Todd’s Serial Blog

You never know just how an actor’s career will turn out.  Take George Hayes, a vaudeville veteran who was adept at musical comedy became one of the most beloved of western sidekicks.  His film career began in 1929 with Big News.  But he quickly moved into B Westerns, most notably as a supporting player in John Wayne’s Lone Star films, where he alternated between playing father figures in The Lucky Texan (1934) and The Man From Utah (1934), and playing villains in Randy Rides Alone (1934) and Star Packer (1935).  His only serial was Regal’s The Lost City (1935) playing the owner of a jungle trading post who wants to get in on the villainy of William “Stage” Boyd so that he can steal his scientific secrets and take over Africa.  He has a change of heart at the end and comes over to the good guys’ side, shamefacedly admitting he’s “been a terrible rotter.”

The same year was a big turning point for Hayes.  Replacing an ill Al St. John in Hopalong Cassidy (1935) he became a series regular as Hoppy’s sidekick appearing in Bar 20 Rides Again (1936), Rustler’s Valley (1937) and Bar 20 Justice (1938), among many others.  But then in 1939 Hayes moved from Columbia to Republic Pictures and spent most of the next decade as the scruffy, toothless, irascible Gabby.  Teamed with Roy Rogers, who was  being promoted as an in house rival to Republic’s reigning Singing Cowboy Gene Autry, Rogers and Hayes pumped out innumerable hit films like The Arizona Kid (1939), The Ranger and the Lady (1940), and  Red River Valley (1941).  The series hit it’s stride in the early forties with the addition of feisty Easterner Dale Evans who would continue with the series well into the fifties, though Hayes himself left the series in 1947 after Home in Oklahoma.

He would continue in the western genre, appearing in films with Randolph Scott, Return of the Bad Men (1948) and The Caribou Trail (1950), and camp legend Sonny Tufts, The Untamed Breed (1948).  But with the advent of television Hayes became a popular children’s host with the Saturday morning program The Gabby Hayes Show (1950-1954, 1956) where Hayes would introduce and close out serial chapters or edited western films.  After the show went off the air Hayes was a popular guest on shows like What’s My Line and Dinah Shore, he eventually retired from acting and spent his Golden Years on his Nevada ranch.

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Betsy King Ross is a true anomaly in the history of Hollywood, a child actor who chose not to continue acting while still in childhood instead of being dropped by the establishment after becoming an adult.   Known for her trick riding, she learned how to handle a horse at an early age from her father J. King Ross a horse trainer who worked for many traveling shows.

Her first film was the George O’Brien western Smoke Lightning (1933), based on a Zane Grey western novel for Fox Studios.   Then it was off to Mascot where she made two serials.  Fighting With Kit Carson (1933) starred her with Johnny Mack Brown who was protecting a gold shipment from the machinations of Noah Berry, Sr. while Phantom Empire (1935) had Betsy, along with fellow child actor Frankie Darro, helping newcomer Gene Autry investigate the mysterious hidden city of Murania (1935) located under Autry’s ranch.

Then at the rip old age of 13, Ross decided she didn’t want to be an actor and quit the business.  She would eventually marry an engineer and move to South America with him as he was helping to build roads.  She later returned to the U.S. and settled in California with her son after her husband’s untimely death in a landslide.

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I’ve always had a misconception about Buck Jones, that he was temporarily out of work in the late thirties until his career was revived at Monogram with the Rough Riders series, but a quick look at his filmography shows that he worked steadily throughout his entire film career. A native of Montana, Jones learned to ride and rope, two things that served him well during his tenure in the U.S. Calvary and his days as a trick rider for first the Miller Brothers Wild West Show and then the Ringling Brothers.

He came to Hollywood in 1917 as a stunt performer but was promoted to star performer in 1919 for Fox studios, who promoted him as an in house rival to Tom Mix. Along with his horse Silver, Jones made popular films like Just Pals (1920), Big Dan (1923), and The War Horse (1927). When sound came Jones was let go by Fox and moved to Columbia where he made such sagebrush sagas as Desert Vengeance (1931) and White Eagle (1932).

From there he moved to Universal and began his serial career with Gordon of Ghost City (1933), which was followed by The Red Rider (1934), The Roaring West (1935), and The Phantom Rider (1936). During this time he also appeared in western features for Universal like The Crimson Trail (1935), Ride ‘Em Cowboy (1936) and Empty Saddles (1937), most of which he produced as well. Jones finished out the decade back at Columbia making The Overland Express (1938) and The Stranger From Arizona (1939).

The Forties began with Jones returning to serials. Columbia starred him in a fifteen chapter remake of his decade earlier hit feature White Eagle (1941), then Universal teamed him with Dick Foran, Leo Carillo, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, Noah Berry, Jr., and Glenn Strange as the Riders of Death Valley (1941). Then it was off to Mongram where Jones made an extremely popular series of westerns with Col. Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton as The Rough Riders. Jones racked up an impressive ten films in less than two years with the studio, including Arizona Bound (1941), Ghost Town Law (1942) and Riders of the West (1942).

Sadly Jones was killed soon after while attending a party in his honor at the Coconut Grove when the establishment caught fire. What happened has been the subject of much heated debate. Some say he was killed trying to escape with others, some say he made it out and then died going back in to save people. For me I’ll believe the latter theory, that a man who played a hero so many times on the screen had attempted to do the same in life.

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