Johnny Crawford
Encyclopedia
John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford (born March 26, 1946) is a prolific American
character actor
, singer and musician
. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain
character (played by Chuck Connors
), in the popular 1960s ABC
western
series, The Rifleman
, which aired from 1958 to 1963. He first performed before a national audience as a Mouseketeer
.
, California
, and is of Russian
, German
, English
, and Irish
heritage. Both his older brother Robert L. (Jr.)
and his father Robert (Sr.) were nominated for Emmy Award
s (for acting and film editing, respectively).
One of Walt Disney's original Mouseketeers
in 1955, Crawford has acted on stage, in film
s, and on television
.
Disney started out with 24 original Mouseketeers. At the end of the first season, the studio reduced the number to 12 and Johnny was released from his contract. His first important break as an actor followed with the title role in a Lux Video Theatre production of "Little Boy Lost," a live NBC broadcast on March 15, 1956. Following that performance, the young actor worked steadily with many seasoned actors and directors. Within two and a half years, he accumulated almost sixty television credits, including featured roles in three episodes of "The Loretta Young Show" and an appearance as Manuel in "I Am an American," an episode of the crime drama Sheriff of Cochise
. By the spring of 1958 he had also performed fourteen demanding roles in live teleplays on NBC
's Matinee Theatre
, appeared on CBS's sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve
, and made three pilots for a series. The third pilot, which was made as an episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
, was picked up by ABC and the first season of The Rifleman
would begin filming in July 1958.
He was nominated for an Emmy Award at the age of thirteen for his role as Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain
, played by Chuck Connors
, in the Four Star Television
series
The Rifleman, which originally aired from 1958 to 1963 on ABC
. During this time, Crawford had wide popularity with American teenagers and a recording career that generated five Top 40 hits, including the single
"Cindy's Birthday," which peaked at #8 on Billboard's Top 40 in 1962. His other hits included "Proud" (#29, 1963), "Your Nose is Gonna Grow" (#14, 1962), and "Rumors" (#12, 1962).
Throughout The Rifleman's five seasons, there was a remarkable on-screen chemistry between Connors and Crawford in the depiction of their father-son relationship. They were still close friends when Connors died on November 10, 1992, and Crawford gave a eulogy at his memorial.
Among his films, Crawford plays a native American in the unique all-Indian adventure film, Indian Paint (1965). He gets mixed up with a disturbed young girl, played by Kim Darby
, in The Restless Ones (1965), and he gets shot by John Wayne
in El Dorado (1966).
While enlisted in the United States Army
for two years, he worked on training films as a production coordinator, assistant director, script supervisor, and occasional actor. He was an E-5 when he received an honorable discharge in December 1967.
In 1968 he played an Army private
(Shown in the credits as 'Corporal'; however, the insignia of rank is a private) wanted for murder in "By the Numbers," an episode of Jack Lord
's Hawaii Five-O
.
His short film, The Resurrection of Broncho Billy
, produced as a USC student project by John Longenecker, won the Academy Award in 1971 for Best Live Action Short Subject. After winning the Oscar, it was released theatrically by Universal Studios in the U.S. and Canada.
The Naked Ape
was a partially animated 1973 feature film starring Johnny Crawford and Victoria Principal, produced by Hugh Hefner. In an article about that movie he became the first man to be shown in full-frontal nudity in Playboy
magazine.
Crawford had a key role in the early career of Victoria Jackson
of Saturday Night Live
fame; after appearing together in a summer stock
production of "Meet Me in St. Louis
," he presented her a one-way airline ticket to California and encouraged her to pursue a Hollywood career. This led to her early TV appearances on The Tonight Show
before she was cast as a regular on Saturday Night Live.
Since 1992, Crawford has led the California-based Johnny Crawford Orchestra
, which specializes in vintage dance music. The orchestra's first album, Sweepin' the Clouds Away, was released August 5, 2008.
He reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Charlotte Samco, in 1990, and they wed in 1995.
Stills from The Resurrection of Broncho Billy
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
, singer and musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain
Lucas McCain
Lucas McCain is the rancher and widowed father with a penchant for using his Winchester firearm -- as a last resort -- in the Western television series, The Rifleman, which ran on ABC from 1958-1963. The part was portrayed by the former athlete-turned-actor Chuck Connors...
character (played by Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. His best known role from his forty-year film career was Lucas McCain in the 1960s ABC hit Western series The Rifleman....
), in the popular 1960s ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series, The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
, which aired from 1958 to 1963. He first performed before a national audience as a Mouseketeer
Mickey Mouse Club
The Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that began in 1955, produced by Walt Disney Productions and televised by the ABC, featuring a regular but ever-changing cast of teenage performers. The Mickey Mouse Club was created by Walt Disney...
.
Biography
Johnny Crawford was born in Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, and is of Russian
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
, and Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
heritage. Both his older brother Robert L. (Jr.)
Robert L. Crawford, Jr.
Robert Lawrence Crawford, Jr. is an American actor who portrayed Andy Sherman on the NBC television series Laramie. Crawford is sometimes credited as Bobby Crawford or Robert L...
and his father Robert (Sr.) were nominated for Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
s (for acting and film editing, respectively).
One of Walt Disney's original Mouseketeers
Mickey Mouse Club
The Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that began in 1955, produced by Walt Disney Productions and televised by the ABC, featuring a regular but ever-changing cast of teenage performers. The Mickey Mouse Club was created by Walt Disney...
in 1955, Crawford has acted on stage, in film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s, and on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
.
Disney started out with 24 original Mouseketeers. At the end of the first season, the studio reduced the number to 12 and Johnny was released from his contract. His first important break as an actor followed with the title role in a Lux Video Theatre production of "Little Boy Lost," a live NBC broadcast on March 15, 1956. Following that performance, the young actor worked steadily with many seasoned actors and directors. Within two and a half years, he accumulated almost sixty television credits, including featured roles in three episodes of "The Loretta Young Show" and an appearance as Manuel in "I Am an American," an episode of the crime drama Sheriff of Cochise
Sheriff of Cochise
Sheriff of Cochise , renamed U.S. Marshal , is a 58-episode syndicated western-themed crime drama set in Arizona and starring John Bromfield as law enforcement officer Frank Morgan. In the first two seasons, Morgan was sheriff of Cochise County...
. By the spring of 1958 he had also performed fourteen demanding roles in live teleplays on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Matinee Theatre
Matinee Theatre
Matinee Theatre is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George...
, appeared on CBS's sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve
Mr. Adams and Eve
Mr. Adams and Eve is a CBS sitcom starring Howard Duff and his then wife, Ida Lupino, as a fictitious acting couple, Howard and Eve Adams, residing in Beverly Hills, California. In the television series, Lupino is known professionally as Eve Drake. The program aired sixty-six episodes from January...
, and made three pilots for a series. The third pilot, which was made as an episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.-Overview:Zane Grey Theatre was created by Luke Short and Charles A. Wallace...
, was picked up by ABC and the first season of The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
would begin filming in July 1958.
He was nominated for an Emmy Award at the age of thirteen for his role as Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain
Lucas McCain
Lucas McCain is the rancher and widowed father with a penchant for using his Winchester firearm -- as a last resort -- in the Western television series, The Rifleman, which ran on ABC from 1958-1963. The part was portrayed by the former athlete-turned-actor Chuck Connors...
, played by Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. His best known role from his forty-year film career was Lucas McCain in the 1960s ABC hit Western series The Rifleman....
, in the Four Star Television
Four Star Television
Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Ida Lupino, and Charles Boyer, the company produced many well-known shows of the early days of...
series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
The Rifleman, which originally aired from 1958 to 1963 on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. During this time, Crawford had wide popularity with American teenagers and a recording career that generated five Top 40 hits, including the single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
"Cindy's Birthday," which peaked at #8 on Billboard's Top 40 in 1962. His other hits included "Proud" (#29, 1963), "Your Nose is Gonna Grow" (#14, 1962), and "Rumors" (#12, 1962).
Throughout The Rifleman's five seasons, there was a remarkable on-screen chemistry between Connors and Crawford in the depiction of their father-son relationship. They were still close friends when Connors died on November 10, 1992, and Crawford gave a eulogy at his memorial.
Among his films, Crawford plays a native American in the unique all-Indian adventure film, Indian Paint (1965). He gets mixed up with a disturbed young girl, played by Kim Darby
Kim Darby
Kim Darby is an American actress perhaps best known for co-starring with John Wayne and country singer/actor Glen Campbell in the 1969 western True Grit.-Early life and film career:...
, in The Restless Ones (1965), and he gets shot by John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
in El Dorado (1966).
While enlisted in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
for two years, he worked on training films as a production coordinator, assistant director, script supervisor, and occasional actor. He was an E-5 when he received an honorable discharge in December 1967.
In 1968 he played an Army private
Private (rank)
A Private is a soldier of the lowest military rank .In modern military parlance, 'Private' is shortened to 'Pte' in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and to 'Pvt.' in the United States.Notably both Sir Fitzroy MacLean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career...
(Shown in the credits as 'Corporal'; however, the insignia of rank is a private) wanted for murder in "By the Numbers," an episode of Jack Lord
Jack Lord
John Joseph Patrick Ryan , best known by his stage name Jack Lord, was an American television, film, and Broadway actor. He was known for his starring role as Steve McGarrett in the American television program Hawaii Five-O from 1968 to 1980. Lord appeared in feature films earlier in his career,...
's Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for twelve seasons from 1968 to 1980, and continues in reruns. The show featured a fictional state police unit run by Detective Steve McGarrett,...
.
His short film, The Resurrection of Broncho Billy
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy is a 1970 live action short Western film, starring Johnny Crawford. It won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject.-Plot:...
, produced as a USC student project by John Longenecker, won the Academy Award in 1971 for Best Live Action Short Subject. After winning the Oscar, it was released theatrically by Universal Studios in the U.S. and Canada.
The Naked Ape
The Naked Ape
The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal is a 1967 book by zoologist and anthropologist Desmond Morris which looks at humans as a species and compares them to other animals...
was a partially animated 1973 feature film starring Johnny Crawford and Victoria Principal, produced by Hugh Hefner. In an article about that movie he became the first man to be shown in full-frontal nudity in Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine.
Crawford had a key role in the early career of Victoria Jackson
Victoria Jackson
Victoria Jackson is an American comedian, actress, satirist and singer best known as a cast member of the NBC television sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1986 to 1992....
of Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
fame; after appearing together in a summer stock
Summer Stock
For the article about the theatre genre, see Summer stock theatre.Summer Stock is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical made in 1950. The film was directed by Charles Walters and stars Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Eddie Bracken, Gloria DeHaven, Marjorie Main, and Phil Silvers...
production of "Meet Me in St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 musical film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which tells the story of an American family living in St. Louis at the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in 1904...
," he presented her a one-way airline ticket to California and encouraged her to pursue a Hollywood career. This led to her early TV appearances on The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
before she was cast as a regular on Saturday Night Live.
Since 1992, Crawford has led the California-based Johnny Crawford Orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, which specializes in vintage dance music. The orchestra's first album, Sweepin' the Clouds Away, was released August 5, 2008.
He reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Charlotte Samco, in 1990, and they wed in 1995.
Stills from The Resurrection of Broncho Billy
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy is a 1970 live action short Western film, starring Johnny Crawford. It won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject.-Plot:...
External links
- http://www.scottstander.com/Personalities/johnny_crawford.html
- Johnny Crawford on The Rifleman
- Official Site for Crawford Music
- Johnny Crawford's MySpace site