Between 1950 and 1956 Hugh O’Brian had work in about 20 Westerns. Though these are from the Golden Age of WesternsI confess that I haven’t seen most of them. I recognize Vengeance Valley(1951) and Broken Lance( 1954). Colin – over at Riding the High Countryblog (https://livius1.wordpress.com/) is an expert on Westerns from the 40’s and 50’s and could likely have some information on some of them.
Amazingly, except for TV work, Hugh made next to NO Western films
between 1954 and 1990!
Except for one:
The Western Classic: The Shootist
But Hugh’s big break came in 1955 when he was offered the role of
Wyatt Earp in:
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
TV Series (1955–1961)
Next:
Hugh O’Brian – Not your average Cowboy Pt 3 The Shootist / 1976
“I believe every person is created as the steward of his or her own destiny with great power for a specific purpose: To share with others, through service, a reverence for life in a spirit of love.” – Hugh O’Brian
Hugh O’Brian
Hugh Charles Krampe (April 19, 1925 – September 5, 2016)
Not Your Average Cowboy
By the time he graduated from high school, he had lettered in football, basketball, wrestling and track. Originally pursuing law, he dropped out of the University of Cincinnati in 1942 (age 19) and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Was one of the youngest drill instructors in the Marine Corps’ history, and during his four years of service won a coveted Fleet appointment to the Naval Academy, which he declined. Upon his discharge he ended up in Los Angeles. Hugh joined a little theater group and a Santa Barbara stock company.
1954, he left Universal to freelance but did not fare any better until offered the starring role in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp(1955) on TV, a year later. During his six-year run on the western classic, he managed to show off his singing talents on variety shows and appeared on Broadway.
Founded Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Foundation (HOBY), in 1958 a non-profit youth leadership development program for high school scholars, after spending considerable time with Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his clinic in Africa. O’Brian dedicated much of his life to HOBY, which sponsers 10,000 high school sophomores annually through its over 70 leadership programs in all 50 states and 20 countries. Since its inception, over 435,000 young people have participated in HOBY-related programs.
Recorded an album of popular songs and sang on the The Nat King Cole Show,Ed Sullivan, Dinah Shoreand Jackie Gleasonvariety shows.
One of the first celebrities to frontline tours of Vietnam at the request of the State Department, Hugh once staged and directed a company of “Guys and Dolls” which toured Vietnam, Thailand and Japan for the troops.
Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1992.
Developed The Hugh O’Brian Acting Awards Competition in 1964 at the University of California, Los Angeles with cash awards going to acting talents.
In 1972, was awarded one of the nation’s highest honors, the Freedom Through Knowledge Award, sponsored by the National Space Club in association with NASA.
In 1974, he was awarded the George Washington Honor Medal, highest award of the Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge, as well as the Globe and Anchor Award from the Marine Corps.
Was a successful investor over the years with dividends paying well in stocks and bonds, real estate, bowling alleys, a building equipment firm, a theatre-in-the-round, an oil syndicate and his own television production company.
In 1976, the Veterans of Foreign Wars honored him with an award.
Entertainment Awards
1953 Won The Man from the Alamo –Golden Globefor Most Promising Newcomer
1956 Nominated The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp –Primetime Emmy for Best Continuing Performance by an Actor in a Dramatic Series
1960 Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame—Television
1973 Golden Plate Award— Television Honored
1991 Golden Boot Award
Hugh O’Brian Youth Foundation Albert Schweitzer Award to the Hestons – James Stewart helping out
I wouldn’t have minded looking at the Gallery, but things looks pretty quiet.
It’s closed. But Why? It’s Saturday and there’s a Festival in town … ?
We’re still nosy enough to have a look around …
Wyatt stands guardWaitin’ for Wyatt …
Curiosity gets to us … so we head around back …
And out stepsBat Masterson !!
Didn’t even know he wuz in town.
Here’s the story: this chap (Greg? Craig? Forgive me, I forgot your name)
drives in from Los Angeles and likes to join in the Tombstone festivities.
He rents one of the 3 existing rental units on this lot.
(There’s no longer a Wyatt Earp House and Gallery – but rental units.)
He’s typical Tombstone friendly and chats with us for a while.
Nice guy. I snap a pic of him with Rose.
(It was just my guess that he’s portraying Bat Masterson.)
Bat sported a moustache though, but is typically
portrayed as carrying a cane – as was our friend.
Back home I finally get the back story on Wyatt Earp House:
Wyatt Earp House closing this weekend
Posted: Apr 18, 20136:27 PM MDT
Updated: Apr 27, 2013 5:28 PM MDT
By Sonu Wasu CONNECT
Share on tumblrShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on email
TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) –
“It’s a town where the sound of gun fire is everyday business.
Horse drawn carriages walk down main street and the feeling of the old west is alive every day. Now a town that’s been fighting to preserve history is fighting for self preservation.
Hearing the Wyatt Earp House and Gallery is closing for good is sad news for locals and tourists. It’s been around for more than a century. It closes on Sunday for good, and officials blame it on the economy and a decline in tourism.
“I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised,” said Wyatt Earp Theatre Owner James Ferguson. “Our tourism is dropping pretty steadily.”
Every owner is fighting for their business to stay alive.
“Last couple years, we wound up closing two of our businesses [and we] now just have this photo studio left,” said Old Tyme Photos Owner Jim Newbauer.
“Last few months, 11 businesses closed down,” Chamber of Commerce President Susan Wallace said. “We’re also seeing large turnover of businesses, but we also have new businesses coming in.”
The owners of the Wyatt Earp house are not in town today, but we’re told they plan to re-open as a vacation rental. Officials say this is not expected to affect Wyatt Earp Days in May, but some in town feel it will; one less place for visitors to check out.
“Hopefully they’ll keep statue of Wyatt there so people can still take pictures with it,” Newbauer said.
Town officials say an international marketing campaign is now in the planning stages.
“Normally, the tourists [whom] Tombstone does well with are Europeans, Japanese [and] the Asians,” the Mayor said over the phone.
But the town is too tough to die and still hanging on.
“It’s very sad but we won’t give up,” Ferguson said. “We want to promote history of this town, Wyatt earp, mining; it’s what this town is all about.”
Part of their marketing campaign includes printing their brochures in different languages. The goal is to bring international tourists to Tombstone, Ariz. They also plan to make their website accessible to tourists by offering options for several different languages in the near future.
Chamber president Susan Wallace says this advertising campaign is expected to cost them a few hundred thousand dollars. They hope to use money from the town’s bed tax, and revenue generated from city-owned attractions like the boothill cemetery.”
Really ?
There you have it. It’s shocking to hear that Tombstone – major iconic Western attraction – hurting for Tourism/VIsitors. It seemed busy enough to us, but maybe that was just because of the Rose Festival ? Don’t know. The Economy … I guess ? Yet I’d figure that when things turn down, folks would come here rather than travel aboard ? Maybe people aren’t travelling at all – sticking close to home ? Hope that changes.
Epic! The famous ‘Walk’ to the climactic gunfight at OK Corral
Gunfight at the OK Corral– Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, John Hudson, DeForest KelleyHour of the Gun Frank Converse, Sam Melville, Jason Robards, James Garner
Tombstone Val Kilmer, Sam Shapard, Kirk Russel, Bill PaxtonWyatt Earp Dennis Quaid, Michael Madsen, Kevin Costner, Linden Ashby
‘The Wild Bunch’ … doing ‘the Walk’? You betcha!
The Wild Bunch Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, William Holden, Ernest Borgnine
Intentional – or not (and I surely believe it was)
Pekinpah’s Wild Bunch do ‘The Walk’
Sometimes the answers to seemingly complex social problems are hidden in plain sight. Social engineers, lawmakers and “experts” from all around spout off an endless stream of statistics to support or rationalize their position one side or the other of the “gun control” issue. Now I don’t like the term “gun control” for it is ambiguous and usually used to mask the real intent of those advocating it so for the purpose of this discussion let us just say “more restrictive guns laws”. One might think that this is a relatively new idea, it is not! You can go back to the Roman Empire and find the existence of cross bow control, you can look to England and find attempts to disarm the various colonists under their imperial thumb – the American colonists come to mind as an unsuccessful attempt to debar the use of arms to an indigent population. There are many examples of the failure of laws which attempt to disarm the violent in our society but none are more graphic as examples or easier to measure in effect than those in the “wild west” of America circa 1870-1900.
Reporting from Tombstone, Ariz. — A billboard just outside this Old West town promises “Gunfights Daily!” and tourists line up each afternoon to watch costumed cowboys and lawmen reenact the bloody gunfight at the OK Corral with blazing six-shooters.
But as with much of the Wild West, myth has replaced history. The 1881 shootout took place in a narrow alley, not at the corral. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday weren’t seen as heroic until later; they were initially charged with murder.
And one fact is usually ignored: Back then, Tombstone had far stricter gun control than it does today. In fact, the American West’s most infamous gun battle erupted when the marshal tried to enforce a local ordinance that barred carrying firearms in public. A judge had fined one of the victims $25 earlier that day for packing a pistol.
LANCASTER in ‘VERA CRUZ’ and “GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL’
In rebuilding my ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral‘ page I got to thinking about Lancaster’s portrayal of Wyatt Earp. In earlier films Lancaster had become famous for his trademark smile – which he is said to have referred to as “the grin” – most obvious in ‘Vera Cruz’ (one of My Favorite Westerns). Therefore his stoic and stern portrayal of Wyatt Earp in ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ is a stark and deliberate contrast. Was Earp really like this? Because this same humorless image of Earp is carried on through most of the other popular Earp Films: ‘Hour of the Gun‘; ‘Tomestone’ and ‘Wyatt Earp’. Only Henry Fonda‘s portrait of Earp in ‘My Darling Clementine‘ (1946) seems to put a more human face on Earp. Director John Sturges (‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’) continued with this strict image of Earp in ‘Hour of the Gun’ (1968) which starred James Garner as Earp. Garner’s ruthless portrayal of Earp is even more striking because of Garner’s usual soft and often comedic persona from the ‘Maverick’ TV series. It is safe to say however, that Sturges wasn’t very concerned with a historical portrayal of Earp (Lancaster doesn’t even sport a mustache) or the gunfight at the OK Corral. But it seems ironic that the film that makes the greatest effort to paint a historical document of Earp (Lawrence Kasdan‘s ‘Wyatt Earp’ starring Kevin Costner as Earp) is probably the least popular of five films.
I wuz just trying to figure out how to adjust the line spacing on the page … when suddenly … something went terribly wrong … the whole page disappeared … into cyberset. (Cyberset is the Western equivalent of ‘riding off into the sunset’ … ‘cept you don’t ‘ride off’ …. you just vanish … No glory … No completion … No sunset … No kiss. It just takes one slip of your trigger finger …. and before yu can holler “Look out Billy!” the whole damn page disappears. Oft times never to be retrieved …. or even tracked … particularly by a tenderfoot blogger like myself.
And I never learned or noticed – that there was an emergency page retrieval button at the bottom … until I rode back later. Alas … too late.
Worse yet I never figured out how to do that damn line spacing thing until later.
Sooo … I’m having to rebuild the whole page – or at least what I had done so far – which was quite a bit. I will be able to do get it almost identical though, but that will take a while …
