Walter Brennan - Biography
BY J Poet
Walter Brennan was one of he best known character actors to ever grace the Hollywood screen. He’s the only actor to ever win three Best Supporting Actor Oscars – for Come and Get It in 1936, Kentucky in 1938, and The Westerner in 1940. A 1932 accident cost him most of his teeth, so he often played men much older than his actual age specializing in old codgers and eccentric, loveable coots. In the 1960s, riding the success of The Real McCoys TV drama, he had a brief recording career and had a hit with the spoken word single “Old Rivers,” the story of a farmer and his mule. Brennan’s recording career was brief and he died in 1974.
Brennan was born in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and he started acting in high school. He served in WW I and a mustard gas attack ruined his vocal chords and left him with his trademark cracked, high-pitched voice. He moved to California partially for the climate, because the gas attack left him in fail health and partially to continue to pursue an acting career. He appeared in bit parts in King Kong (1933) and other films and labored in near obscurity until he was cast in Come and Get It (1936) and won an Academy Award. After the Oscar wins, he got better parts in films like Meet John Doe (1941), Sergeant York (1941), My Darling Clementine (1946) and Rio Bravo (1959) with John Wayne. In 1960 he was one of he first Hollywood actors to turn to television and starred as Amos McCoy, the gruff but loveable head of the McCoy clan on The Real McCoys, from 1957 to 1963. During this time, Brennan became a recording artist, although he talked, rather than sang the lyrics of the songs he recorded. Old Shep (1960 Dot, 2000 MCA) a collaboration with Billy Vaughn and his Orchestra spawned the unlikely Top 40 hit “Dutchman’s Gold” the tragic tale of a gold miner. He followed it up with Old Rivers (1962 Liberty). The title track, another sentimental hard luck tale went to #2 Adult Contemporary, #3 Country and #5 on the pop charts. Old Rivers was reissued as a twofer with Brennan’s Christmas album The Night Before Christmas Back Home on Collector’s Choice in 1998. Brennan made two more spoken word albums for Liberty in the 60s, using his regular speaking voice. The President, eight vignettes that trace the history of the office from Washington to Eisenhower and A World of Miracles, stories from the Old and New Testament. They’re available on a twofer CD Acrobat Music released in 2006.
Brennan stayed active in the movies and television until he died appearing in the TV movie The Over-the-Hill Gang (1969) and The Guns of Will Sonnett. He supported the presidential campaigns of Barry Goldwater and George Wallace, and passed away in 1974. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City 1970.
