Did you know that Festus, Ken Curtis, was a singer before beginning his acting career? He was with the Tommy Dorsey Band in 1941, and succeeded Frank Sinatra as vocalist until Dick Hayes contractually replaced Sinatra. (wickapedia.org) Ken Curtis joined the Sons of the Pioneers as a lead singer from 1949 to 1952. His big hits with the group included "Room Full of Roses" and "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky."
Take a listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWR6FLnPack
Columbia pictures hired Curtis in the role of the singing cowboy in early Westerns. Through his second marriage, Curtis was a son-in-law of director John Ford. Curtis teamed with Ford and John Wayne in Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Wings of Eagles, The Searchers, The Horse Soldiers, The Alamo, and How The West Was Won. Curtis also joined Ford, along with Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, and Jack Lemmon, in the comedy Navy classic Mister Roberts. He was featured in all three of the only films produced by Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney's C. V. Whitney Pictures: The Searchers (1956); The Missouri Traveler (1958) with Brandon deWilde and Lee Marvin. (wikipedia.org)
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| Karl E. Farr Collection. Bob Nolan |
I though that was pretty cool stuff. I saw ole Festus on board his mule at the rodeo at the Mid-South Fair in Memphis when I was a kid. He rode right past us, waving his hat and making his corny jokes in his Festus voice, which I'm understand was nothing like his regular speaking voice.
Then there is the issue of Matt Dillon's (James Arness) horse. Although he rode several horses in the series, his most remembered horse was Buck, or Old Faithful Buck, a buckskin of Waggoner Quarter Horse breeding. If you look closely in some shots you can see the JA brand on his right shoulder.
That brand had to be covered up when the series ended and the horse went on to become Ben Cartwright's (Lorne Green) steed on Bonanza.
Bonanza's Michael Landon once remarked on a talk show that Lorne Greene didn’t much care for riding or horses. Still when Bonanza was cancelled, Lorne bought Buck, for fear that the horse would end up in a bad way. He then donated Buck to a therapeutic riding center. Buck taught mentally and physically challenged children to ride until his passing in 1992 at the age of 45, an unusually long life for a horse. (INSP tv blog)
I'll see if I can find more tidbits on old Westerns, their characters and their horses. "Happy Trails." Oops, wrong Western.
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| James Arness and Buck (Getty images)Buck |
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| Lorne Greene and Buck (ponderosascenery.homestead.com) |
I never missed an episode of Gunsmoke or Bonanza when they were shown the first time. I've always loved buckskin horses...... Amazing horse, Buck. So glad to know he became a Therapy Horse. He must have loved his work to live to the ripe old age of 45.......must have been part "pony". Thanks for your blog.
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