Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters who embodied an everyman image.
The year 1939 in film is widely considered the greatest year in film history. The ten films nominated for Best Picture at the 12th Academy Awards —Dark Victory, Gone with the Wind, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, and Wuthering Heights—range in genre and are considered classics.
Nancy Kelly was an American actress in film, theater, and television. A child actress and model, she was a repertory cast member of CBS Radio's The March of Time, and appeared in several films in the late 1920s. She became a leading lady upon returning to the screen in the late 1930s, while still in her teens, and made two dozen movies between 1938 and 1946, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic Jesse James (1939), which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone, later that same year. After turning to the stage in the late 1940s, she had her greatest success in a character role, the distraught mother in The Bad Seed, receiving a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the 1955 stage production and an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for the 1956 film adaptation, her last film role. Kelly then worked regularly in television until 1963, then took over the role of Martha in the original Broadway production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for several months. She returned to television for a handful of appearances in the mid-1970s.
The James–Younger Gang was a notable 19th-century gang of American outlaws that revolved around Jesse James and his brother Frank James. The gang was based in the state of Missouri, the home of most of the members.
Denver Dell Pyle was an American film and television actor and director. He was well known for a number of TV roles from the 1960s through the 1980s, including his portrayal of Briscoe Darling in several episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, as Jesse Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard from 1979 to 1985, as Mad Jack in the NBC television series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, and as the titular character's father, Buck Webb, in CBS's The Doris Day Show. In many of his roles, he portrayed either authority figures, or gruff, demanding father figures, often as comic relief. Perhaps his most memorable film role was that of Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in the movie Bonnie and Clyde (1967), as the lawman who relentlessly chased down and finally killed the notorious duo in an ambush.
William Albert Henry was an American actor who worked in both films and television.
Warlock is a 1959 American Western film produced and directed by Edward Dmytryk starring Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn and Dorothy Malone. The picture is an adaptation of the novel Warlock by American author Oakley Hall. The film is both set and filmed in Utah.
Thomas Coleman Younger was an American Confederate guerrilla during the American Civil War and later an outlaw leader with the James–Younger Gang. He was the elder brother of Jim, John and Bob Younger, who were also members of the gang.
Tom Tyler was an American actor known for his leading roles in low-budget Western films in the silent and sound eras, and for his portrayal of superhero Captain Marvel in the 1941 serial film The Adventures of Captain Marvel. Tyler also played Kharis in 1940's The Mummy's Hand, a popular Universal Studios monster film.
Jesse James is a 1939 American Western film directed by Henry King and starring Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly and Randolph Scott. Written by Nunnally Johnson, the film is loosely based on the life of Jesse James, the outlaw from whom the film derives its name. The supporting cast includes Henry Hull, John Carradine, Brian Donlevy, Jane Darwell and Lon Chaney, Jr.
The Long Riders is a 1980 American biographical Western film directed by Walter Hill. It was produced by James Keach, Stacy Keach and Tim Zinnemann and featured an original soundtrack by Ry Cooder. Cooder won the Best Music award in 1980 from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for this soundtrack. The film was entered into the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.
Robert Newton Ford was an American outlaw who killed fellow outlaw Jesse James on April 3, 1882. He and his brother Charley, both members of the James–Younger Gang under James's leadership, went on to perform paid re-enactments of the killing at publicity events. Ford went on to operate various saloons and dance halls in the West, before being killed – at age 30 – by Edward Capehart O'Kelley in Creede, Colorado.
Don Barry, also known as Red Barry, was an American film and television actor. He was nicknamed "Red" after appearing as the first Red Ryder in the highly successful 1940 film Adventures of Red Ryder with Noah Beery Sr.; the character was played in later films by "Wild Bill" Elliott and Allan Lane. Barry went on to bigger budget films following Red Ryder, but none reached his previous level of success. He played Red Doyle in the 1964 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Simple Simon".
Frank and Jesse is a 1994 American biographical Western film written and directed by Robert Boris and starring Rob Lowe as Jesse James and Bill Paxton as Frank James. Based on the story of Jesse James, the film focuses more on myths of The James Brothers than the real history. It originally aired on HBO.
Elliott Nugent was an American actor, playwright, writer, and film director.
Charles Wilson Ford was an American outlaw and a member of the James Gang. He was the lesser known older brother of Robert Ford, the killer of Jesse James. Charley Ford was introduced to Jesse and Frank James by Wood Hite and joined the gang in 1881 at the same time as his brother.
Jesse Woodson James was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James–Younger Gang. Raised in the "Little Dixie" area of Missouri, James and his family maintained strong Southern sympathies. He and his brother Frank James joined pro-Confederate guerrillas known as "bushwhackers" operating in Missouri and Kansas during the American Civil War. As followers of William Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, they were accused of committing atrocities against Union soldiers and civilian abolitionists, including the Centralia Massacre in 1864.
The Great Missouri Raid is a 1951 American Western released by Paramount Pictures starring Wendell Corey, Macdonald Carey, and Ward Bond, with Ellen Drew, Bruce Bennett, Bill Williams and Anne Revere in support. It was directed by Gordon Douglas and written by Frank Gruber.
