March 22nd, 2010, 12:39 PM
We have giant ants to thank for bringing Fess Parker to the attention of Walt Disney, who was looking for an actor to portray Davy Crockett. I interviewed Mr. Parker, who passed away on Thursday at the age of 85, in 1994 on the occasion of the home video release of Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. As he told it, Disney was screening the science fiction film Them, in which Parker had a brief scene:
[indent]"There were an enormous amount of possibilities that would have caused him to miss my little two or three-minute scene," he recalled in that folksy Texas drawl, "but he didn't get a phone call, he didn't have to go to the bathroom, someone didn't interrupt him. He saw me and asked who I was. No one knew."[/indent]
That wouldn't last long. With the Dec. 15, 1954 broadcast of Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter on Disney's anthology series, Disneyland, Parker became TV's first American idol. The theme song ("Born on a mountaintop on Tennessee....") topped the charts, and Parker's signature coonskin cap became the fashion statement for kids who acted out Crockett's rustic adventures in their backyards. I became one of them when the episodes were re-broadcast on The Wonderful World of Color in the 1960s.
Read the rest here.
[indent]"There were an enormous amount of possibilities that would have caused him to miss my little two or three-minute scene," he recalled in that folksy Texas drawl, "but he didn't get a phone call, he didn't have to go to the bathroom, someone didn't interrupt him. He saw me and asked who I was. No one knew."[/indent]
That wouldn't last long. With the Dec. 15, 1954 broadcast of Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter on Disney's anthology series, Disneyland, Parker became TV's first American idol. The theme song ("Born on a mountaintop on Tennessee....") topped the charts, and Parker's signature coonskin cap became the fashion statement for kids who acted out Crockett's rustic adventures in their backyards. I became one of them when the episodes were re-broadcast on The Wonderful World of Color in the 1960s.
Read the rest here.
All your base are belong to us.
It could be that the purpose of my life is only to serve as a warning to others.
It could be that the purpose of my life is only to serve as a warning to others.
