Charles Starrett

Charles Starrett
Starrett in 1940
Born	(1903-03-28)March 28, 1903 Athol, Massachusetts U.S.
Died	Borrego Springs, California U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1926-1952
Spouse(s)	Mary McKinnon (1927-1986); 2 children

Charles Robert Starrett (March 28, 1903 – March 22, 1986) was an American actor best known for his starring role in the Durango Kid western series. When he retired he held the record for starring in the longest-running string of feature films (131 titles, for Columbia Pictures). He was born in Athol, Massachusetts, where his grandfather had built a prosperous tool works.

Career

A graduate of Worcester Academy in 1922, Starrett went on to study at Dartmouth College. While on the Dartmouth football team he was hired to play a football extra in the film The Quarterback (1926). Bitten by the acting bug, Starrett played minor roles in films and leading roles in stage plays.

He played the romantic lead in Fast and Loose (1930), which also featured Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, and Frank Morgan. He also starred in the Canadian production The Viking (1931), filmed on location in Newfoundland, which had begun as a Paramount Pictures project.

After that he was very active for the next two years but his roles were unremarkable. He was featured in Our Betters (1933), Murder on the Campus (1933). and in his most charming role as a young doctor named Orion in "Along Came Love", with the vivacious co-star Irene Hervey. Offscreen, he helped organize the Screen Actors Guild.

Cowboy star

In 1935 Columbia Pictures wanted to replace its incumbent western star Tim McCoy with a younger actor. Starrett heard about this and interviewed with Columbia producers. Starrett ultimately signed four contracts with Columbia, becoming the studio's number-one cowboy star. He cast an appealing figure with his tall stature (6' 2"), strong jawline, confident voice, and air of quiet authority.

Charles Starrett hadn't planned on making an entire career out of westerns and petitioned his bosses to cast him in plainclothes roles. When they didn't, he walked out on his contract after two years. (In 1974 Starrett told author James Horwitz that his self-imposed leave of absence cost him $60,000.) Meanwhile, theater exhibitors around the world were attracting big crowds with Charles Starrett westerns, so Columbia gave him a new five-year contract with the actor insisting on appearing in a non-western. He finally got his chance—once—in 1937, for the collegiate musical comedy Start Cheering (released 1938). In a curious reflection of his own situation, Starrett played a disenchanted movie hero who wanted to do something different with his life. But Starrett's success in westerns established him firmly in outdoor fare and sealed his fate professionally. For the rest of his career he made Columbia westerns exclusively.

The musical westerns of Gene Autry inspired every Hollywood studio to have its cowboy personalities use their musical talents—but Charles Starrett couldn't sing (his vocals in Start Cheering were dubbed by Robert Paige). Columbia solved the problem by hiring an entire singing group to support Starrett. The Sons of the Pioneers helped cowboy Starrett battle the bad guys for three years.

The Durango Kid

After playing assorted rancher, ranger, and sheriff roles, Starrett was cast as "The Durango Kid" in 1940. The character was an upright citizen known and liked by the townsfolk, but he masqueraded as a notorious, black-garbed horseman to terrorize the local criminals and foil their plans. The film was successful but not much different from some of Starrett's earlier good guy-turned-vigilante roles.

The character was revived five years later in The Return of the Durango Kid, which caught on very quickly. Starrett played an amiable cowpoke named Steve (the last name varied but he was always Steve to his friends), who would become angered by an injustice and go after the villains as the mysterious, elusive Durango Kid. Steve's horse was named "Bullet" and Durango's was "Raider." A follow-up film was made, and then a series.

Dub Taylor, as comic sidekick "Cannonball", worked with Starrett until 1946. At that time, Smiley Burnette, who had been a very popular sidekick to Gene Autry, was brought in to replace Taylor. Burnette, appropriately enough, played a character called Smiley Burnette. The Durango Kid films combined vigorous action sequences—often with spectacular stunts performed by Jock Mahoney—and western music. Each film featured a singing group, and many gave free rein to Burnette's singing and playing.

Charles Starrett retired at age 48, when his last Columbia contract lapsed in 1952. As Starrett had once taken over Columbia's westerns from Tim McCoy, Jock Mahoney took over the reins from Starrett, co-starring with Smiley Burnette in a new series. The pilot feature was completed but never released, so Columbia's long history of B westerns ended with Charles Starrett.

Later years

Although his agent, Sam Jaffe, tried to interest movie and TV producers in hiring Starrett, the actor no longer needed or wanted a show-business career; he was independently wealthy from wise investments and his family fortune. In retirement he traveled widely with his wife, favoring tropical islands. He once told the Dartmouth alumni magazine that most of his California neighbors thought he was a retired banker.

His fans never forgot him, and corresponded with him in later years. Starrett was pleased by the interest and made guest appearances at a few film conventions and revivals. Starrett died of cancer in Borrego Springs, California, in 1986, six days short of his 83rd birthday.

The "Durango Kid" Films

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Additional reading

• Horwitz, James, They Went Thataway (1976, E. P. Dutton; 1978, Ballantine Books) (Interview with Charles Starrett)

External links

• B-Western.com
• Filmography
• Charles Starrett at the Internet Movie Database
• Charles Starrett - One Fan's Journey
• Charles Starrett at Find a Grave