Ben Johnson
(Deceased)
Ben Johnson, Jr., cowboy and actor, was born on June 13, 1918 in Foraker, Oklahoma . His father, Ben Johnson, Sr., was a ranch foreman and a world champion roper. The annual "Ben Johnson Memorial Roping" in Pawhuska, Oklahoma is named in honor of Ben Johnson, Sr.
Ben Johnson, Jr., worked as a ranch hand making $30 a month, plus found (room and board). And in his spare time he, like his father, participating in rodeo roping contests. That is what he was doing when, in 1940, movie producer Howard Hughes hired him to take a load of horses from Oklahoma to Hollywood, California. They paid him $175 per week for being a horse wrangler for the film studio, and he decided to stay with it because that was 25 times what he made for cowboying ($9,100 per year as opposed to $360).
I was privileged to interview Ben Johnson one afternoon in May of 1986 at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Okla. He was in town that week for his annual "Ben Johnson Pro Celebrity Roping" to raise money for charity. He was a friendly, down-to-earth man who was easy to like. And he told me that his father taught him how to rope and that he had learned a few rope tricks from fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers.
Johnson became a stunt man and double for such stars as Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and Gary Cooper. And eventually he got a talking part or two.
In 1950 he was the star of John Ford's "Wagonmaster". He still wanted to win the world championship in roping, as his father had many years before. So in 1953 he took time off from the movies to hit the rodeo trail full-time. And he did win that coveted world roping championship.
He won the 'Best Supporting Actor' Academy Award for his role in "The Last Picture Show". When questioned Johnson said, "I turned down that picture three times because the script was just full of four-letter words." Finally, Johnson agreed to take the part, with the stipulation that he could rewrite his dialogue. He said with a smile, "I won the American Academy Award, the English Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the People's Choice Award, and the New York Film Critic's Award and I didn't have to say any dirty words to do it." He was later honored with a Golden Boot Award and his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Ben spent over fifty years in the motion picture business appearing in more than 300 films and television programs which include co-starring with William Holden in "The Wild Bunch", John Wayne in "Chism", "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" and television's "Bonanza-The Return". His last role, appropriately enough, was as cowboy Jason 'Big Man' Garson in "Ruby Jean and Joe", an original western movie co-starring Tom Selleck and JoBeth Williams.
On April 8, 1996, Ben Johnson went to see his mother at a retirement center near his home in Mesa, AZ. While there he had a heart attack and died. He is buried in the cemetery in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.
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Brad Johnson
(Deceased)
This Brad Johnson, actor, was born as Elmer Bradley Johnson in 1925.This Brad Johnson's Western movie credits included two movies: Outlaw Women (1952) and The Marksman (1953). He played Deputy Sheriff Lefty Craig in the "Annie Oakley" TV series (1954 ff). And he made guest appearances on such TV Western shows as Gunsmoke, Maverick, Wagon Train, Cheyenne, Death Valley Days, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Cowboy G-Men, and The Cisco Kid.
Brad Johnson died on April 4, 1981 in Burbank, CA.
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Brad Johnson
Brad Johnson, actor, was born in Arizona in 1959. In 1990 he was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world.
Brad Johnson's Western credits include "Siringo" (TV, 1994), "Lone Justice II" (1995) and "Crossfire Trail" (TV, 2001).
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Brad Johnson.
Dorothy M. Johnson
(Deceased)
Dorothy Marie Johnson was born on Dec. 19, 1905 in McGregor, Iowa. The family moved to Whitefish, Montana in 1913.
Johnson graduated from Whitefish High School in 1922, then received her B.A. in English from the University of Montana in 1928. She make quite a mark in the world of writing, but she started out very slowly. She sold a short story ("Bonnie George Campbell" to The Saturday Evening Post in 1930 and received an amazing $400. She thought her career was established and she was on the way to fame and fortune. However, she didn't make another sale for 11 years! But she was not one to give up, for which all lovers of the West are thankful.
She finally sold Saturday Evening Post a series of stories about an old maid school teacher character named Beulah Bunny. That eventually became her first published book, Beulah Bunny Tells All. She worked for 15 years as a magazine editor in an office in New York City, selling regularly to Argosy, Colliers, Cosmopolitan and other major magazines.
But when she could stand city life no longer she returned to her beloved hometown of Whitefish, MT. in 1950 to serve as the news editor of the Whitefish Pilot. Three years later she accepted a job as manager of the Montana Press Association and moved to Missoula, where she also taught writing at the University of Montana on a part-time basis. But in 1967 illness forced her to give up both jobs.
However, she kept on writing. And writing. She produced more than 100 short stories. Her books include children's fiction (Farewell to Troy, Greece: Wonderland of the Past and Present), Westerns, crime and mystery. Some of the titles are Beulah Bunny Tells All (1942), Indian Country (1953), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Hanging Tree, and A Man Called Horse (1970; Ballentine,1973). The last three, of course, were made into major movies.
Dorothy Johnson also wrote Famous Lawmen of the Old West (1963), Greece, Wonderland of the Past and Present (1964), Farewell to Troy (1964), Flame on the Frontier: Short Stories of the Pioneer Women (1967), Warrior for a Lost Nation (1969), Western Badmen (1970), Montana (1971), The Bedside Book of Bastards (with Dr. Robert Turner; 1973), Buffalo Woman (1977), All the Buffalo Returning (1979), To Find A Blessing (Dorrance, 1980), The Bloody Bozeman (Mountain press, 1983), The Hanging Tree & Other Stories (Ballantine, 1985) and her last book, When You and I Were Young Whitefish.
A tribute to Dorothy M. Johnson in the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune for Nov. 13, 1984 said, "Besides being a prolific and descriptive writer, Johnson was an enchanting storyteller at coffee with friends or as a public speaker. Often the stories she told were on herself." Benjamin Capps noted that she sometimes self-deprecatingly referred to herself as "The Wicked Witch of the West, or "The Rose of the Rockies," or "Probably Loveable Old Eccentric."
In 1952, Dorothy Johnson was named Montana's Outstanding Professional Woman of the Year. In 1956, she won a Spur Award from WWA for her short story, "Lost Sister". In 1961, the received a University of Montana Distinguished Service Award. And in 1973, the University of Montana bestowed its highest honor on her by presenting her with an honorary doctor's degree. In 1976, WWA named her as the recipient of the Saddleman Award denoting her outstanding contributions to the history and legend of the West. In 1978, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center bestowed upon her the Wrangler Award when Buffalo Woman was named the outstanding western novel of the year.
In 1982, Dorothy M. Johnson received the H.G.Merriam Award (he had been her English teacher at the University of Montana) for Distinguished Contributions to Montana Literature. Jack Schaefer, the author of Shane, once described Johnson as "one of the few writers whose authenticity, integrity, sheer vigor and excitement were helping to build a body of true literature about the American West."
Steve Smith of the Daily Missoulian called Johnson a "witty, gritty little bobcat of a woman" and WWA charter member Bill Gulick said of her, "When it came to writing a story, she could hold her own, and more, with the best of them. She was even better at telling a story verbally, as I'm sure many WWA members will recall from the Carson City, Nevada, Convention in 1975.
"She was not a woman who needed to be liberated by legislation; she was born liberated, and never changed."
Perhaps that last point is best illustrated by her letter to the editor of The Missoulian in which she protested the city's clumsy attempt to avoid sexist advertising. She wrote, "The city of Missoula advertised for applications for the position of Ward 5 `alderperson.' This nicety makes me gag. There is nothing wrong with the last syllable of `alderman' except to persons who just can't get their minds off sex. Sometimes I worry about the huperson race. (Signed) Dorothy M. Johnson, a woperson."
Dorothy M. Johnson suffered from Parkinson's disease and other illnesses for two years before dying at her home in Missoula's West Rattlesnake Valley, on November 11, 1984. Her remains were cremated and the ashes were interred in Whitefish Cemetery, next to her long-widowed mother.
Dorothy Powers, associate editor of the Spokesman-Review (Spokane,Wash.) and a personal friend of Johnson's, noted in a column written about her friends death that Johnson had requested that the inscription on her grave marker read simply, "Paid". Johnson had said, "God and I know what the means, and nobody else needs to know."
However, Powers concluded her tribute by saying, "My personal opinion is that Dorothy Johnson meant she had done her best to live a life that left nothing owing the world for her time and space in it.
"Even in death, she was--as always--accurate.
"But she was much too modest.
"That marker really should read: `Accounts Receivable.'
"For this world is greatly in her debt--for laughter and literacy and love of life." (See her obituary in the January, 1985 issue of The Roundup and an article Benjamin Capps wrote about her in the February, 1985 issue.)
Dr. Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson is a highly successful humorist, author and international motivational speaker. Not too bad for a kid who was told he was born with a below average I.Q. and believed it for many years.
As a youngster, little Mike Johnson earned far more F's than A's. After somehow making it through high school, he tried his hand at the rodeo circuit. One night he found himself hundreds of miles from home and dead broke. He lay awake that night worrying that if he did not win the next day's calf roping he would have no money to feed himself and no money to feed his horse.
The next day what he had feared came true. He did not place in the calf roping and he had absolutely no money in his pocket.
"It took me missing that loop and not having enough money to feed my best friend to make me realize that there was another way to go," he says. And he adds, "Thank God for teachers."
He reshaped his thinking, got into college and with the help of some exceptional educators actually graduated. And he went on to receive a Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology from Texas A & M University. Nope, not too bad for the kid with the low I.Q.
Michael Johnson is a member of the National Speakers Association and of the Oklahoma Speakers Association. He is a member of the board of the OSA. He writes a regular column in five monthly publications, including the magazine published by the National Rural Water Association.
Dr. Michael Johnson is a former professional rodeo cowboy, a former university professor, and has worked in upper level management in industry.
The author of four books, Michael Johnson's titles include The Most Special Person; Cowboys and Angels; Susie, The Whispering Horse; and Tad Pole and Dr. Frog.
Michael Johnson has been a featurer speaker/performer at Disney World; at the National Rural Water convention in Albuquerque, NM; at the Oklahoma Family Physicians convention; at the National Livestock Producers convention in Omaha, NE; at the Ft. Worth Stock Show; at the National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock, Texas; and at Jim Fay's Summer Love & Logic Institute in Golden, CO., just to name a few.
Some of Michael Johnson's favorite and most popular topics are "How to Go from F's to A's," "The Rainmaker . . .," "Lessons From My Horse," and "How We Truly Help Other Human Beings".
You may contact him at Michael Johnson Productions at 1-580-286-7784. Right now he hangs his stetson on a rack down near Rt. 1, Box 234, Idabel, Oklahoma 74745.
Joan Johnston
Johnston is an attorney. She also teaches Media Law, Ethics, and Speech, TV and Screen Writing at Barry University. She is the author of these books for Pocket Books: A Loving Defiance (1985), Colter's Wife (1986), Frontier Women (1988), Comanche Woman (1989) and Texas Woman. She has lectured at several writers' conferences.
Terry C. Johnston
(Deceased, 2001)
Terry C. Johnston was the author of Carry the Wind (Jameson Books), which won the Medicine Pipe Bearer's Award in 1983, and the sequels, Border Lords (Jameson Books, 1985)and One-Eyed Dream(1988). His "Son of the Plains Trilogy" includes Long Winter Gone (1990), Seize the Sky (1991), Whisper of the Wlf(1991). His "Jonah Hook Trilogy" includes Cry of the Hawk(1992), Winter Rain (1993) and Dream Catcher(1994).Johnston's "Plainsmen series" incudes Sioux Dawn (1990), Red Cloud's Revenge (1990), The Stalkers (1990), Black Sun (1991), Devil's Backbone(1991), Shadow Riders (1991), Dying Thunder (1992), Blood Song (1993), Reap the Whirlwind(1994), Trumpet on the Land (1995), A Cold Day in Hell(1996), Wolf Mountain Moon, The Fires of Heaven(1998). His "Titus Bass" series includes Dance on the Wind (1995), Buffalo Palace (1996) and Crack in the Sky(1997).
Terry Johnson's books may be found on the Internet at : Terry Johnston.
For many years he published a magazine for his fans, WinterSong, at P.O. Box 50594, Billings, MT 59105.
William W. Johnstone
Johnstone is the author of more than a dozen novels for Zebra, including A Crying Shame (1983), The Devil's Kiss (1981), The Sanction (1981), The Initiation (1982), The Last of the Dog Team (1981), The Uninvited (1982), Wolfsbane (1982), The Devil's Heart (1983), The nursery (1983), Out of the Ashes (1983), Anarch in the Ashes (1984), Fire In the Ashes (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985).
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 through his e-mail address.
If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
--- Jesus the Christ (Bible: Gospel of John 14:23)
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.