September 8 Birthday Wishes

William Fawcett [1894 - 1974]
Kenneth McDonald [1901 - 1972]
Frank Cady [1915 - 1912]
Harry Harris [1922 - 2009]

Manco, I see that finger got itchy on the keyboard again. Frank Cady passed away in 2012.

William Fawcett was a minister, an ambulance driver in WWI, and later earned a Ph.D. in Elizabethan drama from the University of Nebraska. He then became a professor of theater at Michigan State. When he decided to make acting a career, he auditioned for the part of a college professor and was turned down because they said he didn't fit the role! He appeared in most of the TV series in the '50s and '60s, as well as several films, and had the regular role of Pete Wilkey on the series Fury.

Kenneth McDonald was a contract player at Columbia from the '30s to the '50s, and was several 3 Stooges shorts. Later he had the recurring role as Judge Carter on Perry Mason.

Frank Cady is known to all as store keeper Sam Drucker on Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and The Beverly Hillbillies. Before that, he appeared in movies like When Worlds Collide, Rear Window, and The Bad Seed, as well as the role of Doc Williams on Ozzie and Harriet.

Director Harry Harris started as a sound editor at Columbia prior to WWII. During the war, he served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces, where he edited sound effects for training and combat films, under the supervision of Ronald Reagan. He then went into television, fist as an editor at Desilu, and then as a director, helming episodes and TV movies for 5 decades.

Also today:

Henry Thomas (1971-) first came to fame as Elliott in Stephen Spielberg's movie E.T. in 1982. In 1990, he played a young Norman Bates in Psycho IV: The Beginning. His Western credits include Legends of the Fall, Riders of the Purple Sage (1996), and All The Pretty Horses.

David Arquette (1972-) is from a family of actors, brother to Rosanna And Patricia, and grandson of Cliff Arquette, know to TV viewers as Charlie Weaver. Not necessarily known as a Western actor, he played Wild Bill Hickok's killer Jack McCall in the 1995 movie Wild Bill, and became the second actor to play Augustus McCrae in the 1996 miniseries Dead Man's Walk. He's probably best known as Deputy Sheriff Dewey Riley in the Sceam movies.