood the Codys became general contractors for the new genre of westerns. They amassed a collection of Indian costumes and artifacts that they rented out to moviemakers. They acted in movies and wrangled extras to portray Indians. They served as technical advisors, helping moviemakers produce "authentic” Indians". Thomas Longplume soon dropped out of Hollywood, a casualty of alcohol.
In the 1920's and 1930's Iron Eyes Cody seems to have worked with every star and director in westerns. He helped create the Hollywood image of the savage Indian who is opposed to the upright, civilized white man. When the covered wagons were circled, it was Cody’s trained horses that galloped by and then tripped in an explosion of dust as the mounted brave fell. It was Cody’s costume the brave was wearing. It was Cody’s whoops that sent chills down the pretty white woman’s spine. Iron Eyes Cody was a prize-winning marksman with a bow and arrow, and it was his arrow that pierced the upright’s settler’s hat (the pierced actor would be wearing a protective iron skull cap that Cody stocked for such shots).
Iron Eyes Cody and Stan Paregien visit during the
Western Writers of America Convention in San Diego,
California in 1988.He found plenty of time for bad behavior in real life too, mixing it up with movie star pals like John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, and just about everybody else who ever strapped on a pair of spurs before a camera. His accounts of booze-sodden womanizing with these stars are a feature of his biography, Iron Eyes: My Life as a Hollywood Indian. It was Cody who shot an arrow through W.C. Fields’ top hat in a famous scene from "My Little Chickadee". After the cast party for that movie, Fields treated Cody to a night at a Mexican brothel.
Early on Cody had married Bertha (Birdie) Darkcloud, a Seneca Indian and the daughter of the anthropologist Arthur C. Parker. She died in 1978 and he remarried.
During WWII, he quit Hollywood and found work as a shipyard welder. After the war he returned to the movies, working with directors like Cecil B. Demille and John Ford on many of the classic late westerns. He met Howard Hughes while working on "The Outlaw," the first western that was sold solely on the basis of sex. It starred Jane Russell. Hughes, a designer of aircraft, created a special aerodynamic garment for her heaving breasts. Cody retained a dislike for Hughes, who forced the dignified Cody to retrieve Hughes’ golf balls at a driving range.
By the 1950's Iron Eyes Cody was settling down and becoming more of a family man and a defender of his people. Cody got involved in the nascent Native American movement. He became a stickler for authenticity in the portrayal of Indians. He became relatively faithful to his long-suffering wife, who bore him two sons. He became an authority on Indian culture, building up his "Moosehead Museum" of artifacts based in part on his movie prop collection. He boasted that it was the largest private collection of Indian artifacts anywhere. He wrote a book on Indian sign language that became a text for the Boy Scouts. He introduced one of his sons to peyote and publicly defended its religious use in Native American ceremonies. He also worked for Walt Disney on a number of serials, including Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.
Iron Eyes Cody insisted that Indians should spurn separatism from American culture, while still retaining their ethnicity. He appeared as an Indian in several Bob Hope films and also in a Bowery Boys number. His career continued into the 1980's, with appearances in "A Man Called Horse" (1970) and "Ernest Goes to Camp" (1987).
By the time the "Crying Indian" PSA for Keep America Beautiful appeared, Cody was offended at all stereotypes of Indians whether as a brutal savage, a noble innocent, or a humorless stone wall. He insisted that Indians were diverse, fascinating people who deserved dignity and were given a raw deal in America.
Iron Eyes Cody appeared in nearly 100 films, starting in 1919. Here is just a sampling of his Western movies: Texas Pioneers (1932), Figting with Kit Carson (1933), Rustlers of Red Dog (1935), Ride Ranger Ride (1936), Wild West Days (1937), Wild Bill Hickok (1938), Union Pacific (1939), Kit Carson (1940), Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942), Under Nevada Skies (1946), The Paleface (1948), Tulsa (1949), Cherokee Uprising (1950), Fort Defiance (1951), The Big Sky (1952), Son of Paleface (1952), Sitting Bull (1954), The Great Sioux Massacre (1965), A Man Called Horse (1970) and Greyeagle (1978).
Iron Eyes Cody died on Jan. 4, 1999 at the age of 94. He was buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (Abbey of the Psalms, Sanctuary of Memories, crypt 3301), in Hollywood, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Iron Eyes Cody.
Mason Coggin
(Deceased)
Mason Coggin, author, was born in 1938. Mason was once Director of Mines in Arizona and was important in southwestern mining, cowboy, and historical circles for many years. He was a talented reciter of the works of respected mine and ranch poets.Mason Coggin and his wife, Janice, published books under the name of Cowboy Miner company.
Mason Coggin died in November, 2000. His obituary in the Sierra Vista(AZ.) Herald said: "Mason was a man who loved life and enjoyed people. He was quick on the draw with a greeting, a smile, sometimes a joke, and, most likely, a poem. If you knew him, he called you a friend, and when he did, you knew he meant it."
Don Coldsmith
Dr. Don Coldsmith, author and physician, was born in 1926. He was a combat medic in World War II, where he helped care for such notable war prisoners as Japanese Premier Tojo and General Homma. He is a former Congregational minister, gunsmith, YMCA youth director and grain inspector.
He went on to study medicine and interned at Bethany Hospital in Kansas City from 1958 to 1959. Then he moved to Emporia, Kansas and set up his private medical practice. Dr. Coldsmith closed his private medical practice in 1988 to devote more time to his writing career. He currently works part-time in the Emporia State University student Health Center, and he is a lecturer in the English department of the University.
He is the author of a syndicated newspaper column, "Horsin' Around" and sold two books based on that column: Horsin' Around (1975) and Horsin' Around Again (1971). He has also written the "Spanish Bit Saga" series for Doubleday, including Trail of the Spanish Bit (1980); Buffalo Medicine (1981); The Elk-Dog Heritage (1982); Follow the Wind (1983); Man of the Shadows (1983); Daughter of the Eagle (1984); Moon of Thunder (1985); The Sacred Hills (1985); Pale Star (1986), The River of Swans (1986), Return to the River (1987). Bantam Books acquired the reprint rights of all his books in 1986. And the one-millionth copy of his books rolled off the press in 1988. Early in 1989, Bantam notified Coldsmith that he had become the most widely published and best known living Kansas writer.
He has written over 150 magazine articles, and his syndicated newspaper column "Horsin' Around", begun 1972, now has a total circulation of about 250,000 readers.
In June of 2003, the Western Writers of America bestowed the Owen Wister Award on Don Coldsmith. That award, the highest honor the group offers, is given annual to a living wrter for lifetime achievement in contributing to the depiction of the historical West.
Coldsmith is a past president of WWA (1983-84). He and his wife conduct a small ranching operation outside Emporia and have raised cattle and Appaloosa horses. They have five daughters.
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.
You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning;
my God turns my darkness into light.
--- Bible: Psalm 18:28
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
