Hero of the Month: Stanely Andrews
Though best known as The Old Ranger, the host and pitchman for the anthology TV show Death Valley Days, a role he played for over ten years until replaced by Ronald Reagan, Stanely Andrews had a long and successful career in films playing respectable, and not so respectable, citizens. His list of credits include All the King’s Horses (1934), Anna Karenina (1935), Mr Deeds goes to Town (1936), Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Mark of Zorro (1940), meet John Doe (1941), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). (He seemed to be a Capra regular.)
Along with Death Valley Days, Andrews’ TV work included episodes of Adventures of Superman, Cowboy G-Men, The Range Rider, The Abbott and Costello Show, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Sky King and The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin.
Andrews also poped up in many serials, mostly for Republic. His most famous is of course his role as Col. Jeffries, the ruthless renegade in The Lone Ranger (1938), who plans to take over Texas and run it as his own fiefdom. He is of course is responsible for having the Texas Rangers gunned down in an ambush that creates The Lone Ranger (a plot line later adapted to the radio show, only the deed is done by the now more famous character Butch Cavendish). His other Republic serials usually cast him as someone’s father who gets whacked in the first chapter; like King of the Royal Mounted (1940) and The Adventures of Frank and Jesse James (1948), though he does get to last till Chapter Five in Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders (1953). His other serials were playng upstanding citizens like the Police Commissioner in Universal’s The Green Hornet (1939) and Allan Lane’s Commanding Officer in Republic’s Daredevils of the West (1943), where his name is (I love this) Col. Andrews.
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