Stan Paregien, Editor
Page M - 4
Chris-Pin Martin
(Deceased)
Chris-Pin Martin, actor, was born Ysabel Ponciana Chris-Pin Martin Piaz on Nov. 19, 1893 in Tucson, AZ. He made nearly 100 films (mostly Westerns) during a career that stretched from 1927 to 1953. He was best known for playing sidekicks like Pancho in "The Cisco Kid" and Gordito in the "Zorro" films of the 1940's.A sampling of Chris-Pin Martin's Western credits includes The Gaucho (1927), The Cisco Kid (1931), Outlaw Justice (1932), The California Trail (1933), Rawhile Mail (1934), The Bold Caballero (1936), Zorro Rides Again (1937), Stagecoach (1939), Return of the Cisco Kid (1939), The Mark of Zorro (1940), Lucky Cisco Kid (1940), The Ox-Box Incident (1943), King of the Bandits (1947), and his last film, Ride the Man Down (1953).
Chris-Pin Martin died of a heart attack on June 27, 1953 in Montebello, CA. He is buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery ( Avenue 25, Lot 46, Grave 12 )in Los Angeles, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Chris-Pin Martin.
Dean Martin
(Deceased)
Dean Martin, actor and singer, was born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917 in Steubenville, OH. He worked at such odd jobs as a prize-fighter, steel mill laborer, gas station attendant and a card shark before finding his way onto the stage.He formed a comedy-singing act with comedian Jerry Lewis, and by 1946 they made the first of several movies in which they starred. That team broke in 1957.
Dean Martin in "Rio Bravo"His Western film credits included Rio Bravo (1959), Four for Texas (1963), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)(, Texas Across the River (1966), Rough Night in Jericho (1967), Bandeolero! (1968) and one episode of the TV Western, "Rawhide."
Dean Martin died of acute respiratory failure on Dec. 25, 1995 in Beverly Hills, CA. He is buried in Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Dean Martin.
Charles M. Martin
(Deceased)
Charles M. Martin was born on Dec. 25, 1891 in Cincinnati, Ohio. By the age of 17, he was busting broncs for the T-O Connected ranch in southern California. He also sold paint products in China and Japan, was a cowboy singer in vaudeville, and worked as a rodeo announcer in such places as New York City's Madison Square Garden to San Francisco's Cow Palace.Chuck Martin began his writing career by penning some 300 stories about Chicago's bootleggers, then he turned to Westerns. In the depression days of the 1930's he kept six pen-names going and pounded out a million words a year, usually for 1/2 cent per word. He wrote at least 70 novels.
In the August, 1956 issue of The Roundup, the editor cites a recent letter in Writer's Digest revealing an incident in Martin's life. It seems that in 1935 Martin was very ill. He loved to swim, but had to give it up on doctor's orders. One day he was sitting down on the beach and heard three young children screaming. He looked toward the ocean and saw that the children were caught in an undertow and were being swept out to sea. Disregarding his own health, he dove into the surf and pulled two of the nearly drowned youngsters to safety. The third child did drown.
The author of the letter, a Michael Lange, said: "Now I know that Chuck Martin never talked about this incident after it was over. I don't know if he ever got a medal for it. If he did, he probably put it away and never intentionally looked at it again. To him this was not a fete of personal courage but rather a human thing to do. The children never forgot the courage and the humanness that this man had shown that day, and they have tried to live by those principles in their daily lives. Everyone has probably forgotten this heroism after all these years,maybe the only ones who knew about it were the people of the small town. But the children have never forgotten it. I know that I will never forget it, because I was one of the little boys he pulled from the ocean floor that day."
On page 16 of the Oct., 1954 Roundup there is this line: "A note from Lew Holmes referring to the passing of Chuck Martin: `A great old guy has moved away from the last campfire.' " (See his photo in the Aug., 1956 issue.)
Douglas D. Martin
(Deceased)
Dougas D. Martin was born in Benton Harbor, Mich. on Sept. 9, 1885. He began his newspaper career as a 15-year-old typesetter for the Benton Harbor News Palladium. He became managing editor of the State Journal in Lansing, Michigan nine years later. In 1916, he became city editor of the Detroit News and served as military correspondent for that paper during World War I. He joined WWA in 1961 and served one term as WWA's promotion manager.In 1921, Doug Martin became the Sunday editor of the Detroit Free Press. From 1938 to 1945 he was managing editor of that paper. He won two Pulitzer prizes for his reporting. Martin, suffering from arthritis, retired from the newspaper business in 1945 and moved to Tucson, Ariz. And in 1946 he became a journalism professor at the University of Arizona. In the summer of 1947 he worked on the Tombstone Epitaph. And from that experience came his first book, Tombstone's Epitaph.
Douglas D. Martin's second retirement came in 1956, but then he poured his energies into researching and writing books such as Yuma Crossing, The Earps of Tombstone, Silver, Sin and Sixguns, The Lamp in the Desert, The Adventures of a Young Mountain Man and An Arizona Chronology: 1846 to 1912.
Douglas D. Martin died in his sleep at his home in Tucson, AZ. on Sept. 26, 1963.
Kat Martin
Kathleen Kelly Martin was born on June 14, 1947. She married Larry Jay Martin on April 20, 1985. She holds the A.A. degree from Bakersfield College and the B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara.Kat Martin worked as a real estate broker for 13 years. Then for two years she owned and operated an art gallery, specializing in western and southwestern art.When not writing, Kat Martin enjoys horseback riding and packing, snow skiing, and traveling.Martin wrote Magnificent Passage and Lady Joy in 1988 (both for Pageant Books). She and husband Larry collaborated on the writing of Tin Angel (Avon).
See her own web page at: www.katmartin.com
Larry Jay Martin
Larry Martin was born on Feb. 26, 1941. He was in the real estate business for many years, working as a broker, a general contractor and as an appraiser.Using the name L. Jay Martin, he wrote Tenkiller (Zebra, 1988) and Mojave Showdown (Zebra, 1988). He and wife Kat worked together to produce Tin Angel for Avon. He likes traveling, fishing, hunting, and digging for historical information that might be of interest to his readers.
Phil Martin
Phil Martin, educator and cowboy poet, tried his hand at cowboying, one summer in 1961. That took the bloom off the romance of ranch life, and he decided he better go to college. He did so, and for many years has been an English professor at Panhandle State University in Goodwell, Oklahoma.
Cowboy poets Phil Martin, Stan Paregien, Francine Robison
and Gail T. Burton at the 2000 Oklahoma Cowboy Poetry Gathering
at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
in Oklahoma City.Martin also coached the university's outstanding rodeo team for over ten years. And he was the editor of Coolin' Down: An Anthology of Contemporary Cowboy Poetry (Tulsa, OK: Guy Logsdon Books, 1992).
Ross Martin
(Deceased)
Ross Martin, actor, was born Martin Rosenblatt on March 22, 1920 in Grodek, Poland.Ross Martin grew up in New York City. He spoke English, Yiddish, Polish, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian. Somewhere along the way he decided he wanted to become an actor. His career in acting ran from 1955 to his death in 1981.
Ross Martin & Robert Conrad in
"The Wild Wild West" TV seriesHe was best known for his role of Artemus Gordon in the TV Western series, "The Wild Wild West". However, Martin had a heart attack in 1968 and the show was cancelled in 1969. He would never again be in the spotlight the way he was in this series.
Ross Martin was playing a game of tennis when he died of a second heart attack, this one on July 3, 1981. He is buried at Mount Sinai Memorial Park ( Temple Beth Hillel, Plot #3628 ) in Los Angeles, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Ross Martin.
Strother Martin
(Deceased)
Strother Martin, actor, was born on March 26, 1919 in Kokomo, IN. He was an excellent athlete, given his small size, and was particularly gifted at diving and swiming. When he was 17 Strother Martin won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship.
After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Michigan. He competed as a diving team member on the swim squad. Then when World War II broke out, he joined the Navy. They put him to work as a swimming instructor.
After the War, he tried competing in diving competitions, again. And he narrowly missed a place on the 1948 Olympic team. After that disappointment, he decided to become an actor. So he moved to southern California.
He had to eat, of course, while trying to get into films. So he turned back to his aqua experience and became a swimming instructor for the children of several Hollywood stars. And from that he eventually got bit parts requiring a good swimmer or diver. Then he moved into actual speaking roles, so that by the early 1960's audiences recognized his face--if not his name--when he was on screen.
He played the infamous prison warden in "Cool Hand Luke" (1967). It was in that film where he uttered the classic line, "What we have here is failure to communicate". He won such praise for his work in that film that he stayed busy the rest of his life.
His work in TV Westerns included guest appearances on Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Virginian, The Big Valley, The Iron Horse, A Man Called Shanandoah, The Legend of Jesse James, The Dakotas, Rawhide, The Rebel, Black Saddle, Broken Arrow, Have Gun Will Travel, Zane Grey Theater, and Frontier.
Strother Martin's work in Western movies included Drum Beat (1954), The Black Whip (1956), Copper Sky (1957), Black Patch (1957), Cowboy (1958), The Horse Soldiers (1959), The Wild and the Innocent (1959), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), McLintock! (1963), Shanandoah (1963), Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), True Grit (1969), The Wild Bunch (1969), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogan (1970), Hannie Caulder (1971), Red Sky at Morning (1971), Pocket Money (1972) and Rooster Cogburn (1975).
Strother Martin died from a heart attack on Aug. 1, 1980 in Thousand Oaks, CA. He is buried at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills;Court of Remembrance, #G62420) in Los Angeles, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Strother Martin.
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.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
let your glory be over all the earth.
--- Bible: Psalm 57:5
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
