<Archive Obituary> Walter Brennan (September 21st 1974)
Bill Schenley
Character Actor in Over 100 Films
Appeared on TV in 'The Real McCoys'
Photo:
http://www.ufomystic.com/wp-content/uploads/brennan.jpg
FROM: The New York Times (September 23rd 1974) ~
By The Associated Press and William M. Freeman of The Times
OXNARD, Calif., Sept. 21
The veteran actor Walter Brennan, who won
three Academy Awards, died Saturday night
after a long battle with emphysema. He was
80 years old.
Mr. Brennan died at St. John's Hospital here,
a spokesman said. He had been under
treatment since July 25 for respiratory
problems.
His wife, Ruth, and three children were with
him when he died.
___
A Hard Worker
By William M. Freeman
Walter Brennan liked work, and looked
forward to it. In his seventies, long after most
men have given up a daily grind in favor of a
porch and a rocking chair, he remarked:
"I'd rather do television than movies because
there aren't any long layoffs between working
days. You make a movie and then wait around
for another good part.
"Not in television. You go to work five days a
week for most of the year. That's what I like.
By Sunday night I can hardly wait to get started
Monday morning. It's a shame most people
don't feel the same way about their jobs."
Dawn-to-Dusk Schedule
For years Mr. Brennan's schedule went
something like this: Up and on his way (by
chauffeur, a concession to his advancing years)
to the studio by 7 A.M. The drive took 45
minutes from his 11-acre ranch in Ventura
County, and he was not often home by 7 P.M.
The 12-hour day was generally standard.
He was before the cameras for more than half
a century, and he had three Oscars to show for
it, although to hear him tell it, he would have
trouble finding which closet held the statuettes.
Each award was for 'best supporting actor," in
"Come and Get It," 1936; "Kentucky," 1938,
and "The Westerner," 1940.
"Heck," he said once, "I never wanted anything
out of this business except a good living.
Never wanted to be a star, or a glamorous
figure. Just wanted to be good at what I was
doing."
Over the years Mr. Brennan made more than
100 movies, many of them Westerns - although
he was from Massachusetts - 224 segments of
"The Real McCoys" for television and scores of
miscellaneous television, industrial and
government films.
He was born in Lynn, Mass., the son of an
$18-a-week engineer who held about two dozen
patents, all controlled by big companies. The
elder Brennan was blind for the last four years
of his life, but learned Braille at the age of 67.
After high school the future actor was a
lumberjack, a ditch-digger and a bank messenger,
and enlisted in the Army in World War I the day
after war was declared.
After his return from Europe he returned to the
bank and became a financial reporter. Then
came a job as a real-estate salesman in California.
One of his colleagues liked his sales pitch and
persuaded him to try the movies as $7.50-a-day
extra. His first big job was nine roles in the Paul
Whiteman film, "The King of Jazz," for which he
got $125 a week.
Of this film, in which Bing Crosby appeared,
Mr. Brennan remarked:
"When I went to the preview I sneezed and
missed myself."
He did so well later in a small role as the station
agent in "The Wedding Night," a film that Samuel
Goldwyn had hoped would make Anna Sten a star,
that Mr. Goldwyn called for an expansion of his
part after a preview.
After this came the part of an old Swede in
"Come and Get It." He sought Scandinavians to
help him with the accent and found six Swedes,
each with a highly individual accent.
Nevertheless, the picture brought him his first
Oscar.
Mr. Brennan apparently did well in terms of
financial reward. In addition to the "small" ranch
in the San Fernando Valley he had a 12,000-acre
ranch in Joseph, Ore., where he had a large cattle
herd and owned a small movie house and a motel.
A bit unlike Grandpa McCoy and some of the
other characters he played, he also liked a martini
very cold and very dry, his automobiles fast and
powerful and his beef cattle plentiful and heavy.
While he often expressed himself in salty language,
he once remarked:
"Boy, let me tell you, there's no risqué stuff in my
show. No sir, I won't allow it. In a TV series,
you're going right into the living room, and families
are watching you. It sure burns me up to see some
of the stuff they let get by on other shows."
---
Photos: http://wayne1907.hp.infoseek.co.jp/wb2.jpg
http://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org/images/g_ente_walt1.jpg
http://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org/research/images/r_a_bren_port.gif
Walter Brennan in art:
http://www.portraitsbylarrysnode.com/stumpy1.JPG
http://www.hoffnungstraeger.com/koni_bilder/walter.brennan.jpg
Intro to The Guns of Will Sonnett
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea-APYSWCeo
Old Rivers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ9-F_eguoE
Cindy Cindy, by Ricky Nelson (w/Walter Brennan and Dean Martin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPYCJlFfhW8
Brad Ferguson
Fuego <t_del...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 01:32:41 -0400, "Bill Schenley"
> <stra...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >"I'd rather do television than movies because
> >there aren't any long layoffs between working
> >days. You make a movie and then wait around
> >for another good part.
>
> The last thing I remember seeing him in was an extended paid political
> commercial for John Schmitz's presidential 1972 presidential campaign:
> "I think he's a good man and I'm gonna vote for him."
Brennan had a TV show during the 1964-65 season called "The Tycoon" in
which he played a cantankerous millionaire who was trying to spread his
money around in various socially helpful ways. It was really pretty
bad, and if anybody remembers it, it's only because Brennan's assistant
was played by Van Williams, who would play the Green Hornet a couple of
years later.
It's also memorable for this: Around the time the show premiered, TV
Guide ran a profile of Brennan, and of course it included an interview.
At the outset, Brennan was talking about his film days, particularly
the early ones, during which he won the three Oscars and did some
really memorable character work. In there somewhere, he complained
that he hadn't seen much money from all of that, and he blamed his
manager, who'd stolen from him. "He was a hebe," said Brennan. The
magazine italicized the word, making sure you noticed that this, too,
was Brennan.
Hyfler/Rosner
"Brad Ferguson" <thir...@frXOXed.net> wrote in message >
>
>
> It's also memorable for this: Around the time the show
> premiered, TV
> Guide ran a profile of Brennan, and of course it included
> an interview.
> At the outset, Brennan was talking about his film days,
> particularly
> the early ones, during which he won the three Oscars and
> did some
> really memorable character work. In there somewhere, he
> complained
> that he hadn't seen much money from all of that, and he
> blamed his
> manager, who'd stolen from him. "He was a hebe," said
> Brennan. The
> magazine italicized the word, making sure you noticed that
> this, too,
> was Brennan.
Wow.
Bill Schenley
> > > "I think he's a good man and I'm gonna vote for him."
>
> > you noticed that this, too, was Brennan.
>
> Wow.
Yeah ... All those points he earned for "Old Rivers" and "The Guns of Will
Sonnett" just evaporated ...
AndrewJ
> commercial for John Schmitz's presidential 1972 presidential campaign:
> "I think he's a good man and I'm gonna vote for him."
John Schmitz, incidentally, was Mary Kay Letourneau's dad.
R H Draney
>
>The veteran actor Walter Brennan, who won
>three Academy Awards, died Saturday night
>after a long battle with emphysema. He was
>80 years old.
He was the first in my series of impersonations of inappropriately re-cast "Star
Wars" roles...had him as Obi-Wan: "Dagnabbit, Luke, use the Force!"....
Later I added Gilbert Gottfried as Yoda, and Ben Stein as Darth Vader....r
--
"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!"
"You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"