The Harry Carey, Jr. Centennial

Born 100 years ago today, screen actor Harry Carey Jr. (1921-2012). You want to fill me with rage? Boast to me, that you don’t know he is. People in my set love to do that with regard to western motion pictures and the artists associated with them. The divisions in this country might have a little something to do with that sneering attitude. You don’t know who he is? Don’t care? Don’t care to learn? You might want to re-think that.

Carey was a terrible actor, by the way, but he had over 150 screen credits over a 60+ year period, most of it in major Hollywood projects, ranging from near-starring parts to bit roles. He was a key member of the John Ford Stock Company, was in four Howard Hawks pictures, and frequently acted alongside John Wayne,James Stewart, Henry Fonda (with whom he shares a birthday), Ben Johnson, and other veterans of the western genre. He was the son of silent movie stars Harry Carey and Olive Fuller Golden, and a grandson of the important vaudeville performer and labor organizer George Fuller Golden.

After serving in World War Two, Carey did the natural thing, which was to join the family trade. He’s in so many classic movies its almost absurd: Red River (1948), 3 Godfathers (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949),Wagon Master(1950), Rio Grande (1950), Monkey Business (1952), Niagara (1953), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes(1953), The Long Gray Line (1955), Mister Roberts (1955), Spin and Marty (1955, a movie made out of the serial from Disney’s tv show The Mickey Mouse Club), The Searchers (1956), Two Rode Together (1961), Cheyenne Autumn (1964), Shenandoah (1965), The Rare Breed (1966), Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula (1966), Alvarez Kelly (1966), The Way West (1967), The Ballad of Josie (1967), Bandolero (1968), Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Big Jake (1971), and Cahill U.S. Marshall (1973). On television he was in multiple episodes of shows like Wagon Train, Rawhide,Gunsmoke, Bonanza,Have Gun – Will Travel, Rip Cord, and others.

After a certain point, the “New Hollywood” directors began to cast him in things and his presence added a bit of nostalgia and magic to their productions. Peter Bogdanovich cast him in Nickelodeon (1976), Mask (1985) and Illegally Yours (1988), he’s in Walter Hill’s The Long Riders(1980), Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984) and Robert Zemeckis’sBack to the Future, Part III (1990). He has a poignant presence in The Whales of August (1987, although he’s seldom listed among the other aged stars of that film, Lillian Gish, Bette Davis,Ann Sothern, and Vincent Price). Some of his last pictures include William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III (1990), the neo-classic all-star Tombstone (1993), and Last Stand at Saber River (1997) with Tom Selleck, his last acting credit.

For more on show business history, including Harry Carey Jr’s grandfather George Fuller Golden, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,