Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark, actor, was born on Dec. 26, 1914 in Sunrise, MN. He grew up in Princeton, IL. He attended Lake Forest (IL) College, where he first began acting. He graduated in 1938 and taught acting at Lake Forest.
He did not serve in the military during WW II, as he had been rejected as unsuitable for military service because of a perforated eardrum.
Widmark made his Broadway stage debut in 1943 in "Kiss and Tell". In 1947, Widmark got his big break, making film history as Tommy Udo in "Kiss of Death". He began a seven year contract with 20th Century Fox.
In 1959 Richard Widmark's hand and footprints were cast in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Widmark starred in his own TV series in 1972, "Madigan", of which only six episodes were produced.
Richard Widmark's daughter, Anne Heath Widmark, married baseball legend Sandy Koufax on January 1, 1969
Widmark ended his tenure at Fox with two 1954 westerns: Garden of Evil (with Gary Cooper & Susan Hayward) and Broken Lance (with Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner). He then became a freelance actor, with major lulls in his career.
In 1971, he headed the all-star cast of NBC’s 1971 four hour "World Premiere Movie," titled, "Vanished". He played the President of the United States whose administration is rocked by the mysterious disappearance of an advisor. Widmark won an Emmy nomination.
Richard Widmark made over 75 films, starting with "Kiss of Death" in 1947 and ending with "True Colors" in 1991. His Western films included "Broken Lance" (1954), "The Last Wagon" (1956), "The Law and Jake Wade" (1958), "Warlock" (1959), "The Alamo" (1960), "Two Rode Together" (1961), "How the West Was Won" (1962), "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964), "The Way West" (1967), "Death of a Gunfighter" (1969), "When the Legends Die" (1972), "The Last Day" (1975), "Mr. Horn" (1979) and "Once Upon a Texas Train" (1985, TV).
Devoted to the craft of acting but not to the perpetuation of a star image, Widmark maintained a low profile when not in the camera’s range. As a result, Widmark is not always given the credit he deserves as a great star and a fine actor. "I think a performer should do his work and then shut up," he told the New York Times in 1971. This Richard Widmark has done.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Richard Widmark.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
The city of De Smet, South Dakota proudly lays claim to being the hometown of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was the author of Little House on the Prairie. Laura Ingalls Wilder's other books included: By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, The First Four Years and On the Way Home.
Click here to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society web page.
Andy Wilkinson
Andy Wilkinson writes magazine articles and is a songwriter, singer, guitarist, poet, and playwright. His poems and articles have appeared in The Dry Crik Press, and in the anthology of cowboy poetry called Maverick Western Verse (Gibbs-Smith). His album, "Charlie Goodnight, His Life in Poetry and Song" (produced by Grey Horse Press, 1994) won a Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Andy Wilkinson's one-man play, "Charlie Goodnight's Last Night," featured actor Barry Corbin as Goodnight and debuted to a packed house at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in February, 1996. Wilkinson is a distant relative of Charlie Goodnight--the famous Texas Ranger, trail driver and rancher.
John Willard
John Willard is the author of Ember and His Friends on the Mountain, Adventure Trails in Montana (1964), and Game is Good Eating (1954; now in its 4th rev. ed. ).
Bill Williams
(Deceased)
Bill Williams was born Herman Katt on May 15, 1916 in Brooklyn, New York.Bill William's career in film resulted in appearances in over 60 movies, starting in 1932 with "The Last Man" and ending with "Night of the Zombies" in 1981. His Westerns included "West of the Pecos" (1945), "Fighting Man of the Plains" (1949), "The Cariboo Trail" (1950), "California Passage" (1950), "The Last Outpost" (1951), "The Great Missouri Raid" (1951), "Son of Paleface" (1952), "Rose of Cimarron" (1952), "Apache Ambush" (1955), "The Wild Dakotas" (1956), "Pawnee" (1957), "The Hallelujah Trail" (1965), "Buckskin" (1968) and "Rio Lobo" (1970).
He appeared in such TV Westerns as "Gunsmoke," "The Wild, Wild West," "Rawhide," "Laramie," "Texas John Slaughter," and "Yancy Derringer." And beginning in 1951 he starred in the series, "The Adventures of Kit Carson".
Bill Williams died of a brain tumor on Sept. 21, 1992 in Burbank, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Bill Williams.
Guinn Williams
(Deceased)
Guinn Williams was born on April 26, 1899 in Decatur, TX. His father, Guinn Williams Sr., was a politician who represented the 13th Texas Congressional District in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1922 to 1932.Young Guinn, Jr., had other interests. He played some professional baseball before his acting career. The film career of Guinn Williams, often billed as Big Boy Williams, ran from 1919 to 1961, during which he made over 200 movies---most of them Westerns.
His Western films included "Cupid the Cowpuncher" (1920), "The Vengence Trail" (1921), "The Cowboy King" (1922), "Rose of the Desert" (1925), "Heritage of the Desert" (1932), "Cowboy Holiday" (1934), "Law of the .45's" (1935), "Big Boy Rides Again" (1935), "The Vigilantes Are Coming" (1936), "The Bad Man of Brimstone" (1937), "Dodge City" (1939), "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), "Billy the Kid" (1941), "Buckskin Frontier" (1943), "Cowboy Canteen" (1944), "Song of the Prairie" (1945), "Cowboy Blues" (1945), "King of the Wild Horses" (1947), "Al Jennings of Oklahoma" (1951), "Hangman's Knot" (1953), "Massacre Canyon" (1954), "The Alamo" (1960) and "The Comancheros" (1961).
Big Boy Williams with Humprey Bogart and Errol Flynn
in "Virginia City" (1940).Big Boy Williams also appeared in these TV Western series, "Gunsmoke," "Wagon Train," "The Adventues of Rin Tin Tin," "Cheyenne," and "The Adventues of Wild Bill Hickok".
Guinn Williams died from uremic poisoning on June 6, 1962 in Burbank, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Guinn Williams, often billed as Big Boy Williams.
Guy Williams
(Deceased)
Guy Williams, actor, was born as Armand Catalano on January 14, 1924 in New York, NY.
The tall, dark and handsome Armand became a model, then received a movie contract from Universal International in 1952. His agent renamed him, "Guy Williams".
At the age of 33, with no major movie credits, Guy Williams auditioned for and managed to win the role of "Zorro" for a new Walt Disney TV series based on stories by Johnston McCulley.
Soon, Guy was slashing Z's in every corner. The Zorro merchandise roared with sales. The show was a smash hit. However, in 1959 the show was abruptly cancelled due to legal problems with ABC.
He also appeared in several episodes of "Bonanza" as "Will Cartwright". His Western films included "The Man From the Alamo" (1953), "The Last Frontier" (1956), "Zorro, the Avenger" (1960) and "The Sign of Zorro" (1960). His last movie/TV role was in 1965.
At the age of 38 Guy played the role of Miles Hendon in "The Prince and The Pauper" in 1960. In the sixties Guy would play Professor Robinson on the Science-fiction TV series "Lost in Space," which lasted for three seasons. Then he retired. He had made a few guest appearances in Argentina and was well-received. So he decided to move there, keeping a 'dual residency' status between the USA and South America.
Guy Williams died of a brain aneurysm on May 7, 1989 while living in an apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His body was not found for more than a week after his death. So his body was cremeated and the ashes were scattered near Malibu, CA.
CLICK HERE to view the complete filmography of Guy Williams.
Jeanne Williams
Born near Elkhart, Kansas, in 1930, Jeanne Williams attended school in Oklahoma and Missouri. She studied writing under Walter Campbell and Foster Harris at the University of Oklahoma and sold her first story at the age of 23. She writes children's fiction, short stories and novels with a Western setting. She is the author of more than 70 short stories and 50 novels, often writing under the names of J.R. Williams, Kristin Michaels, Deirdre Rowan and Jeanne Crecy.
While attending the Western Writers of America convention in Boulder, Colo. in 1979, she told a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, "As soon as I could print I was writing stories. I couldn't have been more than four or five when I first learned that somebody wrote those stories my mother read to me. I knew then that was what I wanted to do. I sold my first story when I was 22 and my first book when I was 27."
Under the pen name of J.R. Williams, Jeanne Williams wrote Mission in Mexico (1960), The Horsetalker (1962)--a winner of a Spur for best juvenile and a winner of the Levi-Strauss Saddleman Award as the best Western book of the year, The Confederate Fiddle (1962), River Guns (1962), Oh Susanna! (1963), Tame the Wild Stallion (1957, 1967, 1985)--a winner of the Cokesbury Bookstore Award from the Texas Institute of letters as the best Texas juvenile book.
Under the name of Jeanne Crecy, she wrote Hands of Terror (1972), The Lightning Tree (1972), My Face Beneath Stone (1975), The Winter Keeper (1975),and The Night Hunters (1975). Under the pseudonym of Deirdre Rowan, she wrote Dragon's Mount (1973), Shadow of the Volcano (1975), Time of the Burning Mask (1976), and Ravensgate (1976).
Under the pen name of Kristin Michaels, Jeanne Williams wrote To Begin with Love (1978), Enchanted Twilight (1975), A Special Kind of Love (1976), Enchanted Journey (1977), Song of the Heart (1977), and Make Believe Love (1978).
Under her own name of Jeanne Williams she wrote To Buy a Dream (1958), Promise of Tomorrow (1959), Coyote Winter (11965), Beasts with Music (1967), Oil Patch Partners (1968), New Medicine (1971), Trails of Tears (1972), Freedom Trail (1973)--a winner of a Spur from the WWA as the Best Juvenile Book in 1973, Winter Wheat (1975), A Lady Bought with Rifles (1977; sold well over 600,000 copies), Voyage to Love (1978), A Woman Clothed in Sun (1978), Bride of Thunder (1978), Daughter of the Sword (1979), The Valiant Women (1980)--won the Spur Award for adult fiction, A Mating of Hawks(1983), Cave Dreamers (Avon, 1984), The Heaven Sword (Avon, 1985),So Many Kingdoms (Avon, 1986), Texas Pride (Avon, 1987). She is a stickler for historical accuracy. Her 1988 novel, Lady of No Man's Land (St. Martin's) was a Reader's Digest Condensed Book selection.
A member of Western Writers of America since 1960, Jeanne Williams was the second woman president of WWA (1974-75). She has served as chair person of the membership committee and as a judge for various Spur categories. Carolyn Leonard wrote a profile of her in the March, 1988 issue of The Roundup.
Stanley C. Williams
Stanley C. Williams has been writing western fiction since about 1978. He and fellow Midland writer and WWA member Wayne Barton collaborated two articles for Far West magazine. And they wrote two western novels, Warhorse (Pocketbooks, 1988) and Live by the Gun (Pocketbooks, 1989).
Penelope Williamson
Penelope is the author of seven historical romances, including Heart of the West, A Wild Yearning, and The Outsider.
Ray A. Williamson
Ray A. Williamson holds the Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, where his doctoral thesis was entitled, A Study of Radial Velocities in Diffuse Emission Regions Using a Fabry-Perot Interferometer. (Try working that into a coffee shop conversation.)Ray travels and lectures extensively, both in his work of OTA and in his capacity as an archaeoastronomer studying ancient Pueblo Indian sites. When he is not traveling or hiking the canyons of southeast Utah and southwest Colorado, where he owns land, he can be found on his sailboat gunkholing in the creeks and rivers of the Chesapeake Bay.
The books which Ray A. Williamson has written that are oriented toward the West include Living the Sky: The Cosmos of the American Indian (Houghton Mifflin, 1984), Technologies for Prehistoric and Historic Preservation (Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress, 1985), and They Dance in the Sky: Native American Star Myths (with Jean G. Monroe; Houghton Mifflin, 1987).
Ray A. Williamson's articles on science, space and Indian culture have appeared in such diverse publications as Archaeoastronomy, Final Frontier, Orlando (Fla.) Sentinal--Insight, Western Folklore, Public Historian, Space World, Earth-Oriented Applications of Space Technology, Astronautics and Aeronautics, Space Solar Power Review, Smithsonian Magazine, Astronomical Journal, and Astrophysics and Space Sciences.
Foy Willing
(Deceased)
Foy Willing was born Foy Willingham on May 14, 1914 in Iredell, Texas.
He quickly became something of a musical genius. Before he was 21, he was making a very comfortable living playing his guitar and singing cowboy and country music on radio stations in New York City. His weekly income, during the years of 1934-35 (following the Great Depression) was a whopping $150 per week.
His voice might best be described as having been a rich and velvet-smooth baritone.
And he was a gifted songwriter, as well ("Texas Blues" and "No One to Cry To," for example).
Willing moved to Hollywood, California at the invitation of John Cohan to work in the booming radio business. Willing and his friend Al Sloey eventually teamed up with Jimmy Wakely as a member of Wakely's "Saddle Pals" band. But Wakely got too busy with his movie career, so Willing took over.
Foy and others, including Cottonseed Clark, injected new life into the popular Hollywood Barn Dance.
Foy Willing and Jimmie Dean (brother of B-Western movie star Eddie Dead) formed a group called "Riders of the Purple Sage" Foy's group had a sound very similar to the Sons of the Pioneers, only they did it with fewer people.
From 1943 until they disbanded in 1952, "Foy Willing's Riders of the Purple Sage" had national radio shows, hit recordings, and played themselves in B-Western movies featuring Jimmy Wakely, Monte Hale, Charles Starrett, Ken Curtis and Roy Rogers.
Foy Willing wrote over 130 songs. Willing always believed that Dale Evans had plagerized the song "Happy Trails" that he had written for their movie, "Spoilers of the Plains" (released in Feb., 1951). Evans came out with "her" version of "Happy Trails" later in 1951. It became the Rogers-Evans theme song for their TV show.
Willing later told his third wife, Sharon, "It's my copyright. I never did anything about it; they'll just have to live with it. I just wonder sometimes how they feel" (No One to Cry To, p. 80). In fact, IMBd (the movie database) gives him credit for the "original" version of Happy Trails ( see http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0932214/ ).
Sharon met Foy in 1955, when his career was definitely on the decline. She was 21 years younger than he. They lived together for about five years, then married on Nov. 6, 1966. They lived together as husband and wife for just less than two years.
The fact is that Foy Willing was an alcoholic (active, recovering or backslidden) much of his adult life. And he went to great lengths to evade income taxes, getting paid as often as possible in cash. Those self-destructive behaviors drove Sharon to leave him late in 1968, though they never divorced.
He spent the last years of his life in a state of near-poverty, living with his mother in a small apartment in Belton, Texas. He made several trips to Nashville, trying to revive his career. It was on one of those trips that Foy Willing died in Nashville, Tenn. on July 24, 1978, of a heart attack.
Sharon Lee Willing put her intimate knowledge of this talented and tormented man into a facinating book titled, No One to Cry To. With no prior writing experience, she did a credible job of pulling together information about her late husband. She offers a unique point of view, as she was first an employee of Willing, then his lover for five years, legal wife from 1966 until his death in 1978 (though they separated in August of 1968). She was his confidant and friend from 1961 on.
Readers of No One to Cry To will come away with a greater appreciation for the challenges faced by all musical road warriors. And, in particular, they will come to really know the real Foy Willing --- a man with absolutely amazing musical talents who did not achieve his full potential due to his own self-destructive habits.Oh, one more thing. You'll find my name listed three times in this book. I did a critique for her of her manuscript and supplied some information.
You may order No One to Cry To right now by going online to www.Amazon.com.
Or send $24.94 ($19.95 plus $4.99 shipping; Ariz residents add tax of $1.62) to: Wheatmark, Inc., 610 E. Delano St., Suite 104, Tucson, AZ 85705.
Though the wicked bind me with ropes,
I will not forget your law.
At midnight I rise to give you thanks
for your righteous laws.
I am a friend to all who fear you,
to all who follow your precepts.
--- Bible: Psalm 119:61-62
© 2007 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
