Great Character Actors: Walter Brennan

It's been a while since I've published a post about one of my favorite character actors, and it's high time I wrote a little about another of the greats, that being Walter Brennan. I don't know too much more about his life than that presented in his Wikipedia page, but I won't let that slow me down much.

The details of Brennan's life are a bit sketchy until he started getting Hollywood screen credits, circa 1927. He was born on July 25, 1894 to parents of Irish origin, and was raised in Lynn, Massachusetts, in an upper middle class neighborhood. His father was a successful engineer and his mother a homemaker. His father wished his son to follow in his footsteps and sent him to Rindge Technical High School in nearby Cambridge, which was viewed at the time as a sort of prep school for M.I.T. The plan didn't work as intended, as young Walter got the acting bug and spent his time participating in as many school plays as he could.

He was working as a bank clerk when the U.S. entered into World War I and he immediately enlisted in the U. S. Army. He served in the 101st Field Artillery Regiment, which was one of the first units sent overseas, and he spent the better part of two years in France. He saw combat and suffered an injury to his vocal cords during a mustard gas attack. I'm sure it didn't seem so at the time, but the vocal cord injury turned out to be a blessing in disguise for his future acting career, changing his voice to the distinctive high-pitched voice he became so well known for.

He married his wife, Ruth, in 1920, and that union would produce three children, two boys and a girl. The marriage lasted until his death at age 80 in 1974.

He continued to work in a series of odd jobs for several more years (ditchdigger, messenger boy, fruit picker), moving to Los Angeles circa 1923, where he began work as an extra and as a stunt man. During this time, he met and became close friends with another struggling actor who would go on to have even more success - Gary Cooper. Over the years, the two would make seven pictures together with Cooper as the lead and Brennan usually as his sidekick.

Long after his pal Coop had become a major star, he continued his labors as an extra and stunt man in near-anonymity, appearing in more than a dozen pictures per year. According to Old Familiar Faces by Robert Juran, he appeared in at least 49 and maybe as many as 67 movies from 1932 to 1935. It was during this time that he had his teeth knocked out while performing a stunt. This would also turn out to be a blessing in disguise for his acting career. As he described it years later, "I have two acting styles, false teeth in or false teeth out. Without my teeth, I'm 30 years older."

He got his big break in 1935 with his biggest role to date in Barbary Coast, starring Edward G. Robinson, Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea, where he played a toothless barfly called Old Atrocity who hung out at Robinson's gambling casino. After this, it was off to the races for Brennan. He would win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1937 (the first one given) for his role in Come and Get It, as a lumberjack probably 15-20 years older than his actual age (which was a regular occurrence for him), where he employed a thick Swedish accent - sorry about the poor sound quality on this clip. This scene is with Edward Arnold and Frances Farmer:

He would win two more Best Supporting Actor Oscars in the next four years, with the second being for the 1938 movie Kentucky in which he again played a much older man (about 80 years of age this time), and his third and last Oscar for his role as Judge Roy Bean in the 1940 picture The Westerner, opposite of and outshining his buddy Gary Cooper. His three Oscars in this category are the still the most for any actor. Unfortunately, this 3-1/2 minute clip is all I could find for this fine film.

In 1941, Brennan appeared in six movies, including two blockbusters: Meet John Dee and Sergeant York. Let me include a clip or two from each picture. First, from Meet John Dee: where newspaper columnist Barbara Stanwyck is feeding hungry hobos Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan after Cooper accepts her newspaper's offer to become John Doe. Another great character actor, James Gleason, playing the newspaper editor, also makes an appearance in the scene (1:48).

Next, The Colonel (Brennan) explains his philosophy of life (3:36).

Moving on to Sergeant York, the movie opens with Brennan's character, Pastor Rosier Pile, delivering a sermon in church (4:02).

In 1942's Pride of the Yankees, sports reporter Brennan befriends the young ballplayer Lou Gehrig (Cooper again) and becomes his biggest booster. This scene, with Teresa Wright as Gehrig's wife teasing Brennan's character, is a little over two minutes long, but you'll be able to watch the rest of the movie if you so desire. Jeesh, turns out Pride of the Yankees, about as PG a movie as possible, is age-restricted so you'll have to click the Go to YouTube icon to see the scene in question (pathetic).

Brennan played Clanton clan patriarch, "Old Man" Clanton, in 1946's My Darling Clementine. I'll provide two clips from the movie. First, a short one minute clip in which "Old Man" Clanton apologizes to Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) for his sons' misbehavior and proceeds to whip those sons.

Next, the final eleven minutes of the movie, which features the O.K. Corral shootout. I apologize for the length, but don't worry, I sure won't hold it against you if you don't watch it. Oh, yeah, the other main players in the scene are Henry Fonda, Victor Mature and Ward Bond.

In the 1948 movie Red River, Brennan supported John Wayne and Montgomery Clift as they engage in an arduous cattle drive. This scene is a little over four minutes long. Oh, and in this movie, Brennan's false teeth are a humorous recurring theme.

One of my favorite movies is Rio Bravo from 1959, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson and Ricky Nelson. Wayne plays the Sheriff of small town who, with a motley crew of helpers, is trying to hold off the enraged local, wealthy rancher and his army of gun men trying to free said wealthy rancher's murdering brother from Wayne's jail.

In this scene, the wealthy rancher pays a visit to his jailed brother (5:21).

In the gun battle at the end of the movie, Stumpy (Walter Brennan) has an idea (3:40)

My last movie clip is from the 1969 movie Support Your Local Sheriff, starring James Garner. In this scene, Brennan spoofs his Rio Bravo role. The clip is a little over a minute long.

When television came along Brennan eventually jumped into it in the 1950s. He appeared in several TV-movies and from 1957-1963 starred in the TV series The Real McCoys. The show was a hit with ratings that were usually in or near the top 10. Here's a link to the first episode of the series. He starred in a couple of other TV series, neither of which met with much success.

Around the same time he also embarked on a recording career. As best I can tell, his recordings were spoken word over musical accompaniment. One of those songs "Old Rivers" made it to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1962.

I have a few odds and ends to close out this remembrance. Brennan made good money, of course, and he seems to have been a good manager of that money. In 1940, he bought a 12,000-acre ranch near Joseph, Oregon. He built a motel, movie theater and variety store there. Later, he bought a much smaller ranch in Ventura County, and between his TV and movie work spent most of his time at one or the other of these ranches.

Brennan was quite open about his conservative political philosophy. He was a proud member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals; was extremely anti-communist, maybe to the point of eventually becoming John Birch Society member, and a supporter of bringing prayer back to school following the Supreme Court decisions which banned the practice in the early 1960s. He was part of Project Prayer which pursued this goal with peaceful public gatherings featuring various celebrities. I came across this May 1964 column by national columnist Drew Pearson which drips with condescension that any other than a few yokels would deign to disagree with wise practice of banning prayer in school.

That's all.