Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he became best known.
Robert Dean Stockwell was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films including Anchors Aweigh (1945), Song of the Thin Man (1947), The Green Years (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), The Boy with Green Hair (1948), and Kim (1950). As a young adult, he had a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and 1959 screen adaptation of Compulsion; and in 1962 he played Edmund Tyrone in the film version of Long Day's Journey into Night, for which he won two Best Actor Awards at the Cannes Film Festival. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his starring role in the 1960 film version of D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers.
Theodore Childress "Chill" Wills was an American actor and a singer in the Avalon Boys quartet.
The Cowboys is a 1972 American Western film starring John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Bruce Dern, and featuring Colleen Dewhurst and Slim Pickens. It was the feature film debut of Robert Carradine. Based on the 1971 novel of the same name by William Dale Jennings, the screenplay was written by Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank, Jr., and Jennings, and the film was directed by Mark Rydell.
Ramrod is a 1947 American Western film directed by Andre DeToth and starring Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Preston Foster and Don DeFore. This cowboy drama from Hungarian director DeToth was the first of several films based on the stories of Western author Luke Short. DeToth's first Western is often compared to films noir released around the same time. Leading lady Veronica Lake was then married to director DeToth. The supporting cast features Donald Crisp, Charles Ruggles, Lloyd Bridges and Ray Teal.
Rawhide is an American Western TV series starring Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood. The show aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959, to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965, until December 7, 1965, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes. The series was produced and sometimes directed by Charles Marquis Warren, who also produced early episodes of Gunsmoke. The show is fondly remembered by many for its theme, "Rawhide".
Sergeants 3 is a 1962 American comedy/Western film directed by John Sturges and starring Rat Pack icons Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. It was the last film to feature all five members of the Rat Pack, as Sinatra would no longer speak to or work with Lawford following the abrupt cancellation in March 1962 of a visit by Lawford's brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, to Sinatra's Palm Springs house.
Cattle drives were a major economic activity in the 19th and early 20th century American West, particularly between 1850s and 1910s. In this period, 27 million cattle were driven from Texas to railheads in Kansas, for shipment to stockyards in Louisiana and points east. The long distances covered, the need for periodic rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to the development of "cow towns" across the frontier.
Western Union is a 1941 American Western film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Robert Young, Randolph Scott, and Dean Jagger. Filmed in Technicolor on location in Arizona and Utah. In Western Union, Scott plays a reformed outlaw who tries to make good by joining the team wiring the Great Plains for telegraph service in 1861. Conflicts arise between the man and his former gang, as well as between the team stringing the wires and the Native Americans through whose land the new lines must run. In this regard, the film is not historically accurate; Edward Creighton was known for his honest and humane treatment of the tribes along the right of way and this was rewarded on the part of the Indians by their trust and cooperation with Creighton and his workers. The installation of telegraph wires was met with protest from no one.
Gold of the Seven Saints is a 1961 American Western film adaptation of a 1957 Steve Frazee novel titled Desert Guns. Released by Warner Brothers, the 88-minute film starred Clint Walker, Roger Moore, Letícia Román, Robert Middleton, and Chill Wills. It was directed by Gordon Douglas, who had earlier directed Walker in 1958's Fort Dobbs and 1959's Yellowstone Kelly. Leigh Brackett wrote the screenplay and Joseph F. Biroc provided the black-and-white photography, most of which was shot in and around Arches National Park in Utah. The film did not do very well at the box office.
The Virginian is a 1946 American Western film directed by Stuart Gilmore and starring Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Sonny Tufts, and Barbara Britton. Based on the 1902 Owen Wister novel of the same name, the film was adapted from the popular 1904 theatrical play Wister had collaborated on with playwright Kirke La Shelle. The Virginian is about an eastern school teacher who comes to Medicine Bow in Wyoming and encounters life on the frontier. The film is a remake of the 1929 movie with Gary Cooper and Walter Huston. There have been several versions of the story, beginning with a 1914 film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and including a 1960s television series that bore little relation to the book other than the title. The film was originally distributed by Paramount Pictures, and is currently owned by EMKA.
John Smith was an American actor whose career primarily focused on westerns. He had his leading roles in two NBC western television series, Cimarron City and Laramie.
Buffalo Bill is a 1944 American Western film about the life of the frontiersman Buffalo Bill Cody, directed by William A. Wellman and starring Joel McCrea and Maureen O'Hara with Linda Darnell, Thomas Mitchell, Edgar Buchanan and Anthony Quinn in supporting roles.
Stars In My Crown is a 1950 Western film directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Joel McCrea as a preacher whose faith tames an unruly town by inspiring the townspeople to change. It was based on the 1947 novel of the same name by Joe David Brown.
Tumbleweed is a 1953 American Western film directed by Nathan Juran and starring Audie Murphy, Lori Nelson, and Chill Wills. It was also known by the alternative title of Three Were Renegades; the title of the 1937 novel Three Were Thoroughbreds by Kenneth Taylor Perkins the film was based on.
Red Canyon is a 1949 American Technicolor western film directed by George Sherman and starring Ann Blyth, Howard Duff and George Brent. It was based on the 1917 novel Wildfire by Zane Grey.
Gun Glory is a 1957 American Metrocolor Western film directed by Roy Rowland starring Stewart Granger and Rhonda Fleming.
Gun for a Coward is a 1957 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Abner Biberman and starring Fred MacMurray, Jeffrey Hunter and Janice Rule. The film also stars Josephine Hutchinson as MacMurray's mother, despite being less than five years his senior.
The Outriders is a 1950 American Western film directed by Roy Rowland and starring Joel McCrea.
Ride the Man Down is a 1952 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane, written by Mary C. McCall, Jr., and starring Brian Donlevy, Rod Cameron, Ella Raines, Forrest Tucker, Barbara Britton, Chill Wills and J. Carrol Naish. The film was released on November 25, 1952, by Republic Pictures.
