Robert Duke
Robert Duke, known professionally as "Cowboy Bob," is an accomplished trick roper, whip cracker and gun spinner (all of which are considered as "wild west arts").
Robert Duke performs as "Cowboy Bob" at schools and birthday parties for thousands of children every year. He also does many corporate events for clients that come from all over to the world to see the cowboy ways of Texans. Just recently Cowboy Bob did a command performance for the President of Indonesia.
Cowboy Bob has performed for such clients as Maytag, Continental Airlines, Shell, CONOCO, and many others. He also performs at many rodeos and local festivals, such as the Deer Park Totally Texas Festival, the Pasadena Strawberry Festival, the Montgomery Wild West Festival, and the Shanghai Days Cowboy Gathering. He has been performing for the Sunshine Kids at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo Barbecue Cook-off for several years.
Robert Duke has also opened performances for various country and western entertainers such as Brooks & Dunn, Clay Walker, Tracy Lawrence, LeAnn Rimes and Martina McBride.
In 2001, 2002 & 2003 Robert Duke won the best freestyle whip cracking championship in Dallas. As an accomplished whip cracker, he also does workshops, lessons and action shots for television commercials and movies. And he not only performs his whip tricks, he also makes and sells whips.
In 2002 Cowboy Bob was on two TV spots. He also performed on the "Good Morning America" TV show, where he joked with weatherman Tony Perkins and demonstrated his trick rope skills. The producers in New York loved it so much that day that they kept part of that live segment for a Good Morning America commercial that ran for several months. Then a few months back that same highlight ran on a TV special for celebrating ABC's 50th Anniversary.
Robert Duke also does fancy gun spinning and trick shooting, often from his trick horse named Pecos. And to top it off, he performs old cowboy songs on his guitar.
Cowboy Bob has two web sites, so check them out.
Jim Dullenty
Jim Dullenty is the former editor of True West. He edits and publishes NOLA Quarterly, the official publication of the National Outlaw and Lawman Association.
John Duncklee
Arizonan John Duncklee is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, young adult books and poetry.
The Arizona Commission on the Arts recently awarded him with a $5,000 unrestricted fellowship for literary excellence. The emphasis is poetry in 1999.
After being sent to a school outside of Tucson in 1941 at the tender age of twelve, all John wanted was to be a cowboy and learn to speak Spanish. In time he accomplished both. After four years as a sailor during the Korean War, known as a "police action", he leased a ranch, bought a herd of cows and got into the cow business in the middle of the drought of the fifties. He tells this story in his book, Good Years for the Buzzards (University of Arizona Press, 1994). After fighting the drought and waiting for rain, he was able to sell out at a profit.
Coyotes I Have Known ( University of Arizona Press, 1996) is the story of his life as a buyer of Mexican steers in Sonora and as a quarter horse breeder on a ranch outside Nogales, Arizona.
In 1966 Dunckle decided to return to graduate school in geography. He received his master's degree in 1967, and then taught at the University of Arizona for a year and a half. He went from there to the doctoral program at UCLA, where he spent a year and reached dissertation stage before leaving for a job at Northern Arizona University. He wrote several scholarly papers while there and got involved with saving theSan Franciso Peaks from land developers. The result was , Land-Man Relationships on the San Francisco Peaks, a monograph that was instrumental in the victory over the developers.
John writes, "I became disenchanted with the incompetent administration at NAU and quit two weeks before the fall semester began in 1973. I moved to Tucson as a single parent with hopes to make a living as a free-lance writer. Right to move to Tucson. Wrong to think I could make a living as a writer. My first published article for money came out in the Christian Science Monitor. I was overjoyed until the check arrived. It was for $50. I found a day job selling steel buildings. I forgot about my dissertaion. I continued writing and getting published. What I thought would be a better day job, teaching at the Universisdad de Sonora in Hermosillo, lasted a year before I packed up the kids and returned to Arizona. (That is a story of political intrigue.) I started designing and making mesquite furniture in Tubac, a small arts and crafts community forty-five miles south of Tucson."
John continued to write and sell his articles. He finally began writing full-time, turning over the furniture business to his youngest son. At the Western Writers of America convention in El Paso, he told the editor from Northland Publishers about a bedtime story he had told his youngest son when he was in the first grade. The editor bought Quest for the Eagle Feather and it came out in May of 1997. He now has a contract with The Fiction Works for an audio script from this young adult novel. And he has finished the sequel, Forced Journey.
Genevieve of Tombstone is a novel he sold at the 1998 WWA convention to Don D'Auria, editor of Leisure Books in New York. They will publish it in November 1999. He has also sold another novel, Graciela of the Border, to Leisure Books. They plan publication in 2000. And he sold the electronic rights to Where Grasses Once Grew to The Fiction Works who will format it for an ebook.
John shares these insights about Western writing: "I think that PATIENCE, PERSISTENCE, and PROFESSIONALITY are the three P's essential to the writing life. Regardless of the number of books or articles on one's list of published works, the learning process continues on a daily basis. If not, the result is stagnation and stagnation is for swamps. Things a writer must realize include: You are creating with your craft; you are at the bottom of the publishing industry food chain because you are among millions who write for a now handful of publishing houses; if a piece is well-written, it will eventually find an editor."
John's e-mail address is: zopilotee@theriver.com
Make John's day by checking out his personal website : Click Here
Jim Dunham
Jim Dunham, actor and fast draw expert, has performed in several movies, including Tombstone. Using his Colt 45's, he can draw and shoot in less than .12 of a second. That's about the proverbial "blink of an eye". As an actor, storyteller and artist, Jim is a well-rounded performer who appeals to all ages.
Jim lectures on Western History and is much sought after for his portrayals of historic characters such as Mark Twain and Charles M. Russell. This compliments his job as director of special projects at the Booth Western Art Museum in Carterville, Ga. The museum is a premiere collection of Western and Civil War art, movie posters and a Presidential Gallery.
Jim Dunham performs across the United States in "Trails Plowed Under", an evening with Charles M. Russell. In character as the famous painter, Jim speaks with the audience as he paints a reproduction Russell painting. He is accompained by Doc Stovall, who sings and recites cowboy poetry. The production delights audiences and has received critical acclaim.
For information on this production, contact JimDunham (770-607-8870) or Doc Stovall (770-948-7750).
Tracy Dunham
Her article (and her photo), "The Achilles-Patrokles Relationship in Westerns," appeared in The Roundup (April, 1985), 14-15. She is a graduate of Hollins College and the University of Richmond's T.C. Williams School of Law. She has practiced law in Richmond since 1976. She is the author of Morgan's Island (Walker and Co., 1983).
Michael Dunn
(Deceased)
Actor Michael Dunn was born Gary Neil Miller at the hospital in Shattuck, Oklahoma on Oct. 24, 1934. His parents were Fred and (Hilly) Miller, who lived in nearby Fargo, Oklahoma at the time of his birth. His time in Oklahoma was brief, as the family moved to Michigan when he was only four. He was born with a form of dwarfism which greatly distorted his spine and limbs, as well as his rib cage. As an adult he only stood about 3' 10" inches tall and weighed less than 80 pounds.
Gary Miller, aka Michael Dunn, was a very smart person with a talent for music, acting and writing. He attended both the University of Michigan and the University of Miami. He became a Catholic in 1954. Early in 1958 he joined a monestary, but left later that same year. He eventually made it to the stage in New York City, and from there to Hollywood. He earned an Oscar nomination for role in the 1965 film, "Ship of Fools".
His Western credits include one guest appearance on the TV show, "Bonanza," and several episodes of "Wild, Wild West" in which he played the criminal character Dr. Miguelito Loveless.
He died of complications related to his dwarfism at his hotel in London, England on August 30, 1973. He was there working on another movie role. He was buried in Lauderdale Memorial Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Sources: Sherry Kelly (a cousin of Michael Dunn), Big Life of a Little Man: Rememberances of Michael Dunn (Mustang, Oklahoma: Tate Publishing, 2010) ; Wikipedia; The Internet Movie Database.
James E. Dunwoody
James E. Dunwoody holds A.A. and B.A. degrees from Los Angeles City College, and he received his M.A. from Azusa Pacific College. He held a number of "uninspiring" jobs before working three years at Technicolor Studio in Hollywood. Then he spent two years as a counselor at juvenile hall with the San Diego County Probation Department.
He was a high school teacher, mainly teaching English and home economics (cooking) at Palm Middle School in Lemon Grove, Calif. The courses in cooking evolved from his hobby of cooking. James E. Dunwoody writes under the name of Quint Wade and has two books to his credit, Colter and Kenyon, both published by Signet's New American Library in 1988.
Charles Durham
Charles Durham was born in north Central Texas in 1989. He moved to Kansas in 1946 to attend school, and he's been there ever since. He and his wife have four children. Durham's novel, The Last Exile (Ballantine, 1989), is set in the 1700's.
Dr. Floyd Durham
Dr. Floyd Durham is a professor of economics at Texas Christian University. He raises cattle and Arabian horses. He holds a certificate in Ranch Management. And he is the author of, Trinity River Paradox: Flood and Famine. He and Donald F. Hoffmeister wrote Mammals of the Arizona Strip Including Grand Canyon National Monument (Museum of Northern Arizona, 1971).
Dan Duryea
(Deceased)
Dan Duryea, actor, was born on January 23, 1907 in Ithaca, NY. He attended Cornell University, then during the early 1930's he worked in advertising. He also had an interest in acting.
By the late 1930's he was appearing in stage productions on Broadway in New York City. He was short, weighed only 155 lbs., and had a fairly high-pitched voice. But he found a niche for himself playing low-life, malicious and sometimes psychopathic characters on both the stage and in the movies. In fact, realizing his destiny to be a character actor rather than a lead actor, he set as his goal "to be the meanest S.O.B. in the movies". And most would agree he went far toward achieving that goal.
He performed in 70 films during his 47 year career. Duryea a consumate professional, quickly learning his lines and doing whatever he could to keep the filming schedule under budget and on time.
Dan Duryea in 1952 starred in a TV series titled "China Smith, and it ran through 1955.
His Western films included "Black Bart" (1948), "Winchester '73" (1950), "Al Jennings of Oklahoma" (1951), "Ride Clear of Diablo" (1954), "Silver Lode" (1954), "Night Passage" (1957), "Gundown at Sandoval" (1959), "Six Black Horses" (1962), "Along Came Jones," "He Rides Tall" (1964), and "Taggart" (1965).
Dan Duryea married Helen Bryan on April 15, 1932. The couple had two sons: Peter, born July 14, 1939, and Richard, born July 14, 1942. The Duryeas were married 35 years before Helen died from a heart ailment on January 21, 1967.
Dan Duryea died of cancer on June 8, 1968. His remains are at Forest Lawn Cemetery(Hollywood Hills; Morning Light, Lot 7383) in Los Angeles, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Dan Duryea.
Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall, actor and songwriter and singer, was born on Jan. 5, 1931 in San Diego, CA. His father was a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. And from San Diego the family moved to Fairfax County, VA. His mother was an amateur actress, and two of his brothers had some success as singers.
He went to college at Principia College in Illinois, where he did better in sports than he did in the classroom. That is, until he discovered drama classes. He received a degree in theatre from Principia. And he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Korea for two years (this was during the War there).
Upon his discharge, he moved to New York City and used the benefits of the G.I. Bill to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. During this time he shared an apartment with his older brother and four other young, hungry actors. One of them was a guy named Dustin Hoffman.
With that training as a base, Robert Duvall went on to become one of the most respected actors in the world. He has played a wide range of roles, from killers to preachers, and each time used his acting skill to hide himself and reveal the character he played.
Robert Duvall made his first film playing Boo Radley, the spooky neighbor of lawyer Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962).
Duvall spoke one of my favorite lines in any Western movie. It happened in "True Grit" (1969) when he played outlaw Ned Pepper and faced off against none other than hero John Wayne. As a marshal, Wayne was by himself and faced Duval and his men across a meadow. He wore a patch over one eye and, being late in his life and career, he carried quite a bit of weight. When John Wayne challenged Duval and his outlaws to get ready to die, Duval laughs wickedly and yells, "I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man."
CLICK HERE to hear that great line.
He won an Oscar as "Best Actor" for his role as down-and-out country singer Mac Sledge in "Tender Mercies". What most people don't know is that he wrote the songs that he sang in that movie. In 1997 he received a nomination for "Best Actor" for "The Apostle". Amazingly, he wrote the screenplay, produced it with his own money, directed it and starred in the movie. Not a bad day's work by any standard.
Certainly his best Western role to date was as Gus McCrea in the smash-hit TV mini-series, "Lonesome Dove" (1989). He also starred in "Broken Trail".
Robert Duval lives in an apartment in New York City. But he spends as much time as he can at a 200-acre farm he owns in Virginia.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Robert Duvall
Ann Dvorak
(Deceased)
Ann Dvorak, actress, was born Anna McKim on Aug. 2, 1911. She was a direct descendant of United States Vice President Calhoun (1825-32). Her father was Samuel McKim, an actor and director, and her mother was an actress named Anna Lehr.
Dvorak was a 5'4" brown-eyed dance instructor and occasional chorus girl when she made her first film in 1929. Billionaire eccentric Howard Hughes took her under his wing and she graduated to bigger roles during the 1930's.
During World War II, with then-husband Leslie Fenton, she made a two movies in England. And in between, to help the war effort, she drove an ambulance for a time. She went back to Hollywood in 1945.
Ann Dvorak's Western credits included Ramona (1916), Way Out West (1930), Flame of the Barbary Coast (1945), Abilene Town (1946) and The Return of Jesse James (1950).
Ann Dvorak died in Honolulu, Hawaii on Dec. 10, 1979.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Ann Dvorak.
Robert H. Dyer, Jr.
Robert H. Dyer, Jr., is an engineer by profession. He has written several articles for National Tombstone Epitaph and for various poetry anthologies.
J. C. Dykes
Jeff Dykes was born on July 20, 1900 at Dallas, Texas. He received his B.S. degree from Texas A&M. He married Martha L. Reed on Aug. 1, 1923. He was a high school teacher and coach from 1921-29, then served as a professor of agricultural education at Texas A&M from 1929-35. From 1935 to 1965, he worked for the Soil Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, in Washington, D.C.. He was a dealer in Western Americana from 1965-85, and since has been a Western book scout.
J.C. Dykes' articles have appeared in Corral Dust, Journal of Range Management, The America Book Collector, The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Dime Novel Round-up, The Chicago Westerner Brand Book, The Denver Westerns Brand Book, Bookman's Weekly, The Trail Guide, Persimmon Hill.
Jeff Dykes' books include Billy the Kid: The Bibliography of a Legend (Albuquerque, 1952), High Spots in Western Illustrating (Kansas City, 1966), with O.C. Fisher, King Fisher (Norman, 1966), Law on a Wild Frontier (Washington, D.C.), My Dobie Collection (Bryan, Tx. , 1971), with J. Frank Dobie, 44 and 44 Range Country Books (Austin, 1971); Fifty Great Western Illustrators (Flagstaff, 1975); I Had All The Fun (College Station, 1978); Collecting Range Life Literature (Bryan, Tx. 1982); Rare Western Outlaw Books (Albuquerque, 1985).
Dykes has been a member of Western Writers of America since 1953 (see David Dary's article, "The Old Bookaroos," in the Sept., 1978 issue of The Roundup.) He is also a member of Western History Association, Texas Historical Society, Texas Folklore Society, Kansas Historical Society, Patomac Corral of the Westerners, Zane Grey West Society, Little Bighorn Associates, Friends of the Sterling C. Evans Library of Texas A&M, Associates of the National Agricultural Library.
He won the Western Heritage "Wrangler" award for the outstanding western non-fiction of 1975-76 for Fifty Great Western Illustrators. Texas A&M University named him its distinguished alumnus in 1984. He served as president of Westerners International from 1980-81.
Be sure to check out Stan Paregien's other web site,
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.
The Lord is my light and my salvation---
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life---
of whom shall I be afraid?
---- Bible: Psalm 27:1
© 2000-2010 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
