William Boyd's Hopalong Turned a Scruffy Cowhand to Shining Hero

William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy on his white stallion Topper.

Earlier this year I discovered that nearly all of the Hopalong Cassidy original films are now available streaming on Prime.  I binge watched for several months.

It took me back to Summer days more than 65 years ago in Cheyenne, Wyoming when we spent our days recreating in detail elaborate cowboy sagas that lasted all day—or even all week.  The we were my twin brother, Tim, a rotating cast of neighborhood kids—principally Joe Miranda and his assorted younger siblings—and when she was in town our cousin from Des Moines, Linda Strom.  For authenticity real prairie started abruptly at the end of our block complete with sagebrush, tumbleweeds, and low button cactus.  But the back yards the neighborhood with their lilac caves, wild rose hedges, palisade fences, brick walls, window wells, and the low flat roofs of car ports provided plenty of locations for ambushes and shoot-outs.

We had regular and defined parts.  Tim, handsome and charismatic was always Roy Rogers.  Linda was Bell Starr.  And me? I was Hopalong Cassidy.

***

On June 24, 1948, a little less than a year before I was born, Hopalong Cassidy premiered on NBC Television.  It was the first western series on the infant medium and it was wildly successful.  So successful that it introduced an era lasting more than 30 years when horse operas dominated the small screen. 

Clarence Mulford in 1928 banging out another Hopalong novel.

The character Hopalong Cassidy was first introduced in 1904 in short stories by 21-year-old Clarence E. Mulford, a native of Streator, Illinois, while he was living and working in Fryeburg, Maine.  He was a fan of western lore who wanted to create more realistic stories than the simple daring-do of the old dime novels.  Through research, his tales were filled with accurate details of ranch life, cowboy outfits and gear, and location.  But at heart he was still a Victorian moralist with a hero performing nobly.  

Cassidy started out as a twenty-something ranch hand elevated to foreman of the sprawling Bar-20 Ranch.  He was rude, crude, and slovenly, attributes that hid his finer qualities.  Hoppy, as he was called, got his name from sustaining a bullet to the leg in an early story, and lingering disability sometimes came into play.

Beginning with Bar-20 in 1906 Mulford churned out 28 novels through Hopalong Cassidy Serves a Writ in 1940.  Enormously popular, he was a major rival of Zane Grey, the leading western novelist of the day.  But the Hopalong series was the first in the genre to have continuing characters and story points from book to book.  And unlike other series, Mulford’s cowboy hero and his associates, rivals, and foils aged and evolved as the series continued.

                          

                                          Hopalong's first appearance in a novel, 1907.

In 1935 Mulford’s near contemporary Harry A. Sherman bought the film rights to the book series and set up his own independent production company to make the movies.  Sherman was originally an exhibitioner who had made good money when he became the distributor for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation in the Western states in 1915.  He had always wanted to go into production and the deal with Mulford gave him his chance.

Papa Sherman, as he was known, produced more than 50 low budget two reel westerns in the series through 1944.  Although cheaply made cinematography by Russell B. Harlan and others was far above average for Poverty Row and gave the series a more expensive look. 

Sherman employed a regular sort of stock company with many characters and actors carrying over from film to film.  Veteran George Hayes, an early silent leading man who had become a stock villain at other studios, established his new sidekick character, Gabby Hayes by growing a salt-and-pepper beard, removing his false teeth, and donning a battered black hat with a turned up front brim.  Many later stars got their starts in these productions and others found work on the down sides of their careers.  Familiar costars included Victor Jory, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Dix, George Reeves, Robert Mitchum, and Albert Dekker.

Robert Mitchum  got an early screen credit as a bad guy in 1943's Hoppy Serves a Writ, the last of the film series produced by Harry Sherman.
 

Although independently produced, the films were released through major studios, first Paramount and later United Artists, which guaranteed placement in better movie houses, usually as the bottom of a double bill with an A picture.  The movies were a bonanza for the distributors who attracted the nickels of millions of kids lined up for Saturday matinées and early weekday shows that often otherwise ran to near empty houses.

What made the movie series so popular were some key decisions by producer Sherman.  First and most important was the selection of a star.  He turned not to some handsome young stud or a veteran of other westerns, but to a silent screen leading man fallen on hard times.

William Boyd as a silent era matinee idol.

William Boyd, born on June 5, 1895 in Hendrysburg in Belmont County, Ohio was a highly successful leading man and a favorite of big-time directors like Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille.  Under contract to Radio Pictures at the height of his career he was pulling down $100,000 a year.  That came to a screeching halt, however, in 1931 when wire services picked up a story from the Los Angeles newspapers about the arrest of another actor, William “Stage” Boyd, on gambling and liquor charges.  Unfortunately, the wrong actor’s picture accompanied the article.  Citing the morals clause of his contract, Radio Pictures dumped him and he found himself virtually blacklisted in Hollywood.

Having lived life large with a big house, fancy cars, and all of the accouterments of stardom along with the loss of his investments in the Great Depression, it did not take long for Boyd to fall into virtual poverty.  He scrounged for work sometimes finding small supporting roles as a businessman or professional under the name Billy Boyd. He was still living hand to mouth when he responded to Sherman’s casting call. 

Sherman was inclined to cast Boyd in the supporting role of Red Connors, an older hand on the Bar-20 and Hoppy’s frenemy.  Boyd begged to be considered for the lead role despite not having any experience in action pictures and then barely able to stay on a horse.  A screen test earned him the job—unlike other candidates, he could act. 

So instead of a handsome young buckaroo Sherman found himself with a middle aged, silver haired hero.

The second big decision was to completely re-imagine the character.  Instead of the hard drinking, rough talking cowhand in rags in the first film, Hop-Along Cassidy, the lead was transformed into a gentlemanly teetotaler who ordered sarsaparilla at the bar, who was unfailingly courteous to women, and always let the bad guy slap leather first or throw the first punch.  And instead of tatters, Hoppy was adorned in close-fitting black from the tips of his handsomely tooled Texas cowboy boots to the Ten Gallon black Stetson on his head.  Boyd was not the first cowboy star to buck the white hat rule—Tom Mix and Ken Maynard had occasionally worn them—but he was the first to make it a regular trademark.

And not just any range pony would do.  Hoppy was mounted on a magnificent white stallion, nameless in early films or just referred to as "the White Horse," he was finally named Topper and made the later TV Lone Ranger’s Silver look like a puny runt.  Of course, Hoppy sat comfortably in a handsomely tooled black saddle.

This recipe was enough for the new series to successfully compete against the singing cowboy movies of Gene Autry, John Wayne as Randy, and that upstart Roy Rogers who came to dominate the B movie westerns.  And unlike the products of Republic and other studios who often set their films in the modern West with telephones, automobiles, and radio, the Hopalong series remained rooted in stories of the Old West.

The final decision was to chuck Mulford’s stories and novels as source material.  It was just too hard to adapt the stories to Hoppy’s new image.  While keeping Hopalong rooted to the Bar-20, he was given more freedom to roam becoming something of a knight errant with pearl handled revolvers righting wrongs across the West.

Silent screen actor and stock villain in early western talkies, George Hayes began a hugely successful second career billed as Gabby Hayes, the comic side kick first for Hopalong and later with Gene Autry, John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Randolph Scott.

In the films Cassidy was usually accompanied by either an elderly comic sidekick and a hero worshiping youth or, most frequently, both.  These were not characters, but types whose names and particulars changed as different actors filled the slot.  George Hayes was the first sidekick, Windy Halliday billed for the first time as Gabby.  Very popular with audiences he left the series in a salary dispute and moved on to Republic where he was soon paired with Gene Autry, John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and later at other studios with Randolph Scott.  He was replaced first by Britt Wood as Speedy McGinnis and then by comedian Andy Clyde as California Carlson, who lasted through the end of the movie series.

The juveniles, eager and well-meaning but trouble prone, were played by James Ellison, Russell Hayden, George Reeves, and Rand Brooks.  Hayden went on to a substantial career in two-reel westerns and B gangster flicks.  Reeves, of course, rose to fame as TV’s Superman.

Meanwhile Mulford, the creator of the original character was making out well not only from royalties from the films but from renewed interest in his books.  From 1935 to 1940 he wrote three new Hopalong books reflecting the hero as he appeared in the movies.  He also went back and re-wrote many of his earlier titles adapting them to movie goers’ expectations.

Despite the continuing popularity of the series, Sherman dreamed of becoming a producer of quality A pictures.  He announced he was ending the series in 1944.  By then his star William Boyd was very identified with the part.  He had learned how to well and how to duke it out with the bad guys reducing the use of stunt doubles.  He enjoyed the adulation of young fans—and the substantial income he earned from appearances with Topper.  He gambled his entire future on Hopalong Cassidy, mortgaging virtually everything he owned to buy both the character rights from Mulford and the catalog of movies from Sherman.

And then he set out, with his own production company, to continue the series.  He churned out 12 more films.  But he had even less production money than Sherman and the pictures were visibly cheaper.

The heyday of the two-reel western was coming to an end.  Major distributors were dropping them.  Unless he had the money to upgrade to color, as Roy Rogers was successfully doing, there seemed little hope.  The principal culprit was the rise of a new competitive medium, television, which threatened to keep all of those Saturday afternoon popcorn munchers at home.

Boyd, with everything to lose, decided to throw in with the butcher who was cutting the throat of his golden goose.  In 1948 he approached NBC Television which aired a handful of his old films.  The response was so overwhelming that before Boyd could get in production with an original series for the air, the network put up a regular series drastically edited to a half hour format from the 66 original movies.  

The opening credits for the NBC repackaging of the Hopalong films included the introduction from the 1935 first film, Hop-Along Cassidy even though the character no longer had a hyphenated name.

The series premiered on June 24, 1949.  It was the first regular western series on television and a huge hit.  By 1950 Boyd was a megastar, his picture as Hopalong Cassidy adorning the covers of national magazines like Look, Life, and Time.

An astute businessman, Boyd was the first western star to see the value in merchandising.  He licensed hundreds of products bearing his likeness as Hopalong.  Most famously the cowboy was the first ever to appear on a school lunch box causing sales for Aladdin Industries to jump from 50,000 units to 600,000 units in just one year.  Hoppy merchandise generated $70 million in revenue for more than 100 companies.  In 1950 Boyd personally earned over $800,000 in licensing, endorsements, and public appearances.

The huge success of the Hopalong Cassidy school lunch box helped launch the age of tie-in merchandising and helped make William Boyd very rich.

Boyd did get up production of his new originals series with Edgar Buchanan as Red Carlson, the character Boyd had first auditioned for, now upgraded to the comic sidekick.  Broadcast as a separate series from the re-packaged movies, this show was rated No. 7 nationally in 1950.  Boyd also starred in a radio version which began on the Mutual Network in 1950 and jumped to CBS where it ran until 1952 with movie side kick Andy Clyde back to reprise California Carlson.

Fawcett Comics had been running a series of comic books since 1946 which was taken over by DC Comics in 1954.  The now highly collectable books ran through 136 issues through 1959.  Western Publishing issued several coloring books.  January 1950 Dan Spiegel began to draw a syndicated comic strip with scripts by Royal King Cole which lasted until 1955.

In 1950 a deal with Castle Films brought the original movies distributed by Paramount to the home market in 16 mm sound and 8 mm silent versions.  These stone age videos enlivened many a child’s birthday party.

Both versions of the TV series and the original movies were all available in TV syndication until they were withdrawn from circulation in the late 1960’s.

Boyd, now wealthy, retired with his fifth wife to Palm Desert, California where he had significant real estate and development holdings.  Suffering from Parkinson’s disease as he aged he shunned photographs and interviews so that he would not disappoint the memory of his fans.  He died in 1972 in Laguna Beach at the age of 77.

Hopalong Cassidy did not die.  He did become hard to find for a while.  Boyd’s heirs licensed restored prints of the films to the basic cable Western Channel in the mid-1990’s where they ran until they were again withdrawn in 2000.  DVDs for home viewing were hard to find outside of a couple of cheaply made compilation discs and an expensive package of the whole television run.

The lobby card of an early 1936 Sherman drew critical praise on its release and featured Gabby Hayes as sidekick Windy Haliday.  Soon he would be billed as Gabby.

Both the original movies and the TV series are once again easily available on YouTube and streaming on Prime.

The character as envisioned originally by Mulford was resurrected in four novels by western novel master Louis L’Amor and in a series of short stories in Follow Your Stars by Susie Coffman in 2005.  Some of Mulford’s original novels have been reprinted, along with a few of the versions he revised to fit the movie character.  Readers are advised to check carefully which they are buying as the originals are considered far better.

And, of course, Hopalong replays eternally in the memory theater of his now aging fans.

  

Canceling Colbert and the Passing of Tom Lehrer Reminds us of a Fierce Pioneer of Fearless TV Satire

 

                 

David Frost, in front, and the cast of the BBCs ground-breaking weekly satire That Was the Week that Was.

Note—Musical satirist/mathematician Tom Lehrer earlier this week came hard on the heels of Stephen Colbert being sacked by CBS/Paramount under intense pressure from Donald Trump and his minions reminds us of the earliest and hardest hitting of TV news satire That Was the Week That Was.

Long ago before there was a John Stewart or Stephen Colbert show, even before there was a Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour there was a little thing on TV called That Was the Week That Was which brought political satire and cutting edge social commentary into the unsuspecting and unprepared living rooms of millions.

TW3, as it was soon nicknamed, premiered on November 24, 1962 across the Puddle on the BBC.  The show came on the air in the midst of a delicious sex scandal known as then Profumo Affair which rocked the Conservative government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan so it was off and running in the business of biting political satire at an opportune moment.

Producer Ned Sherrin tapped a young a little known broadcaster David Frost to host the show and manage a three ring circus composed of a large cast, writers scribbling away furiously even as the show was on the air and a good deal of improvised material.  It was slated to run for 50 minutes, but as the last program on the BBC’s Saturday night line up, it often ran over time—and once or twice simply stopped short of the mark.  Frost and Sherrin resisted network pressures insisting that the material should determine the length of the program, not an arbitrary time slot.

In the show’s second season the BBC decided to put re-runs of the series The Third Man on afterwards to hem the program in to it allocated time.  Frost responded by reading synopsizes of the upcoming episode at the end of his program spoiling it for the audience.  The BBC soon abandoned its plans and the show was once again happily running long.

 

                                                    Singer Millicent Martin was the sole woman in a testosterone heavy cast,   

TW3 opened every week with a snappy theme song by Ron Gainer and sung by Millicent Martin that would incorporate mentions of news stories of the last week which the show would satirize.  Gainer proved other songs as needed and actor Lance Percival would often ad lib calypso songs from suggestions by the studio audience.  Besides the sketch comedians the cast included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall and political commentator Bernard Levin.

Dozens of writers contributed to the program including a who’s who of rising and established British comedians and writers—Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, and Kenneth Tynan.

 

                                            Radio Times was the BBC's widely circulated program guide

Predictably, the show drew howls of protest from its targets who besieged the staid BBC to reign in the program or cancel it.  Among those with their panties in a twist were the Tory Party, the Boy Scouts Association (for a jab at the sexual orientation of Scouts founder Lord Baden-Powell) and the government of civil war wracked Cyprus on behalf of Greek leader Archbishop Makarios.

On September 23, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the show scrapped its usual format and produced a moving 20 minute tribute to the fallen president featuring a new song by Gainer, The Summer of His Years, which later became an international hit for Martin and Connie Francis.   Film of the program was jetted across the Atlantic and was shown on NBC the following day during the marathon coverage of national mourning.  

 

The recording of TW3's somber and emotional program on the Kennedy Assassination included Milicent Martin singing In the Summer of His Years which also became an international hit single. 

Despite continued strong viewership, the BBC elected not to slate a third season.  There was an upcoming election in the United Kingdom and officials were afraid that their political neutrality would be called into question.

But the show lived on in another incarnation in the U.S.

NBC aired a 60 minute pilot episode of an American version on November 10, 1963 with Henry Fonda as host, radio star and celebrity game show panelist Henry Morgan, improvisational stars Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and a supporting cast that included a young Gene Hackman.

The program was well received.  The imported British JFK memorial also gained the respect of viewers and NBC brass alike, who green lighted the series to begin in January of 1964—an American election year.

The series premiered in a 30 minute format on Friday nights with actor Elliot Reid as host.  With his BBC program canceled, Frost took over as emcee later and flew over weekly to host, making him as familiar this side of the Atlantic as back home.  The regular cast included Morgan, Buck Henry, Alan Alda, Tom Bosley, Sandy Barron and Nancy Ames singing the opening song.  Other regular contributors were Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, and Calvin Trillin.  The celebrated Harvard mathematics professor, Tom Lehrer performed an original song most weeks.  Guest stars included Woody Allen and on the final broadcast Steve Allen.

 

Tom Lehrer, the singing mathematics professor, was already an established musical satiriest when he signed on to do an original song most weeks on the American version TW3 

In addition to barbed satire, TW3 also had its serious moments.  Puppeteer Bur Tilstrom, creator of Kukla, Fran and Ollie contributed what he called a hand ballet about the Berlin Wall which won an Emmy.

The show was renewed that fall but ran into difficulties when it was moved to Tuesday nights opposite CBS’s popular corn Petticoat Junction and ABC’s night time soap opera Peyton Place.  It also ran into the Goldwater campaign, which was convinced the show was hostile to it, probably not a bad assumption despite jibes at President Lyndon and Vice Presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey.  The campaign preemptively bought out the time period for the scheduled premier and did it again three more times before Election Day.  And, of course, the show was off the air for election night coverage.  So that in the heat of the campaign the satire program was off the more weeks than it was run.

The show returned to the airwaves November 10th and opened with a film of Goldwater’s concession speech and an announcer telling viewers “Due to circumstances beyond control, the regularly scheduled political broadcast scheduled for this time is pre-empted.”

In provincial Cheyenne, Wyoming this young misfit, already a news junkie, was enthralled.  It was the one program where I claimed the TV no matter what.  I even triumphed over my Dad’s soft spot for rural hijinks and Mom’s attachment to Dorothy Malone’s heaving bosom.  But I was not enough.  Rating never recovered from the disastrous move to Tuesday nights.  NBC cancelled the show at the end of the season in May of 1965.

 

Lehrer's compilation album of his songs from TW3 became an instant classic. 55 years later a generation of geezers and many younger fans can still sing the lyrics of many of the songs. 

In September of 1965 Tom Lehrer released a compilation of his contributions on the show on That Was the Year That Was on the Reprise label.  I may have been first in line to buy it.  And I nearly wore it out.