September 15 Birthday Wishes

Clifton Young [1917 - 1951]
Henry Silva [1928 - ]
Henry Darrow [1933 - ]
Merlin Olsen [1940 - 2010]
Tommy Lee Jones [1946 - ]

Clifton Young was a member of "Our Gang" (or the Little Rascals) called Bonedust, and later, as he got older, he got small parts in Westerns and film noir movies, mostly as sneering bag guys. He died 5 days before his 34th birthday in a hotel fire that started when fell asleep while smoking.

Henry Silva's background is Sicilian and Spanish, and played different ethnic roles: Italians, Mexicans and Hispanics, Indians, and even Asians. One of most memorable roles is as Laurence Harvey's North Korean handler in The Manchurian Candidate (and his fight scene with Sinatra is a classic!).

Henry Darrow was born Enrique Tomas Delgado, and is of Puerto Rican descent. He appeared in a number of movies and TV shows, and David Tortort cast him in The High Chaparral after seeing in the play The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. He was first Hispanic actor to play Zorro on TV in Zorro and Son, and played Zorro's father on the Family Channel's The New Zorro, in which he replaced Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

Merlin Olson was an defensive lineman for the Los Angeles Rams, a member of the Fearsome Foursome with Deacon Jones, Rosey Grier, and Lamar Lundy. His first acting role in the John Wayne film The Undefeated, along with Rams quarterback Roman Gabriel. He the appeared in a few TV shows and movies before being cast as Jonathan Garvey on Little House on the Prairie. He later was cast in Father Murphy as a frontiersman who disguises himself as a priest in order to save a school for orphans. As well as being a color commentator on NBC's NFL coverage, he was the spokesman for FTD Florists.

Tommy Lee Jones first appeared in the movie Love Story in a role that the novel's author, Erich Segal, said was based on Jones when they were roommates at Harvard. He then played for 4 years on the soap opera One Life to Live in the early '70s. He first won acclaim as Loretta Lynn's husband Mooney in Coal Miner's Daughter, which earned him a Golden Globe Award. He won 2 Emmy awards: in 1983 as convicted murderer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song, and in 1989 as Capt. Woodrow F. Call in Lonesome Dove. He became a big box office draw, playing in The Fugitive (for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), Cobb (as baseball legend Ty Cobb), Men in Black and it's sequel, and Space Cowboys among them.

Also today:

Jackie Cooper (1922-2011) started as a child star at MGM in the early '30s, and continued acting, as well as directing and producing until the early '90s, starring in the TV series The People's Choice and Hennesey, and playing Daily Planet Editor Perry White in the Superman films, and directing episodes on TV shows like MASH, The Rockford Files,Magnum PI, and Cagney and Lacey. He only did a couple of Westerns, most notably The Return of Frank James with Henry Fonda.

Howdy Tinhorn!!

Re Henry Silva, I've seen him as "Chink" in The Tall T, as "Lujan" in The Law And Jake Wade, as an Apache in the horrible, 5 Desperate Men and also in The Bravados as a Mexican, but his role of Billy Score in the 1981 Burt Reynolds film, Sharkey's Machine has to rank right up there with the most murderous villains ever in film. I'll never the forget the scene, in which he snorts cocaine, or the perverse/excited look on his face, just before he rings the doorbell and when he sees a shadow approaching under the door, he fires both barrels of the sawed off over/under shotgun through the door!! And this guy has the nerve to question why they typecast him as a heavy!!

Ed

Happy Birthday to all of the above personages, especially the great Tommy Lee! Also writer/director Ron Shelton, who hasn't generated any Westerns but directed two of (IMHO) Kevin Costner's best performances in Bull Durham and Tin Cup. And let's not forget James Fenimore Cooper, author of the Leatherstocking tales -- those rousing yarns set in a time when Western New York state was the frontier. Mr. Cooper is 223 years young today!