Charles Winninger
(Deceased)
Charles Winninger, actor, was born on May 26, 1884 in Athens, Wisc. He was born into a theatrical family, so at the age of nine he quit his formal schooling to become a part of the family's popular vaudeville act. He went from that to the Ziegfeld Follies.
From the Ziegfeld Follies, Winninger went to Broadway in New York City. He created the role of Cap'n Andy in the original 1927 production of the "Show Boat" musical. And he repeated it on Broadway in 1932 and also in the 1936 film version.
Eugene Pallette, Louise Fazenda and Charles Winninger
in the 1931 Western movie, "Gun Smoke".
Charles Winninger made over 60 movies. His Western credits includedFighting Caravans (1931), Gun Smoke (1931), White Fang (1936), Destry Rides Again (1939), A Lady Takes a Chance (1943) and Belle of the Yukon (1944).
Charles Winninger died on Jan. 27, 1969 in Palm Springs, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Charles Winninger.
Gloria Winters
Gloria Winters was born in Los Angeles and worked in show business as a child. After doing small roles, she went on to movies. She was picked to play daughter "Babs" with Jackie Gleason and Rosemary DeCamp, which won the first Emmy ever given for a TV series. "The Life of Riley" ran in 1949 and 1950. In 1951 she was cast as "Penny" in the "Sky King" television series. She later married the show's sound engineer.
The cast of the TV flying Western show, "Sky King"--
Kirby Grant, Gloria Winters and Ron Hagerthy
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Gloria Winters.
Bob Wiseman
Bob Wiseman is a frequent contributor to such magazines as The Tombstone Epitaph, American Cowboy, Wild West, Las Vegas magazine, Rocky Mountain Game & Fish, and The Roundup. He is the author of two cookbooks: Healthy Southwestern Cooking (which received a "Best of Nevada" award in 1995), and Buckskin, Bullets & Beans (Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Publishing, 1997). The latter was features the favorite recipes of many Western Writers of America members, often with quotes from their works. Wiseman also was a leader in introducing WWA members to the world of e-mail.
Gary Clifton Wisler
Gary Clifton Wisler was born in Oklahoma City, Okla. on May 15, 1950. His family moved shortly after his birth, and he was reared in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Hillcrest High School, the place where as assistant sports editor of the award-winning Hillcrest Hurricane, he sharpened the journalistic skills which were to bear fruit in future novels--47 of them to date.
G. Clifton Wisler majored in English and journalism at Southern Methodist University, where he spent four years on the staff of the SMU Daily Campus newspaper. After graduation from SMU, he taught school for 12 years, then resigned to work full-time as a writer and as a popular speaker in the Texas public school system.
His first novel, My Brother, The Wind (Doubleday, 1979), was nominated for the American Book Award in 1980 and has been translated into the German and Swedish languages. He has written more than a dozen more, including Sunrise (1982), Winter of the Wolf (Lodestar/Dutton, 1981; a Spur finalist in 1982, and a book which has been translated into the Danish, Finnish and Dutch languages), Thunder on the Tennessee (Lodestar Books, 1983; a winner of the WWA Spur Award for Best Western Juvenile Novel of 1983), The Chicken Must Have Died Laughing (1983), A Special Gift (Baker Book House, 1983), A Cry of Angry Thunder (1980), Buffalo Moon (Lodestar, 1984), The Trident Brand (Doubleday, 1982; Fawcett, 1986), Purgatory (Fawcett), Starr's Showdown (Fawcett, 1986; a finalist in the 1987 Spur competition), Antelope Springs (Walker & Co., 1986), The Antrian Messenger (1986), Texas Brazos: Fortune Bend and Texas Brazos: Palo Pinto (both for Zebra, 1987), Comanche Crossing (Paperjacks, 1987), Abrego Canyon (Fawcett, 1987), The Wolf's Tooth (Lodestar, 1987) and The Return of Caulfield Blake (M. Evans, 1987). His book, The Raid (Lodestar/Dutton, 1985), was a nominee for the 1988 Bluebonnet Award.
Other books by G. Clifton Wisler include Spirit Warrior (Zebra, 1986), High Plains Rider (Zebra, 1986; sequel to My Brother, the Wind), Thompson's Mountain (Zebra, 1987), Illinois Prescott (Zebra, 1987), This New Land (Walker, 1987), Comanche Summer (Zebra, 1987), Texas Brazos: Caddo Creek (Zebra, 1988), The Wayward Trail (Fawcett, 1988), Avery's Law (Paperjacks, 1988), Ross's Gap (Walker, 1988; was a finalist for a Spur in the "Best Western" category), South Pass Ambush (Fawcett, 1988), The Seer (Lodestar/Dutton, 1989), Sweetwater Flats (Fawcett, 1989), Prescott's Trail (Zebra, 1989), Esmeralda (Walker, 1989), The Pathfinders (Zebra, 1989), Among The Eagles (Fawcett, 1989), Lakota (M. Evans, 1989).
G. Clifton Wisler has written three books under the pen name of "Will Mclennan": The Ramseys (Berkley, 1989), Matt Ramsey (Berkley, 1989), Ramsey's Luck (Berkley, 1989).
Wisler is also deeply involved in working with Boy Scouts as an adult leader. He was an assistant scoutmaster for the 1985 National Boy Scout Jamboree, and served as contingent leader for the Mikanakawa Lodge's contingents to the National Order of the Arrow Conferences in 1983 and 1986. He annually takes his troop on a historical pilgrimage to Shiloh Battlefield in the spring and to summer camp in June. For his efforts, Wisler has received the Walker Award, the District Award of Merit and the Silver Beaver Award (Dec., 1985), the highest recognition a local Scout council can grant to a volunteer leader.
Owen Wister
(Deceased)
Owen Wister, author, was born in 1860 in Philadelphia as the son of Owen Jones Wister, a physician, and Sarah (Butler) Wister, daughter of the actress Fanny Kemble. The family was interested in arts, Wister's mother played piano and the family frequently traveled abroad. Wister attended briefly schools in Switzerland and England, and studied at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and Harvard University.
After graduating in 1882, Wister studied two years music in Paris but he gave up a musical career. He worked as a bank clerk in New York. Due to poor healt, he spent some time in the West to restore his physical well-being. In 1885 he entered Harvad Law School, graduating in 1888. Wister practiced law in his home town Pennsylvania before devoting himself to a writing. In 1898 he married Mary Channing, a cousin, and they had six children.
Wister had spent summers in the West, and on the basis of these experiences he wrote Western sketches. The first story, 'Hank's Woman,' appeared in Harper's, and launched his career as a writer. Beginning with his first encounter with Wyoming in 1854, he kept journals and notes, which were published in an edited form in WISTER OUT WEST (1958).
In 1891, after a conversation in which the author and Roosevelt discussed the literary potential of his impressions of western life, Wister began writing his stories of America's last internal frontier. They paved the way for the novel THE VIRGINIAN: A HORSEMAN OF THE PLAINS (1902). The work was dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt, and in later editions it had Frederic Remington's illustrations. This story of a modest, quiet hero, who is more comfortable with his horse than with other people, gained a huge popularity. It was later filmed by Hollywood three times, and was presented as a TV series. In The Virginian Wister created the image of the West that was heroic as well exotic.
Wister's Western stories helped to establish the cowboy as an archetypical folk hero. Like James Fenimore Cooper, Wister was a myth-maker, whose themes were later simplified by such writers as Zane Grey and Max Brand.
His success did not inspire Wister to write more Western novels, although in his short stories Wister developed the genre of cowboy fiction. In 1904 appeared PHILOSOPHY 4, a story about college life at Harvard. It was followed by LADY BALTIMORE, a novel about aristocratic Southeners in Charleston, and several works of non-fiction.
Wister's later major work was ROOSEVELT: THE STORY OF A FRIENDSHIP, 1880-1919 (1930). The biography depicted his long acquitance with Roosevelt, a Harvard classmate. Besides novels and histories Wister published books for children. Wister's collected writings were published in 11 volumes in 1928.
Owen Wister died in Kingston, Rhode Island on July 21, 1938.
For further reading: Owen Wister by D. Payne (1985); Owen Wister by J. Cobbs (1984); Owen Wister by R.W. Etulain (1973); The Eastern Establishmen and the Western Experience by G.E. White (1968); My Father Owen Wister by F.K.W. Stokes (1952) - See also: Other classic western writers: Louis L'Amour , Zane Grey , Frederick Marryat - The classical literary roots of Western epic: Homer's Odyssey, Virgil 's Aeneid.
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.
The earth is filled with your love, O Lord;
teach me your decrees.
--- Bible: Psalm 119:64
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
