Jack Maguire
Jack Maguire has written more than 500 articles about Texas, with sales to more than 50 different national magazines. From 1976 to 1986, he served as Executive Director of the University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures. And in that capacity, he supervised the publication of more than 30 books.Jack McGuire's own books include Talk of Texas: Amazing But True (Shoal Creek, 1981), Creative Storytelling (McGraw, 1985), Head Sharp: Step-by-Step Exercises to Develop Your Brain Power (Arbor House, 1985) A President's Country and The Governors. He often writes for Texas Highways and does a newspaper column on Texas history ("Talk of Texas") which is carried by many newspapers throughout the state. His latest book, The Capitol of Texas: The Story of a State House (Eakin Publishing), was done with researcher Mike Fowler.
Jock Mahoney
(Deceased)
Jock Mahoney was born as Jacques O'Mahoney on Feb. 7, 1919 in Chicago, IL.
By the time he went off to the University of Iowa he stood a strapping 6'4" tall. He was an excellent athlete and did well at football, basketball, and swimming.
When World War II broke out, Jock Mahoney joined the Marines. He became a fighter pilot and an instructor.
When the War ended, Jock Mahoney went to Hollywood. And, given his athletic prowess, he quickly found work as a stuntman. Soon, of course, he was getting small parts in some series. And then he began making traditional movies.
In 1949 he auditioned to become the new Tarzan, to replace retiring Johnny Weissmuller. But handsome Lex Barker won the coveted role.
That's when someone discovered that Jock Mahoney would make a great leading man in Westerns. In 1951 Gene Autry hired him to star in a new TV Western called, "The Range Rider," and teamed him with young Dick Jones. They filmed 78 episodes of these series. And he continued to make standard Western films along the way.
About that time Mahoney met actress Margaret Field. They married and that's how he came to be the stepfather of Oscar-winning actress Sally Field.
During the 1959-60 TV season Jock Mahoney starred in another Western series, "Yancy Derrigner." They only filmed 34 episodes. And by the late 1950's Mahoney had sold his saddle and left Westerns behind.
He finally got to be the 12th Tarzan since the character was created. And at age 42 he was also the oldest Tarzan. But he only made two Tarzan movies: "Tarzan Goes to India" (1962) and "Tarzan's Three Challenges" (1963). Mahoney suffered from dysentery and deneunge fever while filming the latter film in Thailand.
He appeared in some 94 movies and numerous TV shows during his career.
Here is an interesting insight from Johnny Wakely, son of singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely, about this man: "Jock Mahoney....what a great guy. He was a stuntman and then became a star playing Tarzan, Yancy Derringer, and Range Rider. He was a true man's man as they say and yet he was the sweetest, kindest man you can imagine. He was the incredible Sally Fields' stepfather. However, most of all he was my dad's buddy Jocko! Mine too. When my dad was so ill in the hospital for several weeks Jocko would come into the hospital every day and come in for a few minutes and visit. Then one day he stuck his head through the door with a mask on and said, "Hi Jimmy, hi Johnny....I have a cold so I won't come in but I just wanted you to know that I loved you and was thinking about you". How many men would get out of a sick bed and how many would say those words to another man...I love you? Not many. Such was the bond between many of the Cowboys."
Jock Mahoney died of a stroke at the age of 70 on Dec. 14, 1989, in Bremerton, WA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Jock Mahoney (aka: Jack Mahoney).
Dutis Majors
Travis "Dutis" Majors plays the drums for musical group called, The Oklahoma Company Cowboys. He lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Dutis was born and raised on a family farm in Perkins, Oklahoma and has lived in Payne County his whole life. Travis had spent a lot of his youth working all over the State of Oklahoma in the rodeo circuit for a stock contractor. Currently Travis stays busy with a full time job, his music, and helping local ranchers.
Dutis Majors has been actively drumming for the last 7 years. He played with several local top 40 Country bands, and has been involved in several studio projects in Central Oklahoma. He got hooked on cowboy music while jammin' with long time friend John Bearry.
CLICK HERE to go to the official home web site of The Oklahoma Company Cowboys.
Lee Majors
Lee Majors was born Harvey Lee Yeary in Wyandotte, Michigan on April 23, 1939. His parents each died in accidents when he was very young, so he was reared by relatives at Middleboro, KY.
Lee Yeary was a kid with a small build, but he was determined to excell in sports. So he went out for football and wound up featured in the Middlesboro Sports Hall of Fame. He became a first-line member of the Kentucky All-State High School football team, and his efforts won him a scholarship to University of Indiana.
However, unbeknowns to him he had a genetic defect (spondylolisthesis) in his spine. And during his freshman year at UI he received a football injury that paralized him from the waist down for two weeks. It was while recovering from his injury that the seventeen year old's carefree bachelor days came to end. For he met and married Karen Robinson.
Due to his back injury, Lee Yeary was kept from competing in college football for two years. It was only when he transferred to Eastern Kentucky State College, in Richmond, Kentucky that he started playing again. Lee attracted the interest of NFL scouts, in his last year at the college and was offered the chance to try out for the St. Louis Cardinals, but his earlier injury caused him to turn the offer down after seeking advice from several doctors .
It was about this time that a mutual friend introduced Lee to the actor Rock Hudson. The two men became friends, and from their meeting, Lee's thoughts turned to acting. Lee also graduated college in 1962, with a degree in both History and Physical Education, as a well as now being a qualified teacher.
However, he had the acting bug in his system. So he moved his family to Los Angeles, and became a recreation director for the L.A. Department of Parks and Recreation in North Hollywood.
It was 1964 before he stepped in front of a camera. He had a small role in "Straight-Jacket," starring Joan Crawford. Then he appeared in some episodes of the TV shows "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Gunsmoke". He also divorced during this period.
And in was in 1964 that he auditioned for the role of Heath Barkley in a TV Western series tentatively called, "Big Valley." He beat-out over 400 other actors for the part, even though he had never been on a horse.
The Barkleys of Big Valley: seated: Linda Evans ( Audra);
standing: Lee Majors (Heath ), Peter Breck ( Nick),
Richard Long (Jarrod), and matriarch Barbara Stanwyck(Victoria)
The Big Valley made a star out of the newly christened "Lee Majors". Barbara Stanwyck lead the cast as the matriarchal head of the Barkley ranch, keeping family and business going after the death of her husband. The family played a major part as pioneers of ranching and empire building, in California's San Joaquin Valley, circa 1870, and storylines ranged from basic stories of the lives and loves of the Barkley family to everyday life running a cattle ranch. The show aired from 1965-1969.
Lee Majors married Farrah Fawcett on July 28, 1973. They also divorced.
Lee Majors' Western credits also included "Will Penny," "The Cowboy and the Ballerina" (1984, TV) and another TV Western series, "The Men From Shiloh."
"Westerns can type you," Lee Majors told one interviewer. "After a while, producers forget their is an actor under that ten-gallon hat, and think of you only as a cowboy."
Of course, Lee Majors also starred in his own TV series, "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Fall Guy".
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Lee Majors.
Karl Malden
(Deceased)
Karl Malden, actor, was born as Mladen Sekulovic on March 22, 1912 in Chicago, IL. He and his family moved to Gary, Indiana when he was five.
He grew up singing, dancing and performing in Serbian folk plays. After high school he went to the Goodman Theatre in Chicago where he enrolled in school with the little amount of money that he had. That was in 1934. The professor decided to take "a gamble" on him and allow him in for a reduced fee. If he was good enough he would get a scholarship for the remaining years. That began the Karl Malden road to fame. By 1937 he was acting in theatre on Broadway in New York City.
He starred in a police drama, "Streets of San Francisco," on TV in the 1960's. His young co-star was Michael Douglas. The show ran for five years.
Karl Malden's first film was "They Knew What They Wanted" in 1940. He had roles in such Westerns as "The Gunfighter" (1950), "The Hanging Tree" (1959), "One-Eyed Jacks" (1961), "How the West Was Won" (1962), "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964) and "Nevada Smith" (1966).
Karl Malden died in 2009.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Karl Malden.
Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone, actress, was born Dorothy Eloise Maloney on Jan. 30, 1925 in Chicago, IL.
She won an Oscar for "Best Supporting Actress" for her role in "Written on the Wind" (1956). The stars were Robert Stack and Rock Hudson. Dorothy Malone (1925 - ) won her Supporting Oscar for playing the spoiled rich girl sister of Robert Stack who was trying to land Rock Hudson.
Dorothy Malone appeared in 77 movies. Her Western films included "Frontier Days" (1945), "Two Guns from Texas" (1948), "Colorado Territory" (1949), "The Nevadan" (1950), "Saddle Legion" (1951), "Tall Man Riding" (1955) and "Five Guns West" (1955).
She is probably best known by today's generation for her roles in the TV series "Payton's Place".
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Dorothy Malone.
Peggy Malone
Peggy Malone, a Colorado cowgirl, is a frequent performer at the International Music Festival of the Western Music Festival held each November in Tucson, AZ.Peggy first got her start in Denver, Colorado, in about 1965, on the KLAK Radio Station's Version of the "Grand Ole Opry". That was the "Rocky Mountain Jamoree", where she was nicknamed, "The Little Girl With The Big Voice". She appeared with such stars as Tom T . Hall, Sammy Smith, Claud King, Little Jimmy Dickens, to mention a few.
Since then, she was worked all the better Country/Western nightclubs and hotels in the Colorado area: The Brown Palace, Radisson, Stouffers, Marriot, Cherry Creek Inn (for 7 1/2 yrs. in the "Maxie's" Lounge), and The Little Bear (the Former Red Ram) in Evergreen, Colorado. "The Broadmoor" in Colorado Springs uses her for Conventions.
She has performed as the opening act for Larry Mahan, LeRoy Van Dyke, and Asleep At The Wheel. And for several years she had a bi-weekly live radio show on KMJD in Castle Rock, Colorado. Peggy had also been featured quite regularly on a Denver TV show for children called "Blinky's Fun Club".
In 1989 Peggy Malone won the KYGO "Patsy Cline Sing Alike Contest", and out of 30 contestants received a trip to Nashville.
For many years Peggy Malone has entertained for the "Chief Joseph Trail Ride", in the Northern States, sponsored by the "Appaloosa Horse Club". The weary riders would 'come alive' and dance and sing along to her music, on the portable dance floor, that was moved to a different camp site each night, as they traveled, by horseback, through the week's 100 plus miles, retracing the retreat of the Nez Perce Indians from the Cavalry. Her song "Appaloosa Running Through My Mind", has been adopted as the Club's Theme Song.
Her deep involvement in preserving "Western Music", and as a member of Western Music Association, she has performed many "Cowboy Poetry, and Western Music Gatherings", in Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Georgia, and Wyoming.
While living in Arizona in 1998 and 1999, she was a regular performer at "RAWHIDE", a western town and steak house, in Scottsdale, Az. The Arizona Horseman's Association has used her for their yearly banquet three times. In June of 2000, Peggy was a featured entertainer at the "WORLD'S FAIR, EXPO 2000", in Hannover, Germany.
Peggy also entertains for many local civic clubs, nursing homes, senior retirement centers, and schools. Currently, she is singing quite a bit for "Rimrock Adventures" of Fruita, Colorado, for their tour groups from England and other places.
Folks are pleasantly surprised, that although she usually sports a big ten gallon hat, she can handle most requests, from Patsy Cline, to Roberta Flack. From "Jambalaya", to "Scotch and Soda" and from "Old Chisholm Trail" to "Memories", from the show "Cats". This wide range of style results from many years working the "Denver Scene", on the piano bar circuit.
She has a CD called "SINGIN' A COWBOY SONG" that has 11 songs on it, five of which she has written. And her latest CD is "Pickin' Memories" with 24 songs on it, including the crowd pleasing favorite, "Appaloosa Running Through My Mind."
For further information, and bookings as a "Solo" "Duo", or "Band", please contact Peggy Malone at P. O. Box 482, Fruita, Colorado 81521. Phone: 970-858-5176 or email her at pikinpeggy.
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.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
--- Bible: Romans 12:9
© 2003--2010 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
