Fuller, Crawford, and Grey Flannel

In my continuing passion for finding extras in old movies, here’s an interesting connection between favorites Robert Fuller and Johnny Crawford.  They were both extras in The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1956) starring Gregory Peck.  Fuller appears as a soldier in a scene at a field medical station.  This scene also features DeForest Kelley; both actors went on to play well-known television doctors.   Johnny Crawford plays a boy in Italy delivering a box of groceries.  His older brother, Robert Crawford Jr, co-starred in Laramie with Fuller three years later.

Robert Fuller in The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit

Robert Fuller in The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit

Johnny Crawford in The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit

This entire movie is on YouTube.  Crawford’s moment is at 0:29:50, and Fuller appears at the 0:49:45 mark.

Happy Birthday, Chuck Connors

Chuck Connors was born on this day in 1921.  He starred in my favorite TV western, The Rifleman, with Johnny Crawford and Paul Fix.  Connors passed away in 1992, but The Rifleman and the character he created are as popular as ever.  There’s even a reboot of the show in development, but Connors left some awfully big shoes to fill.   For his fans, Chuck Connors will always be the definitive Lucas McCain.

(click for larger, sharper version)

Related posts:  Happy Birthday, Cowboys!    The Rifleman

Happy Birthday, Cowboys!

Today, The Ugly Bug Ball celebrates two birthdays.

My grandfather was born on this day in 1909.  He wasn’t actually a cowboy.  He was a National Park ranger.   Still, I love this photo of him in a jaunty cowboy hat.

My grandfather in the early 1960s

It’s also Johnny Crawford’s 66th birthday.

Johnny Crawford

He’s best known for playing young Mark McCain on The Rifleman, which everybody knows is my favorite western.  Mark was never seen celebrating his birthday on the show, so I got silly in photoshop to change that.

A Birthday Party at the McCain Ranch (click to see larger, sharper version)

Happy Birthday,  Grandpa John and Johnny!

Rest in Peace, Joan Taylor

Actress Joan Taylor passed away on Sunday at the age of 82.  She played store owner Milly Scott in seasons 3 and 4 of The Rifleman.  As a love interest for widower Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors), she brought mature intelligence and warmth to this classic western.

Joan Taylor on The Rifleman with (clockwise from top) Chuck Connors, Johnny Crawford and Paul Fix

The Elusive Billy Hughes

I’ve spent the last three months doggedly pursuing my goal of watching all 168 episodes of The Rifleman (1958-1963).   With the help of a good friend willing to DVR and send along various episodes, I am down to just one (Heller).  I will be sad when there are no new ones left, but at least the episodes are worth watching repeatedly.  That’s why the series has been in continuous syndication for over 49 years.  I now appreciate the character actors who worked in the classic westerns of the period, and I’m fascinated by several of them.  I’m starting here with the youngest.

Billy E. Hughes Jr. (November 28, 1948—December 20, 2005) was a young actor whose father and uncle were both stuntmen in Hollywood.  Hughes was a small but sturdy boy who was cast in his first movie partly because he could carry a large dog (Ole Rex, 1961).  After a bicycle accident, a broken front tooth made him look like a real kid, so it became part of his distinctive appearance.  Hughes was an emotive, natural actor with an interesting blend of vulnerability and grit.  He had guest roles in many television series and did a handful of movies, mostly low budget productions involving other members of his family.   Hughes appeared in three episodes of The Rifleman in the later seasons: Long Gun from Tucson, Day of Reckoning, and most memorably, The Sidewinder.  He was also in three episodes of Gunsmoke: Milly, Reprisal, and Us Haggens, the episode that introduced the character of Festus (Ken Curtis).

Hughes may have found himself in the business because of his family, but he came to believe that he was born to act.  After a leading role in My Six Loves (1963) with Debbie Reynolds, many more offers starting coming in, and his career was set to take off.  Sadly, his family was going through difficulties, and Hughes was sent to live with his grandmother.  She wanted to get her grandson away from everything Hollywood, so she refused jobs on his behalf and threw away the scripts that were sent.  By the time Hughes was old enough to make decisions for himself, it was too late.  The entertainment business has a very short attention span, and most child actors are unwanted once they grow up.  Billy Hughes found satisfaction in his adult life from raising his son, but he acknowledged in an interview that he suffered from depression and a lack of direction.  He died in his sleep at the age of 57.

I refer to him as elusive because his work is so hard to find.  His three episodes of The Rifleman are not included in the 50 shown on hulu.com, and only a clip from Long Gun from Tucson is currently available on YouTube.  Only one of his movies, Stakeout!, is available on DVD, and it has serious quality issues.  Ole Rex is almost impossible to find in any form, although lobby cards can be found occasionally for sale on ebay.  I have not been able to find any of his other television appearances besides the three Gunsmoke episodes, which are all available on YouTube.  When I watch Billy Hughes in what little there is see, I can’t help wondering what he might have achieved if he’d been allowed the chance.

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Other links:

Gunsmoke:  Milly (part one)   Reprisal (his one scene in part two)   Us Haggens (part one)  The other parts of each episode are linked to these.

Stakeout! (clips only)

The Law and Mr. Jones:  part 1     part 2

Wagon Train: The Eli Bancroft Story  part 1  (addition parts linked to first one)

IMDb page    wikipedia page      in memoriam page      riflemanconnors.com page

Note: In the book Growing Up On The Set by Tom and Jim Goldrup, the episode from The Rifleman which is described in the interview with Hughes is misidentified as Day of Reckoning.  It was actually Long Gun from Tucson, directed by Joseph H. Lewis.  The scene with Johnny Crawford is shown in two stills in the slideshow above.

Update: See the comment section for a link to a Lassie episode on YouTube.  Also, My Six Loves pops up on YouTube in various forms, often to disappear again.  Other new links are being added above, as I discover them.

Sweepin’ The Clouds Away

I’ve been listening to my Johnny Crawford Orchestra CD, Sweepin’ The Clouds Away, an album of vintage dance band arrangements from the 20s and 30s.  I decided to learn more about the bands and orchestra leaders that Johnny Crawford mentions on his facebook page, since I’d never heard of most of them.  I love the old photographs from that era, so I was inspired to put together this little video.  It’s much better viewed at YouTube, in full screen mode.

 

Photoshop: Before and After

I’m always mentioning what I do in photoshop.  It’s time for a little demonstration.  Here are some before and after versions.  I don’t usually save the originals once I’ve done corrections, so putting this together was a challenge!  I use version 7, which is old but effective.  How these look on your computer will depend on your screen and how it is balanced, but hopefully the “afters” will be much improved.

Here’s an example of cropping and improving contrast:

Hadley Fraser and cast in The Phantom of the Opera

No matter how good a movie looks on DVD, the stills can always be better.  The original here was a few seconds before the one I used in my post for A Little Princess:

Liam Cunningham as Prince Rama in A Little Princess

I enjoy working with images from The Rifleman, because there’s no worry about color balancing.  It’s fun to restore the contrast, but I have to be careful not to wash out the lighter parts.  It’s also fun to remove unwanted elements using my favorite tool, the clone stamp:

Johnny Crawford in The Rifleman (The Pet, season 1)

Old family photos fade.  With my Epson scanner, I can scan them and restore the color and contrast quite a bit:

Christmas Party, 1970 (I'm on the far right in red)

I’m certainly no expert at photoshop, but I have a great time learning new tools and techniques.  As I learn, I’m tempted to go back and fix the images in older posts, especially since getting a new laptop with a different screen.  I just have to resist the urge!

My Year End Wrap Up 2011

Another year comes to a close, so now it’s time to reflect back over what entertained me in 2011.  I just looked at the wrap up from last year, to get an idea of how far I’ve come in twelve months.  It’s clear that my focus has shifted in two directions.   I spent a large part of this year with my head in London, after watching the 25th anniversary concert of Les Misérables in March.  I also headed back to the past in a big way, once I started watching RetroTV and MeTV during a summer of unbearable television on the big networks.   These two obsessions have a major influence on my best and worst list of 2011.

Best Books:  Most of the novels I liked this year were written for children and teens.  I particularly enjoyed Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool (the 2011 Newbery Award winner) and Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John.  Guitar Boy by MJ Auch and Countdown by Deborah Wiles weren’t perfect, but they each stayed with me long after reading.  My favorite non-fiction book was The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, which managed to make the periodic table interesting to someone who barely paid attention to science in high school.  The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan was a little book filled with some gems, and it goes into the “hard to categorize” category.  The funniest books were Demitri Martin’s This is A Book, and Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz & David Hayward.  The biggest disappointments were The Sherlockian by Graham Moore and The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz.  The lesson here is to give up on Sherlock Holmes in books and stick to the BBC.

Best Television:  The Big Bang Theory remains my favorite sitcom, just for being consistently funny.  The best line: “Let’s hurry up and watch this Star Wars blu-ray before George Lucas changes it again!” (Sorry for the paraphrase.)  NCIS consistently underwhelmed me, and I’m can’t help wondering if I’ll give up on it soon.  In spite of my declaration to boycott Masterpiece on PBS, I still watched and enjoyed Downton Abbey, Rufus Sewell as Aurelio Zen, Jason Isaac as Jackson Brodie, and the Inspector Lewis mysteries.  I spent my summer wrapped up in the old series Da Vinci’s Inquest, and my winter has been dominated by reruns of The Rifleman.  Overall, the television program with the biggest impact this year was the Les Mis concert on PBS.

Best Twitter:  Last year, Matthew Gray Gubler was my favorite tweeter.  He’s still whimsical and original, but now most of his tweets are links to his tumblr page.  I hate tumbr, so this is a big strike against him.  Sorry, Gube.  West End performer Hadley Fraser can be great on twitter, but he goes quiet for long stretches.  Ramin Karimloo tweets with sincerity, but all those tattoo photos freak me out!  Matt Lucas, Josh Groban and Yigit Pura have been consistently entertaining, and Shah Rukh Khan’s twitter feed has a good balance of the personal and professional.

Best Movies:  I did slightly better than last year getting out to see new films on the big screen.  I really enjoyed X-Men: First Class, The Descendants, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.   I’m not sure The Phantom of The Opera 25th Anniversary simulcast even counts in this category!  At the Frameline Film Festival, I enjoyed Kawa and Spork.  I have many more late 2011 films to see on DVD when they’re released in 2012.

Best DVDs:  I watched a lot of bad DVDs this year, just because they featured actors that I liked.  I really need to get over this habit!  While not necessarily bad, I endured a lot of fighting and CGI in movies like Thor, Captain America, and Centurion, just so I could see actors Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth, JJ Feild, and Michael Fassbender.  I tried to watch all ten Best Picture Oscar nominees on DVD, but I faltered at 7½.  I did love The King’s Speech.  I hate to admit it, but I think my most entertaining DVD experience this year was re-watching JJ Abrams’ Star Trek with a friend.

Best Streaming:  Da Vinci’s Inquest and The Rifleman on hulu were great, even though I was also watching these series on broadcast television.  The worst: when Netflix split their charges for DVDs by mail versus streaming.  I tried a month of streaming only.  It was a disaster.  Nothing I wanted to watch would play without long pauses to reload.  Now that I’m getting DVDs only, the Netflix site doesn’t tell me what is available streaming only.  Netflix, you’ve got a long way to go before you win back my trust.  One free DVD rental for Christmas isn’t enough.

Best Theatre:  Les Mis and The Phantom of the Opera, obviously, even though I didn’t see either show live in an actual theatre.  I had some fun at San Francisco’s BATS Improv, especially seeing their Spontaneous Broadway.

Best Music:  I’ve spent most of my time listening to Josh Groban, Hadley Fraser, Sheytoons (Hadley Fraser and Ramin Karimloo), and Johnny Crawford.   Another favorite is the song Electricity from Billy Elliot (the stage musical).  Still, nothing beats Hadley Fraser singing Again.  The worst music this year?  Whatever was playing in the trailer for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  Gack.

Best Music Video:  It really doesn’t count, but I can’t help it.  I love Josh Groban Sings Kanye West Tweets.

Best Entertainment News:  Following the news from London about West End performers from the Les Mis concert has entertained me at least as much as the concert itself.  It brought me new friendships with fellow fans from all over, and it kicked off the practice of having guest bloggers here at The Ugly Bug Ball.  If I’m blogging less about the West End, it’s only because things are pretty quiet right now.  2012 promises some guest reviews of Ramin Karimloo as Valjean.

Entertainer of The Year:  Last year was easy.  This year, it’s difficult to choose.  Johnny Crawford is great, but he came along late, at the end of November.  I blogged the most often about Hadley Fraser.  He provided me with a rich variety of entertainment, between the Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera performances, the online news and tweets, the music recordings and the YouTube videos.  Still, Ian Tracey beats Fraser out for sheer volume.  Tracey has been working steadily since he was a teenager, and even without an online presence (no tweets, fansites, or facebook page) he provided me with the most hours of entertainment.  I’m going to have to declare a tie between Hadley Fraser and Ian Tracey.  Congratulations, guys.  There’s no prize, but you get my sincere thanks.  I’m sorry I can’t promise you my exclusive loyalty, because there’s always going to be a Johnny-Come-Lately waiting in the wings!

Hadley Fraser as Grantaire in the Les Mis concert; Ian Tracey as Adam Worth in Sanctuary

Next: What I’m excited about in 2012.  Happy New Year, everyone!

Television Actors Who Sing

Every time I write about music here at The Ugly Bug Ball, I feel insecure.  I’ll confess to anyone who will listen that music is practically a foreign language to me.  You’ve been warned before, but here we go again!

I collect music performed by television actors.  I don’t do it on purpose.  It just sort of happens, but there’s no disputing the evidence.  It’s sitting right there on my shelf, a testament to either blind faith or questionable taste.   I have been happily surprised by some of albums I’ve purchased, disappointed by others.  Here’s a sample.

I’ve shared my affection for The Partridge Family in an earlier post.  This was the first album in my collection.  I usually start with a greatest hits compilation, and if I like it, I will then seek out other albums. I got this CD in 1990, and now it’s on my mp3 player.  I have most of The Partridge Family LP records, and I like to play them when I’m doing housework.  There’s nothing like a little bubblegum pop to make the work more fun.

I got this CD a few years back when Leif Garrett was in the news for his various problems with drugs.  I didn’t listen to his music in the 70s, unless he was performing a song as a guest star on a television series I happened to be watching.  My interest as a fan came earlier in his career, when he starred in a very short-lived 1975 series called Three For The Road.  It also starred Vincent Van Patten and Alex Rocco.  I was devastated when it was cancelled.  Some of the songs on this album aren’t awful, but there’s too much disco for me to listen regularly.

When Daniel Boone was finally released on DVD, Ed Ames quickly emerged as my favorite actor on the series.  I was curious about his recording career, so I bought this collection.  It’s now one of my favorites.  What a voice!

I’ve watched every episode of Starsky & Hutch on DVD, and I still tune in on RetroTV when there is only reality TV on the other channels.  David Soul’s Don’t Give Up On Us (Baby) was impossible to avoid in the 70s.  I hadn’t heard most of the other songs on this collection.  Some of them I like, some of them I don’t.  With mp3s, you can pick and choose when you add them to your computer and mp3 player.  That’s what I’ve done with this album.

I’ve been a fan of Sal Mineo since I was in junior high.  He is better known for his movie roles, but he did make many television appearances.  I didn’t know until recently that he had some recordings as a singer.  I have to confess, this is the least played album in my collection.  I don’t know if it’s me or the recordings, but I can’t recommend Sal the Singer.

We’re finally into the 21st century!  Last year, I started watching General Hospital to see Jonathan Jackson as Lucky Spencer.  I also started listening to his indie band, Enation.  World in Flight is still my favorite album by these guys.  It seems that every album they release is very different from the one before, making it hard to describe them with any accuracy.  I can recommend this one, and my favorite songs are still Everything is Possible and Permission to Dream.

And now we’re back to the early sixties.  There’s no hiding my current obsession!  Since getting into The Rifleman, I’ve been exploring the recordings of Johnny Crawford.  It took me a couple of listens to get used to the style from this era.  Now I’m hooked.  My favorite song is probably The Girl Next Door.

To stay current with Johnny Crawford, I have to go back to an even earlier era.  These days, the Johnny Crawford Dance Orchestra is based in Los Angeles, playing mostly at private functions and Hollywood events.  The music is vintage arrangements from the 20s and 30s.  This album (the only orchestra one so far) is available through Amazon, CD Baby, and iTunes.  I wasn’t sure I would like this as much as his teen recordings from the sixties, but I’m really enjoying these tunes, especially the title track.

So, that’s a little glimpse at my music collection.  Tell me about yours!  Got any television actors that I missed?

Have Gun Will Travel

After posting about The Rifleman twice this month, I promised one of my loyal subscribers that I’d also do one for Have Gun Will Travel, starring Richard Boone as gunslinger-for-hire Paladin.  It is cheating, since this episode guest stars Johnny Crawford from The Rifleman, and he’s the focus of the screencaps I made.  Still, it’s a interesting Christmas episode called The Hanging Cross, written by Gene Roddenberry, and it’s available on DVD (season 1, disc 3).

Paladin helps a bitter father communicate with his young son who was abducted by Indians years before, and he helps to keep peace between the father and the tribe of Pawnees who consider the boy their own.  All this and Christmas, too!

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Mark McCain

I’ve been neglecting things here, what with the holidays and my obsession with The Rifleman.  I’ve been busy over in photoshop making a Christmas video for friends and family, a project that’s replacing my usual paper Christmas card.  I’m also making a couple of videos for Christmas presents.  Last but not least, there might just be a video tribute to The Rifleman and my favorite character, Mark McCain, played by Johnny Crawford.  Here’s a teaser.

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Update:  Here’s my video tribute on YouTube, where it shall remain as long as the copyright demons allow.  Of course, it won’t be very interesting to anyone who isn’t familiar with The Rifleman, or for those who watch the show for the rifle!

Update:  And yet another video, because I had too many good images for just one.

The Rifleman

The Rifleman comic book (from Johnny Crawford's facebook page)

My latest discovery after re-scanning for television channels is MeTV.  Like RetroTV, it’s a station that shows old shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  MeTV airs more half hour sitcoms that RetroTV, and the programming is 24 hours, instead of a combination of paid programming and old shows.   I’ve been watching The Mod Squad, Gunsmoke, Columbo, The Big Valley, Cannon…but what I’ve been enjoying the most is The Rifleman.   With 12 episodes available to watch each week, it’s easy to get lost in this classic.

The Rifleman aired for five seasons from 1958 until 1963.  Of the 168 episodes made, only 50 currently stream on hulu.  None of those are from the final season.  Only three episodes are currently available on DVD.  This is why watching The Rifleman on MeTV is such a treat.  I’ve come in late in the third season, but I hope to eventually see every episode.

I like to watch The Rifleman for the relationship between father Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) and his son Mark (Johnny Crawford).  Lucas says in The Spiked Rifle (season 2, episode 9): “That boy!  He’s my strength and my weakness.” This really sums up the show, since Lucas raises Mark alone while trying to protect him from every kind of danger.  I’m far less interested in how well Lucas uses his rifle, although I’d like to total up the number of people he shoots in the course of the series.  I suspect he fills up at least one cemetery in North Fork.

"Don't worry, son, there's a cure for your anthrax." (The Pet: season 1)

Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford have a special chemistry as father and son, although they look nothing alike.  This is explained away in lines like this one from The Visitor (season 2, episode 18): “You know, he does favor his mother!”  Mark McCain is a sensitive boy, and the role requires Crawford to cry often.  He also looks tiny next to 6’5” Lucas, which makes him seem even more vulnerable.  The bad guys love to threaten Mark and take him hostage, when they’re not hurting his pa while he looks on helplessly.  That is, until Pa gets the upper hand with his trusty rifle.

Johnny Crawford was one of the original mouseketeers on The Mickey Mouse Club, but during the course of the first season, quite a few of the 24 kids were dropped from the show.  That must have been devastating for those kids—the darker side of show biz.  At least Crawford was free to pursue other acting jobs, leading to The Rifleman.  He was 12 years old playing a convincing 10 when the show began.  He got to sing in a couple of episodes, and he had a fairly successful recording career as a teen.  I’ve caught up with his career on facebook and twitter, and he now has a dance orchestra based in Los Angeles featuring arrangements from the 20s and 30s.  The band sometimes travels, and since I rarely do anymore, I hope they come to San Francisco.  His music is available on Amazon, and there are some videos of his orchestra performing on YouTube.

Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain

Chuck Connors was a professional baseball and basketball player before he turned to acting.  He was great in Old Yeller, playing Yeller’s original owner who ends up trading the dog for a horny toad with little Arliss (Kevin Corcoran).  Connors was a political conservative whose good friend was Richard Nixon, and he became infamous for accidentally swearing during a live baseball broadcast in the 70s.  He died in 1992.  Connors and Crawford remained friends after The Rifleman, which isn’t surprising considering their onscreen rapport.

Many famous and soon-to-be famous actors made guest appearances on The Rifleman.  Dennis Hopper was in the pilot episode.  Other guest actors were Adam West, Sammy Davis, Jr, Michael Landon and James Coburn.  Some actors just kept coming back—Dabbs Greer appeared eight times in different roles, and Chris Alcaide made ten appearances.  So far, I’ve seen Alcaide die five times!

Chuck Connors, Johnny Crawford, and Paul Fix (Marshal Micah Torrance)

The Rifleman tells a complete story in an economical half hour.  There are only a couple of two-part episodes with longer storylines. Even with less time for commercial breaks, it’s still an impressive feat of writing, directing and editing.  These were the days before viewers became accustomed to rapid editing techniques and montages to hurry things along.

It’s fun to watch for anachronisms in The Rifleman.  The show is supposedly set in the 1880s.  The McCain house says “rebuilt by Lucas and Mark McCain in 1881.”  McCain’s rifle is a Winchester 1892.  It fires 11 rounds, but the opening credits throw in an extra, or not, depending on who you ask.  In Boomerang (season 1, episode 9) a newly dug grave has a cross with the date 1871.  In The Wyoming Story (season 3, episode 20) Lucas pulls out a wallet photo of Mark smiling, printed on thin photographic paper.  Everything I know about the history of photography makes this kind of photo unlikely for the 1880s.

Buddy Hackett in The Rifleman

Something else that amuses me is how some of the costumes are aged.  It looks like they were attacked with spray paint.  I’m still working my way through the episodes, but the most obvious example I’ve seen so far is on Buddy Hackett’s costume in The Clarence Bibs Story (season 3, episode 28).  It looks like the costumer sprayed a cartoon face on his chest!

I love The Rifleman just the way it is, and I don’t think it needs an update, just a decent DVD release.  Wouldn’t you know it?  CBS is now planning to re-make the series, since westerns seem to be making a comeback.  Except for the possibility of  Johnny Crawford appearing in some capacity, I’m pretty worried.  All I can do is wait and see.

Visit www.therifleman.net for more information, photos, and an episode guide.  Watch the show on MeTV, RetroTV, and AMC.  Beware, AMC cuts out scenes for longer ad breaks, which is frustrating.  Other fun sites to check out are www.riflemansrifle.com, and www.riflemanconnors.com, which has an active fan forum.

Update:  I knew I wasn’t the only one who thought about tallying the show’s body count.  I’m so relieved I don’t have to do this myself!