TRIBUTE TO WESTERN MOVIE LEGENDS & CELEBRITY HISTORIANS/AUTHORS (AN AMERICAN FATHER & SON TRADITION):
Welcome TO A FUN WEBSITE For Comic Book Fans. The Official Comic Book Fan Page: Featuring The Legacy Honoring The Legends of The Western American Movie Classics:
Hi I'm the Webmaster and Western Movie & Celebrity Historian, My name is Dr. Frank “The Iceman” Beckles; FAMOUS COMIC BOOK CREATOR AND BOOK AUTHOR..
I’m a Doctor and Professor of Theological & Historical Studies, at a Private School in Augusta, GA.
I like the storylines and graphics- it’s cool..
BACKGROUND:1991-1993 I helped create comic book characters, and written stories for Impact Comics
And in 1994-1996 worked for Topps Comics/1999-2001, I worked for Ultraverse Comics (A Online Comic Publishing Company, I started up with comic book writer Matt Choinaire, and actor/book author; Johnny Crawford)
Meanwhile; I written letters and editorials, published in DC Comics (“Aquaman”/Time & Tide Column)
Currently, I working on getting a novel published. I own and operate a comic bookstore, and have written and designed thousands of Unofficial Comic Book & Movie Fan Webpages.
In, 2000 I was in the Guiness Book of Records, for owning the most websites in the world!
... Pastor Dr. Frank Beckles ... on the Yahoo! network: News Archives for 8/26/2010 | StAugustine.com Dr. and Mrs. Frank V. Beckles, Jr ... Search Results Rev. Dr. Franklyn Beckles ...
theevangelists.blogspot.com/2011/04/famous-church
Published Book Author, Editor-in-Chief/Writer/and Creator For Three Comic Book Publishing ... Get introduced to Dr. Frank Beckles; Contact Dr. Frank Beckles directly; View Full ...
www.linkedin.com/in/frankbecklesDr. Frank Beckles?s Specialties: Published Book Author, Editor-in-Chief/Writer/and Creator For Three Comic Book Publishing Companies, Since 1997: Impact Comics, Topps ...
www.apsense.com/article/138897.html - CachedDr. Frank Beckles’s Specialties: Published Book Author, Editor-in-Chief/Writer/and Creator For Three Comic Book Publishing Companies, Since 1997: Impact Comics, Topps ...
www.apsense.com/abc/... creator of Calvin and Hobbes; Comic book creators ... Woodring, Jim Lee, creator Rev. Dr. Frank Beckles, Jr.; Yune, Tommy, creator of Buster ... A. Kaviraj-Artist ' Dr Death vs the Vampire' ' Dr ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_comics_creators - Cached
comic book writer & book author- Dr. Frank Beckles Jr. Married, Father of Four Children, and a Ordained Pastor of a Baptist Church..
franklynbecklesjr.ash.com/comic-book-... FOR CHRIST CHURCH OF GOD | Facebook Frank (creator) ... Description: DR FRANKLYN VICTOR BECKLES ... comic book writer & book author- Dr. Frank Beckles Jr ... comic book ...
www.myspace.com/manbehindthelegend - CachedDr. Frank Beckles’s Specialties: Published Book Author, Editor-in-Chief/Writer/and Creator For Three Comic Book Publishing Companies, Since 1997: Impact Comics, Topps ...
www.myspace.com/doctorfranklynbeckles - CachedHERE ARE SOME OF FAMOUS FACTS CHRONICLED ONLINE AND IN AUTOBIOGRAPHIES:
The Lone Ranger
The eponymous character is a
On the radio and TV-series, the usual opening announcement was:
This version of the opening credits was first seen in the episode "Lost City of Gold."
In later episodes the opening narration ended with: "With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!" Episodes usually concluded with one of the characters lamenting the fact that they never learned the hero's name ("Who was that masked man?"), only to be told, "Why, he's the Lone Ranger!" as he and Tonto ride away.
The Lone Ranger's name
Although the Lone Ranger's last name was given as Reid, his first name was not revealed. According to the story told in the radio series, the group of six ambushed rangers was headed by Reid's brother, Captain Dan Reid. Some later radio reference books, beginning with The Big Broadcast in the 1970s, erroneously claimed that the Lone Ranger's first name was John; however, both the radio and television programs avoided use of his first name. Some say that Captain Reid's first name was also avoided, but the name Dan did appear in a phonograph record story of the Lone Ranger's origin, featuring the radio cast, issued in the early 1950s and in a miniature comic book issued in connection with the TV show. At least one newspaper obituary upon Fran Striker's 1961 death and a 1964
TRIBUTE TO WESTERN MOVIE LEGENDS (2011)
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran on ABC, from September 30, 1958 to April 8, 1963, a production of Four Star Television. It was also one of the first primetime series ever to have a widowed parent raise a child.
History
According to network publicists, the series was set in the 1880s. There are also numerous episodes where the date is given in the 1880s. A wooden plaque next to the home states it was rebuilt by Lucas McCain and his son Mark in August 1881.
Westerns were popular when The Rifleman premiered, and producers struggled to find gimmicks to distinguish one show from another. The Rifleman's gimmick was a modified Winchester Model 1892 rifle with a trigger mechanism allowing for rapid-fire shots. Despite the anachronism, Connors demonstrated its rapid-fire action during the opening credits as McCain dispatched an unseen villain on North Fork's main street. Although the rifle may have appeared in every episode, it was not always fired, as some plots did not lend themselves to violent solutions, e.g., a cruel teacher at Mark's one-room school. There were several episodes where McCain dispatched the bad guys without the use of the rifle at all and he once threw the rifle to knock his opponent off his horse instead of killing him because he was a friend. In one episode McCain even "spiked" the barrel of his own gun when he knew it was going to fall into the hands of the villain so that it would backfire. McCain was also well versed in the use of a six gun although he did not own one and this aspect was rarely shown.
The various episodes of The Rifleman promote fair play, neighborliness, equal rights, and the need to use violence in a highly controlled manner ("A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark," McCain tells his son, "But that doesn't mean you go looking to run TO one!").[neutrality is disputed]Thus the program's villains tend to cheat, to refuse help to those down on their luck, to be bigots, and to see violence as a first resort rather than the last option.[neutrality is disputed]Indeed, when the people of North Fork meet blacks, they are truly color-blind.[neutrality is disputed] In "The Most Amazing Man", a black man (played by Sammy Davis, Jr.) checks into the only hotel in town; for the entire show, no one notices his race.[neutrality is disputed] Not only is this noteworthy for the 1880s setting, it was radical for Hollywood of the early 1960s. While the message was clear, it was neither heavy-handed nor universal.[neutrality is disputed]Yet a certain amount of xenophobia drifts around North Fork, once forcing McCain to defend the right of a Chinese immigrant to open a laundry ("The Queue") and later, the right of an Argentine family to buy a ranch ("The Gaucho").[neutrality is disputed]This racial liberalism does not extend to villains, however. The Mexicans in "The Vaqueros" are indolent and dangerous, and speak in the caricatured way of most Mexican outlaws in Westerns of the time.[neutrality is disputed]
Another fundamental of the series is that people deserve a second chance. Marshal Micah Torrance is a recovering alcoholic. Similarly, McCain gives an ex-con a job on his ranch ("The Marshal"). Royal Dano appeared five times, once as a former Confederate States of America soldier in ("The Sheridan Story"), given a job on the McCain ranch, who encounters General Phil Sheridan, the man who had cost him his arm in battle. Learning why the man wants him dead, Sheridan arranges for medical care for the wounded former foe, quoting Abraham Lincoln's last orders to "...Bind up the nation's wounds." (Dano also appeared as a man who thought he was Abraham Lincoln, as a rainmaker, as a wealthy tanner who mistakenly believes Mark is his lost son and again as a preacher with a haunting gunfighter past in an episode where Warren Oates and L. Q. Jones, as unsavory brothers, try to goad him into a gunfight and attempt to bushwhack him.)
McCain was human and could also play the hypocrite. In an episode with Phil Carey as former gunman and old adversary Simon Battles, he is unwilling to believe the man has changed and become a doctor. It takes a gunfight, with Battles fighting alongside him, to make him admit he is wrong. In "Two Ounces Of Tin", again with Sammy Davis, Jr., this time as Tip Corey, a former circus trick-shot artist turned gunman, McCain angrily orders him off the ranch when he finds him demonstrating his skills to Mark. And in "Stopover" with Adam West as gunman (and former teacher) Chris Roth, who turns up at the ranch as a passenger on a stagecoach stranded in a blizzard, McCain reacts when he realizes who Roth really is, again stating his views that a man who earns his way with a gun is unsavory. It is an unusual reaction from a man who has, by this time in the series, killed over twenty men. Indeed, he killed four the day he first showed up in town. And, from what we learn throughout the series, from Mark and others, he had a healthy - or unhealthy - reputation in the Indian Territories back in Oklahoma. It was here he first acquired the nickname of "The Rifleman". The McCains lived in Enid, Oklahoma where Lucas' wife died in a smallpox outbreak (Season 5, "The Guest").
The show was created and initially developed by a young Sam Peckinpah, who would go on to become the director of classic Westerns. Peckinpah, who wrote and directed many of the best episodes from the first season, based many of the characters and situations on real-life scenarios from his childhood growing up on a ranch. He also used many character actors such as Warren Oates and R.G. Armstrong (the marshal in two early episodes who was killed by James Drury before Paul Fix joined the cast) who would later feature prominently in his films. His insistence on violent realism and complex characterizations, as well as his refusal to sugarcoat the lessons he felt the Rifleman's son needed to learn about life, soon put him at odds with the show's producers at Four Star. He left the show and created another classic TV series, The Westerner, starring Brian Keith, which was short-lived. Sidney Blackmer played Judge Hanavan, who owned the only hotel in North Fork, the California House and Restaurant, albeit for only a few episodes.
The pilot episode, "The Sharpshooter", was originally telecast on CBS on Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater on March 7, 1958, and was repeated, in slightly edited form, as the first episode of the series on ABC. Regulars on the program included Marshal Micah Torrance (Paul Fix) (R. G. Armstrong was the original marshal for two episodes, the first and the fourth), Sweeney the bartender (Bill Quinn), and a half-dozen other denizens of North Fork (Hope Summers, Joan Taylor, Patricia Blair, John Harmon, and Harlan Warde were regulars). Fifty-one episodes of the series were directed by Joseph H. Lewis, the director of the classic film noir Gun Crazy (1950), which accounts for some of the show's virtuoso noir lighting and dark, brooding quality. Ida Lupino directed one episode, "The Assault". Connors wrote several episodes himself. Robert Culp of CBS's Trackdown, wrote one two-part episode, and Frank Gilroy penned End of a Young Gun.
The February 17, 1959, episode of The Rifleman proved to be a spin-off for an NBC series, Law of the Plainsman starring Michael Ansara in the role of Marshal Sam Buckhart. In the story called "The Indian", Buckhart came to North Fork to look for Indians suspected in the murder of a Texas Ranger and his family. Today, this Classic TV series has left a positive impact on the lives of famous actors, directors, comic book creators, and sons of Legendary Men; and who have sons of their own, like: Adam Nimoy, Dr. Franklyn Victor Beckles, Jr., Matthew Gagston, Alexander Pope, and Chris Hemsworth (who will be staring in an upcoming movie "The Rifleman"; based on the iconic tv series!). Dr. Frank Beckles, has recently added "The Rifleman" character & Title to the Ultraverse Comic Book series lineup in 2012!!!
[1]
History
According to network publicists, the series was set in the 1880s. There are also numerous episodes where the date is given in the 1880s. A wooden plaque next to the home states it was rebuilt by Lucas McCain and his son Mark in August 1881.
Westerns were popular when The Rifleman premiered, and producers struggled to find gimmicks to distinguish one show from another. The Rifleman's gimmick was a modified Winchester Model 1892 rifle with a trigger mechanism allowing for rapid-fire shots. Despite the anachronism, Connors demonstrated its rapid-fire action during the opening credits as McCain dispatched an unseen villain on North Fork's main street. Although the rifle may have appeared in every episode, it was not always fired, as some plots did not lend themselves to violent solutions, e.g., a cruel teacher at Mark's one-room school. There were several episodes where McCain dispatched the bad guys without the use of the rifle at all and he once threw the rifle to knock his opponent off his horse instead of killing him because he was a friend. In one episode McCain even "spiked" the barrel of his own gun when he knew it was going to fall into the hands of the villain so that it would backfire. McCain was also well versed in the use of a six gun although he did not own one and this aspect was rarely shown.
The various episodes of The Rifleman promote fair play, neighborliness, equal rights, and the need to use violence in a highly controlled manner ("A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark," McCain tells his son, "But that doesn't mean you go looking to run TO one!").[neutrality is disputed]Thus the program's villains tend to cheat, to refuse help to those down on their luck, to be bigots, and to see violence as a first resort rather than the last option.[neutrality is disputed]Indeed, when the people of North Fork meet blacks, they are truly color-blind.[neutrality is disputed] In "The Most Amazing Man", a black man (played by Sammy Davis, Jr.) checks into the only hotel in town; for the entire show, no one notices his race.[neutrality is disputed] Not only is this noteworthy for the 1880s setting, it was radical for Hollywood of the early 1960s. While the message was clear, it was neither heavy-handed nor universal.[neutrality is disputed]Yet a certain amount of xenophobia drifts around North Fork, once forcing McCain to defend the right of a Chinese immigrant to open a laundry ("The Queue") and later, the right of an Argentine family to buy a ranch ("The Gaucho").[neutrality is disputed]This racial liberalism does not extend to villains, however. The Mexicans in "The Vaqueros" are indolent and dangerous, and speak in the caricatured way of most Mexican outlaws in Westerns of the time.[neutrality is disputed]
Another fundamental of the series is that people deserve a second chance. Marshal Micah Torrance is a recovering alcoholic. Similarly, McCain gives an ex-con a job on his ranch ("The Marshal"). Royal Dano appeared five times, once as a former Confederate States of America soldier in ("The Sheridan Story"), given a job on the McCain ranch, who encounters General Phil Sheridan, the man who had cost him his arm in battle. Learning why the man wants him dead, Sheridan arranges for medical care for the wounded former foe, quoting Abraham Lincoln's last orders to "...Bind up the nation's wounds." (Dano also appeared as a man who thought he was Abraham Lincoln, as a rainmaker, as a wealthy tanner who mistakenly believes Mark is his lost son and again as a preacher with a haunting gunfighter past in an episode where Warren Oates and L. Q. Jones, as unsavory brothers, try to goad him into a gunfight and attempt to bushwhack him.)
McCain was human and could also play the hypocrite. In an episode with Phil Carey as former gunman and old adversary Simon Battles, he is unwilling to believe the man has changed and become a doctor. It takes a gunfight, with Battles fighting alongside him, to make him admit he is wrong. In "Two Ounces Of Tin", again with Sammy Davis, Jr., this time as Tip Corey, a former circus trick-shot artist turned gunman, McCain angrily orders him off the ranch when he finds him demonstrating his skills to Mark. And in "Stopover" with Adam West as gunman (and former teacher) Chris Roth, who turns up at the ranch as a passenger on a stagecoach stranded in a blizzard, McCain reacts when he realizes who Roth really is, again stating his views that a man who earns his way with a gun is unsavory. It is an unusual reaction from a man who has, by this time in the series, killed over twenty men. Indeed, he killed four the day he first showed up in town. And, from what we learn throughout the series, from Mark and others, he had a healthy - or unhealthy - reputation in the Indian Territories back in Oklahoma. It was here he first acquired the nickname of "The Rifleman". The McCains lived in Enid, Oklahoma where Lucas' wife died in a smallpox outbreak (Season 5, "The Guest").
The show was created and initially developed by a young Sam Peckinpah, who would go on to become the director of classic Westerns. Peckinpah, who wrote and directed many of the best episodes from the first season, based many of the characters and situations on real-life scenarios from his childhood growing up on a ranch. He also used many character actors such as Warren Oates and R.G. Armstrong (the marshal in two early episodes who was killed by James Drury before Paul Fix joined the cast) who would later feature prominently in his films. His insistence on violent realism and complex characterizations, as well as his refusal to sugarcoat the lessons he felt the Rifleman's son needed to learn about life, soon put him at odds with the show's producers at Four Star. He left the show and created another classic TV series, The Westerner, starring Brian Keith, which was short-lived. Sidney Blackmer played Judge Hanavan, who owned the only hotel in North Fork, the California House and Restaurant, albeit for only a few episodes.
Synopsis
The black-and-white program centered around Lucas McCain (played by former baseball/basketball player Chuck Connors), a widower, Union veteran of the American Civil War (lieutenant in the 19th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment), and a homesteader. McCain and his son Mark (played by future singer Johnny Crawford) lived on a ranch outside the fictitious town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory.The pilot episode, "The Sharpshooter", was originally telecast on CBS on Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater on March 7, 1958, and was repeated, in slightly edited form, as the first episode of the series on ABC. Regulars on the program included Marshal Micah Torrance (Paul Fix) (R. G. Armstrong was the original marshal for two episodes, the first and the fourth), Sweeney the bartender (Bill Quinn), and a half-dozen other denizens of North Fork (Hope Summers, Joan Taylor, Patricia Blair, John Harmon, and Harlan Warde were regulars). Fifty-one episodes of the series were directed by Joseph H. Lewis, the director of the classic film noir Gun Crazy (1950), which accounts for some of the show's virtuoso noir lighting and dark, brooding quality. Ida Lupino directed one episode, "The Assault". Connors wrote several episodes himself. Robert Culp of CBS's Trackdown, wrote one two-part episode, and Frank Gilroy penned End of a Young Gun.
The February 17, 1959, episode of The Rifleman proved to be a spin-off for an NBC series, Law of the Plainsman starring Michael Ansara in the role of Marshal Sam Buckhart. In the story called "The Indian", Buckhart came to North Fork to look for Indians suspected in the murder of a Texas Ranger and his family. Today, this Classic TV series has left a positive impact on the lives of famous actors, directors, comic book creators, and sons of Legendary Men; and who have sons of their own, like: Adam Nimoy, Dr. Franklyn Victor Beckles, Jr., Matthew Gagston, Alexander Pope, and Chris Hemsworth (who will be staring in an upcoming movie "The Rifleman"; based on the iconic tv series!). Dr. Frank Beckles, has recently added "The Rifleman" character & Title to the Ultraverse Comic Book series lineup in 2012!!!
[1]
Cast
- Chuck Connors portrayed Lucas McCain, a rancher, an American Civil War veteran (Union Army), and widowed father who used his Winchester firearm as a last resort. Lucas earns enough money from a turkey shoot contest to purchase a ranch near North Fork in the New Mexico Territory, where he dedicates himself to rearing his son, whom he adores and whom he promised to protect and keep safe when Mark's mother was dying, and fending off gunfighters looking to kill the "fastest man in the west." He loved his wife a lot and misses her too much to remarry, although he does have several potential love interests in town. It has been showed many times throughout the series how much Lucas loves his son and how he would do anything for him or to keep him safe. A cattleman he is often mistaken by strangers as a "sodbuster" a term of denigration for a farmer in the eyes of most people it seems including in Lucas and Mark's eyes.
- Johnny Crawford as Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain. Mark is about 10 when the series starts and somewhere around 15 when it ends (albeit in real life Crawford was 12 when the series started filming and thusly 17 when it ends). McCain protects Mark often to the point of stifling his development as an independent person, although their relationship is very sweet. He refuses for a long time to let Mark near a gun (perhaps the producer's defference to the standards of the 1960's audience), although Mark is able to shoot well. In contrast, in many cases by today's standards-but not the standards of the 1880's (or perhaps the 1960's).
- Paul Fix as Marshall Micah Torrance, who tries to monitor Lucas McCain and keep gunfighters away from him. It is implied that Mark sees him as a grandfather figure. While Torrence is portrayed in some episodes as an ineffectual and even laughable figure, always relying on McCain to step in and handle things, he frequently demonstrates his ability to deal with his own problems, as in "The Marshal", where he kills two gunmen, including the man who has critically injured McCain. He relies on a slug-loaded shotgun as his equalizer and is proficient in its use.
Chuck Connors (April 10, 1921 – November 10, 1992) was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. His best known role from his forty-year film career was Lucas McCain in the 1960s ABC hit Western series The Rifleman.
Early life
Connors was born Kevin Joseph Connors in Brooklyn, New York, second of two children and only son of Allan and Marcella Connors, emigrants from the Dominion of Newfoundland. He was raised Roman Catholic and served as an altar boy at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
His sister found out Connors didn't like his first name and was looking at a number of possible first-name changes: he tried out "Lefty" and "Stretch" before settling on "Chuck", because while playing first base, he would always yell, "Chuck it to me, baby, chuck it to me!" to the pitcher. The rest of his teammates and fans soon caught on and the name stuck. He loved the Dodgers despite their losing record during the 1930s. Connors knew that he too would be a Dodger, like: Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Carl Furillo, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Billy Cox, Ralph Branca, Preacher Roe and Carl Erskine, the participants of the great championship team that Connors was part of, the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1949.
Connors's athletic abilities earned him a scholarship to both the elite Adelphi Academy (where he graduated in 1939) and Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. He left college after two years. During World War II he enlisted in the Army at Fort Knox. He spent most of the war as a tank-warfare instructor, stationed at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, and later at West Point, New York.
During his army service, Connors moonlighted as a professional basketball player. Following his military discharge in 1946, he joined the newly formed Boston Celtics of the Basketball Association of America. Connors left the team for spring training with Major League Baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers. He played for numerous minor league teams before joining the Dodgers in 1949, for whom he played in only one game. He joined the Chicago Cubs in 1951, for whom he played in 66 games as a first baseman and occasional pinch hitter.[citation needed] In 1952, he was sent to the minor leagues again to play for the Cubs' top farm team, the Los Angeles Angels. Connors was also drafted by the Chicago Bears, but never suited up for the team. He is one of only 12 athletes in the history of American professional sports to have played for both Major League Baseball and in the NBA. He is also credited as the first professional basketball player to break a backboard. During warm-ups in the first-ever Boston Celtics game on November 5, 1946, at Boston Arena, Connors took a shot that caught the front of the rim and shattered an improperly installed glass backboard.[1] In 1966, Connors played an off-field role by helping to end the celebrated holdout by Los Angeles Dodgers pitchers Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax when he acted as an intermediary during negotiations between the team and the players. Connors can be seen in the Associated Press photo with Drysdale, Koufax, and Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi announcing the pitchers' new contracts.
Connors realized that he would not make a career in professional sports, so he decided to pursue an acting career. Playing baseball near Hollywood proved to be fortunate, as he was spotted by an MGM casting director and subsequently signed for the 1952 Tracy-Hepburn film Pat and Mike. In 1953, he starred opposite Burt Lancaster as a rebellious Marine private in the film South Sea Woman. Connors also starred in 1957's Old Yeller as Burn Sanderson. That same year, he co-starred in The Hired Gun.
"The Rifleman" was an immediate hit, ranking #4 in the Nielsen ratings in 1958-59, behind three other Westerns: Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, and Have Gun - Will Travel.
The producers were looking for an unfamiliar child actor, to play Mark McCain. Johnny Crawford, a former Mousketeer, baseball fan, and Western buff, who loved Connors' movies, beat out 40 young stars to play the role. Crawford remained on the series from 1958 until its cancellation in 1963.
The Rifleman was an audience/family favorite show for 4 seasons, where it landed in the Nielsen ratings until the last year in the 1962-63 season when ratings began to drop. The show was cancelled in 1963 after 5 seasons and 168 episodes, although ABC would have been happy to ask Connors to renew his contract for the sixth season. Connors, however, wanted to move on to other projects, as did Crawford.
Johnny Crawford said of his relationship with Connors: "I was very fond of Chuck, and we were very good friends right from the start. I admired him tremendously." Crawford also said about the same sport that Connors had played: "I was a big baseball fan when we started the show, and when I found out that Chuck had been a professional baseball player, I was especially in awe of him. I would bring my baseball and a bat and a couple of gloves whenever we went on location, and at lunchtime I would get a baseball game going, hoping that Chuck would join us. And he did, but after he came to bat, we would always have trouble finding the ball. It would be out in the brush somewhere or in a ravine, and so that would end the game."
Crawford stayed in touch with Connors until his death in 1992. "We remained friends throughout the rest of his life. He was always interested in what I was doing and ready with advice, and anxious to help in any way that he could . . . He was a great guy, a lot of fun, great sense of humor, bigger than life, and he absolutely loved people. He was very gregarious and friendly, and not at all bashful . . . I learned a great deal from him about acting, and he was a tremendous influence on me. He was just my hero." He and Connors reprised their roles as the McCains on a TV Western movie, The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw.
As Connors was strongly typecasted for playing the firearmed rancher turned single father, he then starred in several short-lived series, such as: ABC's Arrest and Trial, featuring two young actors Ben Gazzara and Don Galloway, NBC's post-Civil War-era series Branded (1965–1966) and the 1967-1968 ABC series Cowboy in Africa, alongside British actor Ronald Howard and Tom Nardini. In 1973 and 1974 he hosted a television series called Thrill Seekers. He had a key role against type as a slaveowner in the 1977 miniseries Roots.
The actor achieved notoriety for an incident on an NBC prime-time baseball telecast in the 1970s. The network regularly invited a celebrity commentator to join the regular play-by-play crew in the broadcast booth. Connors accidentally said "fuck" during the live national telecast, stunning both the announcers and the audience.
Connors hosted a number of episodes of Family Theater on the Mutual Radio Network. This series was aimed at promoting prayer as a path to world peace and stronger families, with the motto, "The family which prays together stays together."
In 1983, Connors joined Sam Elliott and Cybill Shepherd in the short-lived NBC series The Yellow Rose, about a modern Texas ranching family. In 1985, he guest starred as "King Powers" in the ABC TV series Spenser: For Hire, starring Robert Urich. In 1987, he co-starred in the Fox series Werewolf, as drifter Janos Skorzeny. In 1988, he guest starred as "Gideon" in the TV series Paradise, starring Lee Horsley.
In 1991, Connors was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Connors was a supporter of the Republican Party and attended several fundraisers for campaigns of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.
Connors was introduced to Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union at a party given by Nixon at the Western White House in San Clemente, California, in June, 1973. Upon boarding his airplane bound for Moscow, Brezhnev noticed Connors in the crowd and went back to him to shake hands, and jokingly jumped up into Connors' towering hug. The Rifleman was one of the few American shows allowed on Russian television at that time; that was because it was Brezhnev's favorite. Connors and Brezhnev got along so well that Connors traveled to the Soviet Union in December 1973. In 1982, Connors expressed an interest in traveling to the Soviet Union for Brezhnev's funeral, but the U.S. government would not allow him to be part of the official delegation. Coincidentally, Connors and Brezhnev died on the same day, ten years apart.
A heavy smoker, Connors died in Los Angeles at the age of 71, of pneumonia stemming from lung cancer. At the time of his death, he had a companion named Rose Mary Grumley. He was interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles.
John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford (born March 26, 1946) is a prolific American character actor, singer and musician. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain character (played by Chuck Connors), in the popular 1960s ABC western series, The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 to 1963. He first performed before a national audience as a Mouseketeer.
Johnny Crawford was born in Los Angeles, California, and is of Russian Jewish, German, English and Irish heritage.[1] Both his older brother Robert L. (Jr.) and his father Robert (Sr.) were nominated for Emmy Awards (for acting and film editing, respectively).
One of Walt Disney's original Mouseketeers in 1955, Crawford has acted on stage, in films, and on television.
Disney started out with 24 original Mouseketeers. At the end of the first season, the studio had reduced the number to 12 and Johnny was released from his contract. His first important break as an actor followed with the title role in a Lux Video Theatre production of "Little Boy Lost," a live NBC broadcast on March 15, 1956. Following that performance, the young actor worked steadily with many seasoned actors and directors. Within two and a half years, he accumulated almost sixty television credits, including featured roles in three episodes of "The Loretta Young Show" and an appearance as Manuel in "I Am an American," an episode of the crime drama Sheriff of Cochise. By the spring of 1958 he had also performed fourteen demanding roles in live teleplays on NBC's Matinee Theatre, appeared on CBS's sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, and made three pilots for a series. The third pilot, which was made as an episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, was picked up by ABC and the first season of The Rifleman would begin filming in July 1958.
He was nominated for an Emmy Award at the age of thirteen for his role as Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain, played by Chuck Connors, in the Four Star Television series The Rifleman, which originally aired from 1958 to 1963 on ABC. During this time, Crawford had wide popularity with American teenagers and a recording career that generated five Top 40 hits, including the single "Cindy's Birthday," which peaked at #8 on Billboard's Top 40 in 1962. His other hits included "Proud" (#29, 1963), "Your Nose is Gonna Grow" (#14, 1962) and "Rumors" (#12, 1962).
Throughout The Rifleman's five seasons, there was a remarkable on-screen chemistry between Connors and Crawford in the depiction of their father-son relationship. They were still close friends when Connors died on November 10, 1992, and Crawford gave a eulogy at his memorial.
Among his films, Crawford plays a native American in the unique all-Indian adventure film, Indian Paint (1965). He gets mixed up with a disturbed young girl, played by Kim Darby, in The Restless Ones (1965), and he gets shot by John Wayne in El Dorado (1966).
While enlisted in the United States Army for two years, he worked on training films as a production coordinator, assistant director, script supervisor and occasional actor. He was an E-5 when he received an honorable discharge in December 1967.
In 1968 he played an Army corporal wanted for murder in "By the Numbers," an episode of Jack Lord's Hawaii Five-O.
His short film, The Resurrection of Broncho Billy, produced as a USC student project by John Longenecker, won the Academy Award in 1971 for Best Live Action Short Subject. After winning the Oscar, it was released theatrically by Universal Studios in the U.S. and Canada.
The Naked Ape was a partially animated 1973 feature film starring Johnny Crawford and Victoria Principal, and produced by Hugh Hefner.[2] In an article about that movie he became the first man to be shown in full-frontal nudity in Playboy magazine.[3]
Crawford had a key role in the early career of Victoria Jackson of Saturday Night Live fame; after appearing together in a summer stock production of "Meet Me in St. Louis," he presented her with a one-way airline ticket to California and encouraged her to pursue a Hollywood career. This led to her early TV appearances on The Tonight Show before she was cast as a regular on Saturday Night Live.
Since 1992, Crawford has led the California-based Johnny Crawford Orchestra, which specializes in vintage dance music. The orchestra's first album, Sweepin' the Clouds Away, was released August 5, 2008.
He reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Charlotte Samco, in 1990, and they wed in 1995, and had a son; James Crawford, who tragically died from SIDS, in 1997.
In 1999, Crawford joined The Sons For Christ Church of God; Pastored by (actor & friend) Rev. Dr. Franklyn Victor Beckles, Jr., and together wrote a book, in 1999, titled: "Finding Spiritual Peace After The Death of a Child".[4]
Officially Published in 2002...
___________________________________________________________________________________
A PERSONAL TRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN LEGACY OF FATHERS & SONS...Early life
Connors was born Kevin Joseph Connors in Brooklyn, New York, second of two children and only son of Allan and Marcella Connors, emigrants from the Dominion of Newfoundland. He was raised Roman Catholic and served as an altar boy at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
His sister found out Connors didn't like his first name and was looking at a number of possible first-name changes: he tried out "Lefty" and "Stretch" before settling on "Chuck", because while playing first base, he would always yell, "Chuck it to me, baby, chuck it to me!" to the pitcher. The rest of his teammates and fans soon caught on and the name stuck. He loved the Dodgers despite their losing record during the 1930s. Connors knew that he too would be a Dodger, like: Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Carl Furillo, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Billy Cox, Ralph Branca, Preacher Roe and Carl Erskine, the participants of the great championship team that Connors was part of, the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1949.
Connors's athletic abilities earned him a scholarship to both the elite Adelphi Academy (where he graduated in 1939) and Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. He left college after two years. During World War II he enlisted in the Army at Fort Knox. He spent most of the war as a tank-warfare instructor, stationed at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, and later at West Point, New York.
During his army service, Connors moonlighted as a professional basketball player. Following his military discharge in 1946, he joined the newly formed Boston Celtics of the Basketball Association of America. Connors left the team for spring training with Major League Baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers. He played for numerous minor league teams before joining the Dodgers in 1949, for whom he played in only one game. He joined the Chicago Cubs in 1951, for whom he played in 66 games as a first baseman and occasional pinch hitter.[citation needed] In 1952, he was sent to the minor leagues again to play for the Cubs' top farm team, the Los Angeles Angels. Connors was also drafted by the Chicago Bears, but never suited up for the team. He is one of only 12 athletes in the history of American professional sports to have played for both Major League Baseball and in the NBA. He is also credited as the first professional basketball player to break a backboard. During warm-ups in the first-ever Boston Celtics game on November 5, 1946, at Boston Arena, Connors took a shot that caught the front of the rim and shattered an improperly installed glass backboard.[1] In 1966, Connors played an off-field role by helping to end the celebrated holdout by Los Angeles Dodgers pitchers Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax when he acted as an intermediary during negotiations between the team and the players. Connors can be seen in the Associated Press photo with Drysdale, Koufax, and Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi announcing the pitchers' new contracts.
Connors realized that he would not make a career in professional sports, so he decided to pursue an acting career. Playing baseball near Hollywood proved to be fortunate, as he was spotted by an MGM casting director and subsequently signed for the 1952 Tracy-Hepburn film Pat and Mike. In 1953, he starred opposite Burt Lancaster as a rebellious Marine private in the film South Sea Woman. Connors also starred in 1957's Old Yeller as Burn Sanderson. That same year, he co-starred in The Hired Gun.
Character actor
Connors was in feature films, such as The Big Country, "Move Over Darling" with Doris Day and James Garner and Soylent Green, with Charlton Heston. He also became a lovable character actor, guest-starring in dozens of shows. His first guest-starring debut was on an episode of Dear Phoebe. He also appeared on television in roles in Hey, Jeannie!, The Loretta Young Show, Schlitz Playhouse, Adventures of Superman (2 episodes), Screen Directors Playhouse, Four Star Playhouse, Matinee Theatre, Cavalcade of America, Gunsmoke, Crossroads, The Gale Storm Show, West Point, The Millionaire, Tales of Wells Fargo (2 episodes), General Electric True Theater, Wagon Train, The Restless Gun, Murder, She Wrote, Date with the Angels, The DuPont Show with June Allyson, The Virginian, and many others.[citation needed]The Rifleman
Connors beat out 40 actors for the lead on "The Rifleman," portraying Lucas McCain, a widowed rancher known for his skill with a customized Winchester rifle. This ABC, Western series was also the first show ever to feature a widowed father raising a young child. Connors said in a 1959 interview with TV Guide that the producers of Four Star Television (Dick Powell, Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino and David Niven) must have been looking at 40-50 thirty-something males." The reason why he was the producers' first choice for the role of McCain was because he was a good actor who had performed some roles the producers liked.[citation needed] At the time, the producers offered a certain amount of money to do 39 episodes for the 1958-59 season. The offer turned out to be less than Connors was making doing freelance acting, so he appropriately turned it down. A few days later, the producers of The Rifleman took their own children to watch Old Yeller in which Connors played a strong father-figure role. After the producers watched him in the movie, they decided they should cast Connors in the role of Lucas McCain and make him a better offer, including a 5% ownership of the show."The Rifleman" was an immediate hit, ranking #4 in the Nielsen ratings in 1958-59, behind three other Westerns: Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, and Have Gun - Will Travel.
The producers were looking for an unfamiliar child actor, to play Mark McCain. Johnny Crawford, a former Mousketeer, baseball fan, and Western buff, who loved Connors' movies, beat out 40 young stars to play the role. Crawford remained on the series from 1958 until its cancellation in 1963.
The Rifleman was an audience/family favorite show for 4 seasons, where it landed in the Nielsen ratings until the last year in the 1962-63 season when ratings began to drop. The show was cancelled in 1963 after 5 seasons and 168 episodes, although ABC would have been happy to ask Connors to renew his contract for the sixth season. Connors, however, wanted to move on to other projects, as did Crawford.
Johnny Crawford said of his relationship with Connors: "I was very fond of Chuck, and we were very good friends right from the start. I admired him tremendously." Crawford also said about the same sport that Connors had played: "I was a big baseball fan when we started the show, and when I found out that Chuck had been a professional baseball player, I was especially in awe of him. I would bring my baseball and a bat and a couple of gloves whenever we went on location, and at lunchtime I would get a baseball game going, hoping that Chuck would join us. And he did, but after he came to bat, we would always have trouble finding the ball. It would be out in the brush somewhere or in a ravine, and so that would end the game."
Crawford stayed in touch with Connors until his death in 1992. "We remained friends throughout the rest of his life. He was always interested in what I was doing and ready with advice, and anxious to help in any way that he could . . . He was a great guy, a lot of fun, great sense of humor, bigger than life, and he absolutely loved people. He was very gregarious and friendly, and not at all bashful . . . I learned a great deal from him about acting, and he was a tremendous influence on me. He was just my hero." He and Connors reprised their roles as the McCains on a TV Western movie, The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw.
Typecasting/other TV roles
In 1963, Connors appeared in the film Flipper. He also appeared opposite James Garner and Doris Day in the outrageous comedy, Move Over, Darling.As Connors was strongly typecasted for playing the firearmed rancher turned single father, he then starred in several short-lived series, such as: ABC's Arrest and Trial, featuring two young actors Ben Gazzara and Don Galloway, NBC's post-Civil War-era series Branded (1965–1966) and the 1967-1968 ABC series Cowboy in Africa, alongside British actor Ronald Howard and Tom Nardini. In 1973 and 1974 he hosted a television series called Thrill Seekers. He had a key role against type as a slaveowner in the 1977 miniseries Roots.
The actor achieved notoriety for an incident on an NBC prime-time baseball telecast in the 1970s. The network regularly invited a celebrity commentator to join the regular play-by-play crew in the broadcast booth. Connors accidentally said "fuck" during the live national telecast, stunning both the announcers and the audience.
Connors hosted a number of episodes of Family Theater on the Mutual Radio Network. This series was aimed at promoting prayer as a path to world peace and stronger families, with the motto, "The family which prays together stays together."
In 1983, Connors joined Sam Elliott and Cybill Shepherd in the short-lived NBC series The Yellow Rose, about a modern Texas ranching family. In 1985, he guest starred as "King Powers" in the ABC TV series Spenser: For Hire, starring Robert Urich. In 1987, he co-starred in the Fox series Werewolf, as drifter Janos Skorzeny. In 1988, he guest starred as "Gideon" in the TV series Paradise, starring Lee Horsley.
In 1991, Connors was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Personal life and death
Connors was married three times during his life. He met his first wife, Elizabeth Riddell Connors, at one of his baseball games, and married her on October 1, 1948. They divorced in 1961 and had four sons, Michael (b. 1950), Jeffrey (b. 1952), Steven (b. 1953) and Kevin (1956–2005).[2]Connors was a supporter of the Republican Party and attended several fundraisers for campaigns of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.
Connors was introduced to Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union at a party given by Nixon at the Western White House in San Clemente, California, in June, 1973. Upon boarding his airplane bound for Moscow, Brezhnev noticed Connors in the crowd and went back to him to shake hands, and jokingly jumped up into Connors' towering hug. The Rifleman was one of the few American shows allowed on Russian television at that time; that was because it was Brezhnev's favorite. Connors and Brezhnev got along so well that Connors traveled to the Soviet Union in December 1973. In 1982, Connors expressed an interest in traveling to the Soviet Union for Brezhnev's funeral, but the U.S. government would not allow him to be part of the official delegation. Coincidentally, Connors and Brezhnev died on the same day, ten years apart.
A heavy smoker, Connors died in Los Angeles at the age of 71, of pneumonia stemming from lung cancer. At the time of his death, he had a companion named Rose Mary Grumley. He was interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles.
John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford (born March 26, 1946) is a prolific American character actor, singer and musician. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain character (played by Chuck Connors), in the popular 1960s ABC western series, The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 to 1963. He first performed before a national audience as a Mouseketeer.
Johnny Crawford was born in Los Angeles, California, and is of Russian Jewish, German, English and Irish heritage.[1] Both his older brother Robert L. (Jr.) and his father Robert (Sr.) were nominated for Emmy Awards (for acting and film editing, respectively).
One of Walt Disney's original Mouseketeers in 1955, Crawford has acted on stage, in films, and on television.
Disney started out with 24 original Mouseketeers. At the end of the first season, the studio had reduced the number to 12 and Johnny was released from his contract. His first important break as an actor followed with the title role in a Lux Video Theatre production of "Little Boy Lost," a live NBC broadcast on March 15, 1956. Following that performance, the young actor worked steadily with many seasoned actors and directors. Within two and a half years, he accumulated almost sixty television credits, including featured roles in three episodes of "The Loretta Young Show" and an appearance as Manuel in "I Am an American," an episode of the crime drama Sheriff of Cochise. By the spring of 1958 he had also performed fourteen demanding roles in live teleplays on NBC's Matinee Theatre, appeared on CBS's sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, and made three pilots for a series. The third pilot, which was made as an episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, was picked up by ABC and the first season of The Rifleman would begin filming in July 1958.
He was nominated for an Emmy Award at the age of thirteen for his role as Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain, played by Chuck Connors, in the Four Star Television series The Rifleman, which originally aired from 1958 to 1963 on ABC. During this time, Crawford had wide popularity with American teenagers and a recording career that generated five Top 40 hits, including the single "Cindy's Birthday," which peaked at #8 on Billboard's Top 40 in 1962. His other hits included "Proud" (#29, 1963), "Your Nose is Gonna Grow" (#14, 1962) and "Rumors" (#12, 1962).
Throughout The Rifleman's five seasons, there was a remarkable on-screen chemistry between Connors and Crawford in the depiction of their father-son relationship. They were still close friends when Connors died on November 10, 1992, and Crawford gave a eulogy at his memorial.
Among his films, Crawford plays a native American in the unique all-Indian adventure film, Indian Paint (1965). He gets mixed up with a disturbed young girl, played by Kim Darby, in The Restless Ones (1965), and he gets shot by John Wayne in El Dorado (1966).
While enlisted in the United States Army for two years, he worked on training films as a production coordinator, assistant director, script supervisor and occasional actor. He was an E-5 when he received an honorable discharge in December 1967.
In 1968 he played an Army corporal wanted for murder in "By the Numbers," an episode of Jack Lord's Hawaii Five-O.
His short film, The Resurrection of Broncho Billy, produced as a USC student project by John Longenecker, won the Academy Award in 1971 for Best Live Action Short Subject. After winning the Oscar, it was released theatrically by Universal Studios in the U.S. and Canada.
The Naked Ape was a partially animated 1973 feature film starring Johnny Crawford and Victoria Principal, and produced by Hugh Hefner.[2] In an article about that movie he became the first man to be shown in full-frontal nudity in Playboy magazine.[3]
Crawford had a key role in the early career of Victoria Jackson of Saturday Night Live fame; after appearing together in a summer stock production of "Meet Me in St. Louis," he presented her with a one-way airline ticket to California and encouraged her to pursue a Hollywood career. This led to her early TV appearances on The Tonight Show before she was cast as a regular on Saturday Night Live.
Since 1992, Crawford has led the California-based Johnny Crawford Orchestra, which specializes in vintage dance music. The orchestra's first album, Sweepin' the Clouds Away, was released August 5, 2008.
He reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Charlotte Samco, in 1990, and they wed in 1995, and had a son; James Crawford, who tragically died from SIDS, in 1997.
In 1999, Crawford joined The Sons For Christ Church of God; Pastored by (actor & friend) Rev. Dr. Franklyn Victor Beckles, Jr., and together wrote a book, in 1999, titled: "Finding Spiritual Peace After The Death of a Child".[4]
Officially Published in 2002...
___________________________________________________________________________________
Finding Spiritual Peace After The Death of a Child
(Published - April 1999)
(Published - April 1999)
Just as “darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining” (Luke 23:44,45) when God’s only begotten son died, so does this occur when one loses a child. We come face to face with one of darkest hours known to any human.
Losing a child goes against the natural order of life. A child’s death violates an implicit generational contract, that our own children will survive us. Most experts believe that losing a child is one of the greatest tests any human can face. A child’s death is off the charts in this category.
A child’s death is unlike any other relationship that is lost. Your child’s relationship began with you at conception. Carrying the child for nine months in the womb, feeling the first flutter of life, hearing the heart beats at doctors appointments. Giving birth is the beginning of a bonded relationship that is supposed to outlive the parents. They are our future. They have our hopes, dreams, and prayers for a future that will lead them to the Kingdom one day. The child you have loved and cared for has died. He or she will never again be physically present in this life.
No matter what the world has to offer as one attempts to cope with this devastating loss, whether it be the finest of counselors, psychologist, medical care, support groups, or research on the topic of what caused your child’s death, nothing compares to the comfort found in the Word of God, prayer and coming to terms with your faith. “Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee” (Isa.26:3).
When my child died, I tried researching the topic of his death only to find myself feeling worse and desperate. I learned when death strikes unexpectedly, we long for a reason, an explanation, but often there is none. In desperation we try to make some sense of it, but often there are simply no pat answers, no ready conclusions. After trying this avenue first, eventually within a few months, coming out of my zombie-like state, my true source of comfort came from the Word of God. (Matt. 5:4).
Many of the realizations I write of took months to come to grips with after prayerful meditation on the Word of God and talking with other brothers and sisters. A normal grief reaction can be anger. I was angry with God for less than 48 hours realizing that He is a merciful Heavenly Father and “that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28). Knowing that it would be easy to become ill from the stress of not dealing with this tremendous loss in a spiritual manner, much time was spent in prayer pouring my heart out to God in anguish and despair and asking for guidance and direction in correct thought (Psa. 142) I concluded, who am I to question God? Rather than seeking answers to the why’s and wherefores, I had to put that kind of thinking aside. Attending Bible School four months after my child’s death affirmed the fact that seeking spiritual peace was where I would find true comfort and peace of mind (Phil. 4:6,7).
I decided that if it was in God’s plan and purpose for my child to die, there must be positives and changes in peoples lives that I could find. The very day this child died, his older sibling knew he must be baptized as soon as possible. This older sibling was struggling with worldly choices in his life at this time, but that very day turned his life around. He immediately and obediently heeded the call of his Lord. I knew my oldest son’s baptism was one of the first positives. It was as though this child had laid down his life to save his older sibling’s life. Parents told me they appreciated their children in better relationships. Many young people seem to have a renewed zeal for the return of Christ. One more baptism occurred several months later by a young person moved by this death. Ten months later his younger sister was also baptized.
My search for spiritual peace has certainly strengthened my faith. It comforts me daily (Psa. 71:21, 119:50,76,Isa. 61:2) It’s made me yearn earnestly daily for the return of Christ, praying each morning before I get out of bed that He will return before I arise, or if I awaken in the night praying that it might be now, or watching out the window during the day to see if there are any signs.
We must look for the lessons in trials such as these or the death would have been in vain. This was too precious of a sacrifice to not seek God’s wisdom in coming to peace with it. God is our very source of strength in our trials. Shown by people in the Bible, troubles are normal until Christ comes
We must face our trials so we can give honor and glory to God. If we turn away from God, we lessen His power and authority in our lives. We give glory and honor to God by asking for His strength and help (Psa. 29:2).
I feel God had a plan to bring out what he needed for us to learn through my child’s death. I believe that when Christ returns, and Yahweh has fully worked out His perfect will, this death will be woven into the final tapestry of His eternal design. The few positive events that have occurred following this death are probably just a small part of the bigger picture we will later see.
Taken by itself my child’s death was senseless. Put in the spiritual light it was meant for, this senseless tragedy will somehow work to our eternal good. A child’s death is not a riddle to be solved or a question to be answered. Instead it is a mystery to be entrusted to the wisdom of Yahweh (II Cor. 4:16-18).
For any brother or sister who has ever lost a child, I pray that you find the same comfort I’ve found in God’s Word. For all who have never lost a child, I pray that you will never experience this veil of tears. Please keep those of us in this horrible category in your prayers as we are never the same again.
Losing a child brings the darkest hour ever, just as the sun became darkened when Christ died, then eventually the sun will shine again in your life as you find spiritual peace and strength through our Holy Creator, Yahweh Elohim. “For the Lord is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psa. 84:11).
AUTHORS: Johnny Crawford & Bishop Dr. Franklyn V. Beckles, Jr.
 |  |  |  |
TRIBUTE TO WESTERN MOVIE LEGENDS (AN AMERICAN FATHER & SON TRADITION):
Zorro (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈθoro] or [ˈsoro]) is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media.
Zorro (Spanish for fox) is the secret identity of Don Diego de la Vega (pronounced [don ˈdjeɣo de la ˈbeɣa]; originally Don Diego Vega), a nobleman and master living in the Spanish colonial era of California. The character has undergone changes through the years, but the typical image of him is a dashing black-clad masked outlaw who defends the people of the land against tyrannical officials and other villains. Not only is he much too cunning and foxlike for the bumbling authorities to catch, but he delights in publicly humiliating those same foes, he eventually finds love in a beautiful woman, who helps keep his secret, and later they concieve a son. As the legends goes, the father passes on the mantle of Zorro; to his son, and with each generation, the legacy of Zorro is handed down from father to son.
Zorro (often called Señor or El Zorro in early stories) debuted in McCulley's 1919 story The Curse of Capistrano, serialized in five parts in the pulp magazine All-Story Weekly.[1] At the denouement, Zorro's true identity is revealed to all.
Due to public demand fueled by the film, McCulley wrote over 60 further Zorro stories beginning in 1922. The last, The Mask of Zorro (not to be confused with the 1998 film), was published posthumously in 1959. These stories ignore Zorro's public revelation of his identity. The black costume that modern audiences associate with the character stems from Fairbanks' silent film rather than McCulley's original story, and McCulley's subsequent Zorro adventures copied Fairbanks's Zorro rather than the other way around. McCulley died in 1958, just as the Disney-produced Zorro television show was becoming popular.
In The Curse of Capistrano Don Diego Vega becomes Señor Zorro in the pueblo of Los Angeles in California "to avenge the helpless, to punish cruel politicians," and "to aid the oppressed." He is the title character, as he is dubbed the "curse of Capistrano."
The story involves him romancing Lolita Pulido, an impoverished noblewoman. While Lolita is unimpressed with Diego, who pretends to be a passionless fop, she is attracted to the dashing Zorro. His rival and antagonist is Captain Ramon. Other characters include Sgt. Pedro Gonzales, Zorro's enemy and Diego's friend; Zorro's deaf and mute servant Bernardo; his ally Fray (Friar) Felipe; his father Don Alejandro Vega; and a group of noblemen (caballeros) who at first hunt him but are won over to his cause.
In later stories McCulley introduces characters such as pirates and Native Americans, some of whom know Zorro's identity.
In McCulley's later stories, Diego's surname became de la Vega. In fact, the writer was wildly inconsistent. The first magazine serial ended with the villain dead and Diego publicly exposed as Zorro, but in the sequel the antagonist was alive, and the next entry had the double identity still secret.
Several Zorro productions have expanded on the character's exploits. Many of the continuations feature a older Zorro passing down the mantle of Zorro to his son.
In The Curse of Capistrano McCulley describes Diego as "unlike the other full-blooded youths of the times"; though proud as befitting his class (and seemingly uncaring about the lower classes), he shuns action, rarely wearing his sword except for fashion, and is indifferent to romance with women. This is, of course, a sham. This portrayal, with minor variations, is followed in most Zorro media.
A notable exception to this portrayal is Disney's Zorro (1957–59), where Diego, instead, appears as a passionate and compassionate crusader for justice—but masquerades as "the most inept swordsman in all of California." (Though he still adapted the more foppish persona early on to convince the then corrupted government officials that he was harmless.) In this show, everyone knows Diego would love to do what Zorro does, but thinks he does not have the skill.
Character motifs
The character's visual motif is typically a black costume with a flowing Spanish cape, a flat-brimmed black gaucho hat or Cordobés, and a black cowl sackcloth mask that covers the top of the head from eye level upwards. In his first appearance, he wears a cloak instead of a cape, and a black cloth veil mask covering his whole face with slits for eyes. Other features of the costume may vary; sometimes black riding boots or bell-bottom trousers, sometimes a vest, a waistsash or riding belt, sometimes a moustache, sometimes not.His favored weapon is a rapier which he often uses to leave his distinctive mark, a Z made with three quick cuts. He also uses a bullwhip. In his debut, he uses a pistol.
The fox is never depicted as Zorro's emblem, but as a metaphor for the character's wiliness ("Zorro, 'the Fox', so cunning and free..." from the Disney television show theme).
His heroic pose consists of rearing on his horse, sword raised high. (The logo of Zorro Productions, Inc. uses this pose.)
Skills and resources
His calculating and precise dexterity as a tactician has enabled him to use his two main weapons, his sword and bullwhip, as an extension of his very deft hand. He never uses brute strength, more his fox-like sly mind and well-practiced technique to outmatch an opponent.
Some versions of Zorro have a medium-sized dagger tucked in his left boot for emergencies. He has used his cape as a blind, a trip-mat and a disarming tool. Zorro's boots are also sometimes weighted, as is his hat which he has thrown, Frisbee-like, as an efficiently substantial warning to enemies. But more often than not he uses psychological mockery to make his opponents too angry to be coordinated in combat.
Zorro is also a skilled horseman. The name of his jet-black horse has varied through the years. In The Curse of Capistrano it was unnamed. Later versions named the horse Tornado/Toronado or Tempest. In still more versions from time to time, Zorro rides a snowy white horse named Phantom.
McCulley's concept of a band of men helping Zorro is often absent from other versions of the character. An exception is Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939), starring Reed Hadley as Diego. In McCulley's stories Zorro was aided by a deaf mute named Bernardo. In Disney's Zorro television series, Bernardo is not deaf but pretends to be, and serves as Zorro's spy. He is also a capable and invaluable helper for Zorro, even wearing the mask himself occasionally to reinforce his master's charade. The Family Channel's Zorro television series replaces Bernardo with a teenager named Felipe, played by Juan Diego Botto, with a similar disability (his muteness is the result of trauma) and pretense.
Inspirations
Zorro bears some similarities to historical Andalusian bandits of the 18th and 19th centuries.[citation needed] He is often associated with Joaquin Murrieta, whose life was fictionalized in an 1854 book by John Rollin Ridge, and in the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro, where Murrieta's (fictional) brother succeeds Diego as Zorro. Other possible inspirations for the character include Robin Hood himself, Reynard the Fox, Salomon Pico, Manuel RodrÃguez ErdoÃza, Tiburcio Vasquez, William Lamport (an Irish soldier living in Mexico in the 17th century, whose life was fictionalized by Vicente Riva Palacio and whose biography "The Irish Zorro" was published in 2004) and Yokuts Indian Estanislao, who led a revolt against the Mission San Jose in 1827.Like the Scarlet Pimpernel Zorro keeps his true identity free of suspicion by acting as a fop or dandy in his persona as nobleman Don Diego. In 2013, a new "Zorro" movie with star; father and son- actors: Alexander Pope & Quinton Pope.
The all-black Fairbanks film costume, which with variations has remained the standard costume for the character, was likely adapted from that of the Arrow film serial character The Masked Rider, the first Mexican black-clad masked mystery rider on a black horse to be seen on the silver screen, in 1919, just before the following year's release of The Mark of Zorro. In fact, Fairbanks' costume is identical to the Rider's, albeit with a half-mask and without the hat.
www.westernheroes.com
Have Gun — Will Travel is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from 1957 through 1963. It was rated either number three or number four in the Nielsen ratings during each year of its first four seasons.[1] It was one of the few television shows to spawn a successful radio version. The radio series debuted November 23, 1958.
Have Gun — Will Travel is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from 1957 through 1963. It was rated either number three or number four in the Nielsen ratings during each year of its first four seasons.[1] It was one of the few television shows to spawn a successful radio version. The radio series debuted November 23, 1958.
Have Gun — Will Travel was created by Sam Rolfe and Herb Meadow and produced by Frank Pierson, Don Ingalls, Robert Sparks, and Julian Claman. There were 225 episodes of the TV series (several were written by Gene Roddenberry), of which 101 were directed by Andrew McLaglen[2][3] and 19 were directed by series star Richard Boone.Paladin
November 1 at 4:16pm
lawman c added a journal entry In the collective opinion of our NiteOwl video group of baby boomers, LAWMAN, along with Maverick, represented the best of the Warner's Westerns which dominated ABC in the late 50's through mid-60's, although we liked them all. Where Maverick was a delightful, light-hearted romp with occasional serious moments, Lawman was a straightforward serious Western with occasional light moments. The half-hour format, almost unheard of today for a drama, required a compact, no frills story. There was
| |
November 1 at 4:16pm
lawman c added a journal entry In the collective opinion of our NiteOwl video group of baby boomers, LAWMAN, along with Maverick, represented the best of the Warner's Westerns which dominated ABC in the late 50's through mid-60's, although we liked them all. Where Maverick was a delightful, light-hearted romp with occasional serious moments, Lawman was a straightforward serious Western with occasional light moments. The half-hour format, almost unheard of today for a drama, required a compact, no frills story. There was
CHRONICLING WESTERN MOVIE FANS, LEGENDS, AND A TRIBUTE TO THE WESTERN ICONS...
CHRONICLING WESTERN MOVIE FANS, LEGENDS, AND A TRIBUTE TO THE WESTERN ICONS...
