Another icon of our youth is gone.
The Hollywood Reporter reports:
Fess Parker, who starred as the racoon-skinned Davy Crockett in "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier," becoming a lifelong star to young Baby Boomers, has died of natural causes, according to reports. He was 85.
Parker, in recent years, ran The Fess Parker Winery up near Santa Barbara, California. He is best known as Davy Crockett in the 1950s television show. That show was so popular, that it was fashionable for people to wear coon-skin caps.
Walt Disney requested a screening of the movie Them! as he was considering James Arness for the role of Crockett. But his eye was caught by Parker, who had a bit role in the movie about giant mutated ants.
In 1956, Parker, along with Disney's Mouseketeers, made Westward Ho The Wagons. The movie also co-starred another baby-boomer icon, George "Superman" Reeves.
Following Davy Crockett, Parker played another historical American figure on television, Daniel Boone from 1964 to 1969.
The Hollywood Reporter adds:
Subsequently, however, he attained wealth not in entertainment but in real estate, hitting gold in Santa Barbara with his winery and sprawling, beachfront resort just east of the Santa Barbara pier. Through his hotel, Parker was supportive of the arts, donating rooms to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and the Fess Parker Winery served as host to Shakespeare Santa Barbara for several years.
He will be missed.
1 comment:
Walt might have gotten an earlier look at Fess, who was on the Disney lot in June 1953 for an episode of DRAGNET. In "The Big Winchester," Fess portrayed a uniformed cop briefing Friday and Smith at the scene of a possible suicide, which turns out to be a murder case. Fess had to play the entire scene while squatting beside the body, otherwise he would have towered over Jack Webb and Ben Alexander.
Post a Comment