Fess Parker

At 85 years old, Fess Parker has this physical status:

Fess Elisha Parker, Jr. (born F.E.)

Parker, August 16, 1924 – March 18, 2010), an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney 1954-1955 TV miniseries and as Daniel Boone in an NBC television series from 1964 to 1970.

He was also known as a winemaker and resort operator-operator.

Early years

Parker was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up on a farm near San Angelo's Tom Green County. Fess Parker's father, who later added the letters "E," became a tax assessor. Fess had been given the name in honor of educator and politician Simeon D. Fess. The upcoming actor decided to change his name from F.E. Elisha Parker Jr. to Fess Elisha Parker Jr. When he was a youth (about 1937), he selected the middle name himself because it sounded natural and matched his middle initial.

In the latter part of World War II, he enlisted in the United States Navy in the hopes of becoming a pilot. He was turned down because he was 6 foot 6 inches (1.98 m) tall. He then attempted to become a radioman gunman, but was unable to fit into the rear cockpit. He was eventually sent to the United States Marine Corps as a radio operator and then sent out to the South Pacific shortly before the war ended.

He was arrested in 1946 and enrolled at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, with help from the GI Bill. He was stabbed in the neck by the other driver during an altercation after an auto collision. He was a founding member of the H-U Players Club and moved to the University of Texas at Austin in 1947 as a history major and continued to be interested in drama. L.Q., a future actor, was one of his roommates. Jones. Parker earned a history degree from UT in 1950. He had been initiated into the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He concentrated on his GI Bill savings for one year, and he concentrated on drama at the University of Southern California, where he obtained a master's degree in theater history.

Personal life and death

On January 18, 1960, Parker married Marcella Belle Rinehart. Fess Elisha Parker III and Ashley Allen Rinehart, as well as 11 grandchildren and a great-grandson, lived with them.

Parker died of natural causes on March 18, 2010, at his Santa Ynez, California, near the Fess Parker Winery. He is buried in the Santa Barbara Cemetery with a simple headstone and a coonskin hat inscribed below his name.

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Career

Parker began his show-business career in the summer of 1951 when he had a $32-a-week job as an extra in the play Mister Roberts, although he is credited with the voice of Leslie, the chauffeur, in the 1950 film Harvey. Within months, he was on location with a minor part in Untamed Frontier with Joseph Cotten and Shelley Winters.

Parker became a contract player with Warner Bros., appearing in small roles in several films such as Springfield Rifle (1952), Island in the Sky, The Bounty Hunter and Battle Cry. In 1954, he appeared as Grat Dalton in the Jim Davis syndicated Western anthology series Stories of the Century in the episode "The Dalton Brothers".

In another 1954 appearance, Parker was cast as Curt Morrison, a cowboy/militia-marshal patrolling the land rush in the New Mexico Territory, in the episode "The Kickapoo Run" on the syndicated anthology series Death Valley Days. In the 1961 Death Valley Days episode "A Miracle at Whiskey Gulch", Parker portrayed the Reverend Joel H. Todd, who tries to instill Christian principles in a wild frontier town.

According to Parker himself, when the Walt Disney Company was seeking an actor to play Davy Crockett, James Arness, later cast as Marshal Matt Dillon on CBS's Gunsmoke, was first considered for the title role. Parker had recently graduated to being a contract weekly actor but listened to his agent and appeared in a Warner Bros. science fiction film about giant ants called Them!, which required only one day's work. He had a small scene as a pilot put into an insane asylum after claiming his plane had been downed by giant flying insects. Arness appeared in a larger role in the same film.

During the screening of this film, Walt Disney looked past Arness and discovered Parker. Disney was impressed by Parker's portrayal of a man who was unswerving in his belief in what he saw despite the forces of authority against him. Parker was asked to drop by the Disney Studio. When he did, he brought his guitar, met Disney, sang a song, and then said goodbye. Several weeks later, Parker was informed that he had been selected over Arness and several others for the role, including Buddy Ebsen, who eventually played Crockett's sidekick, Georgie Russell.

Disney's three-episode version of Crockett depicted his exploits as a frontiersman, congressman, and tragic hero of the Alamo. The episodes have been called the first television miniseries, though the term had not yet been coined. Davy Crockett (1954–55) was a tremendous hit and led to a merchandising frenzy for coonskin caps and all things Crockett.

Parker became a contract star for Disney and appeared in The Great Locomotive Chase, Westward Ho, the Wagons!, Old Yeller, and The Light in the Forest. He complained that they were all basically the same role. Disney refused to lend Parker for roles outside that persona, such as Jeffrey Hunter's role opposite John Wayne in The Searchers and Marilyn Monroe's leading man in Bus Stop.

Parker was dissatisfied with Disney's proposal to use him only in a small role in Tonka. He was put on suspension for refusing the role, and subsequently left Disney.

Parker made guest appearances on many television programs, and composed and sang. He performed the occasional role of Tom Conrad, editor of the Diablo Courier in the syndicated western series, Annie Oakley (1954–1957), starring Gail Davis, Brad Johnson, and Jimmy Hawkins.

Parker was contracted to Paramount Pictures from 1958 to 1962. He appeared in a small assortment of Paramount movies, including a cameo as an unnamed frontiersman in Bob Hope's Western comedy Alias Jesse James and supporting roles in The Hangman (1959) with Robert Taylor, The Jayhawkers! (1959) with Jeff Chandler, and Hell Is for Heroes (1962) with Steve McQueen.

In 1962, he starred in the title role of the TV series Mr Smith Goes to Washington, portraying the same idealistic character that James Stewart had played in the 1939 film. Parker took to the stage in 1963, in a traveling production of Oklahoma! as Curly. The movie roles he sought were elusive. In 1966, Parker starred in the movie Smoky, directed by George Sherman where he played the role of Clint Barkley, who finds a black stallion named Smoky, a wild stallion who eventually becomes a wonderful cutting horse and the best friend an old cowboy could ever want.

Parker's Daniel Boone television series portraying another historic figure of America's frontier days began filming in 1964. Over its six years (1964 to 1970) as one of the highest-rated shows of its time, Parker was not only the star of the series, but also the co-producer and director of five of its most popular episodes.

Turning down the title role of McCloud, Parker retired from acting at the age of 49 after a sitcom pilot called The Fess Parker Show was broadcast on March 28, 1974, but was not subsequently picked up by the network.

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